Years ago, maybe in my 20s or 30s I saw a photograph entitled “Sunrise, Tenerife.” I have written before about how deep seated my wanderlust has been throughout my life, and the many years I had to rein it in while I tended to things like motherhood and career. This photograph fell into that period, but I remember thinking how beautiful the name “Tenerife” looked on the page, and how lovely it sounded when I said it aloud.
When I was given this cruise assignment, I was thrilled that a stop in Tenerife while in the Canary Islands was on the itinerary, and today was the day I photographed my own “Sunrise,Tenerife.” Sorry to report that mine is only of a cement wall where our ship is docked, but I’m here all the same.
This morning I went for an excursion to the National Park at Mt. Teide, an area of massive volcanic mountains and calderas, and I can report that the difference between it and a cement wall was extreme!
We rose from a rather tropical sea level, through dense forests of Canary pines, then up above the timberline, to the highest mountain in Spain. Magma dykes that have eroded more slowly than the lava around them have left weird forms jutting skyward, and countless lava flows and debris layers have created a dramatic landscape. And then there’s this perfect volcanic cone, patched with bits of snow, supervising the whole geologic show.
I will have to anticipate another chance to be here to witness what sunrise must look like in a landscape like this, but for now I will just say that eleven in the morning was pretty darn good too!