Going Banana's!

The Canary Islands are such a diverse place, they consist of 7 islands and we went to two of them. Its basically spring time all year round however up in the mountain there was still patches of snow around and it was still a little cool once the sun went down.
We were on beaches, hiking though rough scrub and then rainforest and forests full of canary pines, seeing vast volcanic areas that looked like we were on mars and dry deserts that were like africa, it has it all and each island is different in its own special way. Its a very outdoorsy and scenic place. Oh, and there is banana plantations everywhere!!!
loving the contrasts of the black volcanic rock and the lime green succulent plants

having a candlelit dinner at our finca in the oratava valley, tenerifein our beautiful garden...

in front of Teide mountain which is the highest mountain in 'spain'. the best part is...we climbed to the top of it! it was such a great achievement!

all the canary islands are volcanic so all the beaches are black, makes for a beautiful contrast.

this was the view from our finca (white concrete house) on the main island, Tenerife.almost to the top of teide mountain. I got a bit of altitude sickness just after this photo...though it doesn't look like it does it?Jenny, Lachie and I on the very top of Teide mountain. There was lots of sulphur coming out of the top of the crater. i was feeling pretty weak in this picture. a view from the top of the crater almost 4000metres up (3780m)!

san andres beach near santa cruz on the main island. the sand from this beach was imported from the sahara dessert! one day we went far west on tenerife to see the sunset on the water. this picture doesn't do any justice to the grandness of the area... on the way to the most westerly point we had to stop and take a deep breath as we were driving on a very narrow ledge of a very very high ledge. phew...

a big ball of lava that rolled down the volcano, gathering more and more lava as it rolled down. they looked like they have been thrown from the volcano but were more like lava snow balls...not as exciting as we'd hoped

a view of the valley we stayed in in La Gomera, Valle Gran Rey. A very chilled out, warmer, hippy feel about this place. Tenerife would get quite cold at night.

the view from our hostel in valle gran rey, la gomera

the last sunset we saw on the plane back to London...boohoo