Our flight from Lanzarote to this popular island took less time as our luggage did from the plane to bag claim in the Tenerife airport. After guiding our non-English speaking taxi cab driver to the hotel Monopol in Puerto de La Cruz, we settled into our room with a view.
The room was adequate with nice balcony for crowd watching, but all of La Cruz would pass back and forth all night, getting louder and noisier as the night wore on. And if that wasn't enough, the Church of Nuestra Senora de la Pena de Francia just across the street struck bells every 1/2 hour and 25 times 10 minutes before each mass.
We quickly discovered that shopping was not as interesting as the Tapas bar, Casa de Miranda, which displayed cured meats and offered delicious variety of cheeses, marinated olives, and freshly roasted almonds. Along with friendly waiters and quite tasty local wines, we loved their homemade flan and returned to dine there again the next evening.
People watching became our second favorite activity to eating at Casa de Miranda... taking in the fashion flavor and animated entertainment from a table at an outdoor cafe, walking down the main shopping avenue, or a comfortable park bench along the waterfront or a square's manicured courtyard.
Tenerife is known for its diverse landscape like Spain's highest snowcapped mountain, Pico de Teide, nearly 10,000 feet. In a rented car, we managed to worm our way through one-way maze of streets and trek our way upward towards the center of the island. Without a GPS (before they were commercially available), we navigated by pure instinct when our Spanish failed us… and ended up missing the main highway to El Teide. 
We suddenly found ourselves heading west instead of east and to correct ourselves, we turned onto the most direct route to the top of the island. I could see the destination, so we pointed the car in that direction and at a 45o pitch; we climbed a back alley straight up the mountain in 1st gear to keep from stalling and rolling backwards. It’s a wonder that we did not blow the transmission as this continued for nearly an hour. Miraculously, we arrived with car intact at El Teide National Park for some of the most spectacular sights on the island.
At the base of El Teide in Canadas Valley is a cable car station, but the winds on the day of our visit closed access to the peak. 
At the Parador de Canadas del Teide, an intimate museum offered interesting insight on the Guanche shepherds of Las Canadas who trekked on foot up the same mountain we drove up in 1st gear, sheparding sheep for the summer season in this valley and returning to the coastal areas during the winter. Needless to say, this way of life has died out with the development of roads. Our tour continue gently back down the mountain through Esperanza pine forest, enjoying the scenery of beautiful, sturdy Canary Pines which don't die when burned. At a local tavern, we discovered a new favorite, garbanzo bean soup, and then treated ourselves to a slice of homemade chocolate cake.
For our next few days on the island, we changed accommodations to the southern end and stayed at the Estefania at Chafaya above Los Cristianos. The southern beaches are a favorite destination for Europeans where they spend their days sunbathing under colorful umbrellas and their evenings dining and clubbing along the beachfront promenade. We found the hotel pool and the ocean a bit too cold for us as Floridians to take the plunge but the weather was perfect.
We were fortunate to hook up with Luigi de Giorgi, a local real estate expert and island tour guide, to show us the sights and flavors of the southern and western part of the island. Immediately, he shared that the smog over the island was in fact Sahara sands in the wind that had been blowing in over the past week... still looked like smog to us. Touring Playa Americas, the more popular of the beaches, he explained that this land area was once owned by an American family... hence the name now, Beach of America ~ not that you would find many Americans here. Interestingly, we learned that Tenerife has the largest time share market, next to Florida... this was as of 1999.
Along the route, we passed miles of banana plantations, one of their greatest exportations to Europe, though rarely offered as part of our meals. Tenerife is operated as a tax free state, so foreigners invest earnestly in second or third homes. Being green before it was hip, the islands' regulate to have the lights at night reflect down and away from the night sky, which enhances its outstanding star-glazing show.
Our island tour with our guide, Luigi de Giorgi included...
Los Gigantes, massive cliff formations known as "the giants"... to the world's highest wine region of Masca, with windy roads, terrace gardens and serenading musicians...
Garachico, a town where Columbus was turned away and modern-day Nordic warriors brave the "artic" cold waters of the coastline's natural pools...
Icod, a village famous for the world's oldest living Dragon tree, a macaronesic endemism for its age and dimensions, estimated to be between 1,000 to 2,000 years old. [Can you see the speck of a human form on the path next to the tree?] At the time of our visit, this ancient tree measured 31 feet in diameter and about 70 feet high.
And then onward to Los Realejos, an old monestery overlooking the valley down to the sea. Called La Finca Monasterio, it is in fact a very popular place to eat... for both humans and animals. You'll dine with roosters, hens, and little chicks running around under the tables looking for scraps. The surrounding grounds included other meal options ~ duck, rabbit, and a garden full of edibles.
Our crowning point of our visit on Tenerife was a day at the Piramides de Guimar where we spent an hour with Dr. Thor Heyerdahl discussing his project on Tenerife and other locations around the world. The Piramides de Guimar represent a civilization that existed thousands of years prior to Spanish rule and resemble those that are found in other locations around the world such as Peru, Mexico, the South Pacific and Mesopotamia.
Our interview with Dr. Thor Heyerdahl: 
During our visit, we had the pleasure to spend one fascinating hour with the world-renown anthropologist, who has devoted his life's work in studying primitive watercraft and aboriginal navigation across oceans. In 1947, Heyerdahl and six othes sailed an authentic, native-built balsa wood raft from Peru to Polynesia to prove his theory that pre-Inca Indians in South America may have been the first humans to inhabit the islands of the eastern Pacific. This voyage of the “Kon-Tiki” became the best selling book after the Bible, and still holds the world record of being translated into 67 different languages.
With the support of Heyerdahl and his team, excavations on a group of step pyramids started on Tenerife in 1997. The discovery of an extensive cave under one of the pyramids has revealed that it was used as a native commune before the arrival of the Spaniards in the fifteenth century.
In 1999, the Ethnographic Park of the Pyramids of Guimar opened to the public with a display of impressive exhibits with cultural traces from the Old to the New Worlds. The focal points of the park are full-size Peruvian-built replicas of papyrus reed boats, similar to “Ra II”, the native raft used by Heyerdahl in 1970 on his voyage from Africa across the Atlantic to Barbados.
We want to thank Brigitte Gypen, Director of the Piramides de Guimar, for arranging the opportunity for us to explore the Old World with those who make it their life. Check out their web site for more information on the pyramides and Dr. Heyerdahl's work at ~> www.piramidesdeguimar.net
Taking the "Good" with the "Bad" ~
During our travels through these islands, we recorded the best and worst on each island. Of course, these are our observations and opinions to share with you as a way to provide an overview of our impressions.
The Best of Tenerife:
1 - Great weather day and evening (and no biting bugs) - we avoided the rainy periods that they had for three weeks prior to our arrival
2 - Diverse landscape from green forests to arid dry deserts and always blue skies
3 - Our hike through the Valley of Las Canadas at El Teide was magical and serene - "thank goodness, no cars"
4 - Again, finding excellent Canarian dishes at a local tapas bar near our hotel, marinated olives and octopus, homegrown almonds, salt-soaked potatoes with Canary sauces and local wines
The Worst of Tenerife:
1 - Free of invisible biting bugs, but plenty of pesky flies during the day
2 - Some claim that the brown cloud that hangs around the island is sand blown from Africa - may be some of it could be from the half million cars and trunks that are constantly buzzing around on the highways
3 - Immigrant Africans peddling anything and everything at your dinner table along the promenade in Los Cristanos - "no gracias” means... “NO and go away"
4 - Some out of the way local restaurants cater to the all-day patrons - their Sunday event - no fast food service here! "Did we look that American?"
A SPECIAL THANKS: Our visit to Tenerife would not have been as successful without Luigi de Giorgi! Luigi knew how to show us all the island's beauty in such little time. Luigi shares a photo op with Christopher Columbus... though memorialized on here on the island, Columbus was not welcomed on Tenerife by its inhabitants of his time as he was on the other islands.
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