We’ve had the car since we arrived on the island and it’s been handy to have to get around, but we’d agreed that Tuesday was the day to return it. We could have extended it but the main reason we didn’t, was that we’d become a little lazy, choosing to drive somewhere when we could have walked. The south easterly winds over the festive period, which bring with the warmer temperatures across from the Sahara (26 -28°c), have been replaced with cooler weather (20°c) and a few days of rain, but we’ve still been able to play tennis and get out. We’d booked an earlier stargazing tour that had been cancelled and we were almost certain that the gloomy skies on Thursday, would mean that we were going to miss out again. But that morning we received a call saying that the exciting evening was to go ahead as planned. We made our way across to the Maritim hotel, where our comfortable minibus was waiting and after we’d picked up 8 other folks, we made our way up into the mountains and when we got up to about 1300M, we broke through the cloud cover to reveal a beautiful cobalt blue sky. We got to 2300M where we were to spend the following 40 minutes or so watching the sunset. Seeing the sun sink into a dreamy cloudscape was really quite stunning. The sun set at around 6:30pm and thereafter we made our way to the cable station at the base of Mt Teide, where the daytime temperature of 20°c had been replaced by a temperature of around 0°c with wind chill. We had been warned to bring warm clothes, but even with 2 long sleeved tops, a hoody, a gillet and a wind jacket it was chiilllly! Teide is in the top 10 places in the world to see the stars, due largely to the landscape and other than the odd set of car headlights, there’s no light pollution. I don’t know too much about them, but I’ve always been fascinated by the stars and what greeted my eyes didn’t disappoint. The sky was awash with a myriad of stars, the brightest of them is Sirius a binary star, which has a blue/white tinge to it. The constellations was laid out for all to see. The summer is the best time to view the nebula within the Milky Way and although you can’t see it in the winter, the winter offers the clearer sky’s. I remembered some of the more common ones, but our excellent astronomer was able to guide us through our galaxy. He gave us a good tip on how to find Polaris (North Star) whilst in Tenerife, look for the constellation of Cassiopeia, basically it’s an upside down W, or a stretched M, then from the right leg, count two stars down and that’s Polaris, in the UK you’ll find it off of the right side of the constellation of Ursa Minor (little bear), but it’s not so clear here in winter, as Tenerife is 28°N the stars sit much lower, meaning that that some of the stars fall below the horizon. The UK sits about 55°N so Polaris and indeed most of the constellations sit that much higher up in the night sky. We finished off the evening looking through high-powered telescopes for a closer look at stars and planets…Fantastic! I’m very fond of an Orchid, so on Saturday we decided to take a trip to the “Orchid Gardens of Sitio Litre” (little site/place). The 18th Century Mansion and it’s enchanting gardens have had many famous visitors over the years, with Agatha Christie perhaps being the most notable, she wrote “The man from the sea” here. The garden is home to some 350 species of interesting and beautiful orchids placed around the gardens, which are also awash with the oranges and pinks of bougainvillea & hibiscus and although the gardens aren’t huge they’re set out with great care so that each of the little individual areas all blend seemlessly together. It’s a very steep climb to get to the gardens but it was definately worth the visit.
Dream Chasers 