Monat: Januar 2010

I met my friends Dayna and Mountainman-Gert tonight at Madonna (Wiener Str. 22), a place that seems to exist like forever – my first wine universe in the eighties and my last in the fourties to come for sure. Wednesday! Live music! Dota die Kleingeldprinzessin oder so … sehr sehr schöne 1-Frau-1-Gitarre-Musik!! Unfortunately I dropped my camera on New Years Eve so I can’t provide you with good pictures, only awful mobile phone pictures like this on my way back home through the virgin snow:

For a short moment I caught THE Berlin glimpse: island. Winter. Grumpy but possible.
Explain? Almost impossible …

… means something like Mass Demonstration Against The Situation or something wishy-washy-ish …
Seen on a bench at a bus stop. The thing on the right is a plastic bag containing a banana peel. The stain on the left … nobody wants to know what it is.
I was waiting for the bus close before my nose fell off, so cold, so freezing … mass demonstration against cold, pro banana. Verhäl-tnisse. Cool word. Tnisse! Shiver! Atchooo! Bless you! Gesundheit!

It’s only about 3.500 kms – from a midday plunge in the ocean to a midnight landing in deep ice and snow!

We almost missed our flight, got confused by weird announcings on the departure board (delayed flight because France is on strike, at least air-wise) but thanks to Airberlin’s spontaneity and the Captain who decided to wait for 2 desperately running chicas (if I got it right his name is Bernd Wedekind and I say Thank You again here to you!!) – well, I’m back in ice.

Who cares … got a couple of yellow butterflies inside >>> 2yellowbutterflies.MOV

Dear Anaga Mountains … if you were on Facebook, I would ask you to be my friend.

Writing this, I’m still thrilled by the beauty of the most breathtaking mountains of Tenerife … again we wandered through barrancos and alongside steep sides, stone walls, up and down small goat paths and wider men and women paths.

Meeting butterflies, yellow flower fields, rarely another hiker thanks god, goat milkmen, dripping water falls, lazy doves sitting on a wire staring down 300 meters into the Atlantic, having a perfect lunch break at the only bar in Afur, a tiny town: fresh goat cheese and fresh baked bread and a glass of milk coffee.

Bellezza!

anoher bellezza is having an ice cold Dorada beer after a 9 hours hiking trip, sweating like camels, happy like doves on a wire!!

To be continued … here’s a trip on a small path: >>> enger-pfad.mov

… is one of the oldest villages of the island of Tenerife. I love the name. We hit the road again, crawling barrancos, following goat paths almost indetectible, met Heidis Wandergruppe (an organized group of hikers), said hello and no thank you, we are antisocial today, won’t join you, but thanks, see you again at the Guagua stop!

So we fell into a kind of time and space twister, a weird feeling that, knowing that the last Guagua of the day will leave in 3 hours and we would have to climb over unknown Barrancos (Heidi promised it would be possible in 2 hours time) – seeing green mountain sides far or close, not sure, irreal blue ocean, high glittering clear sky, hearing echoes of chicken and a single bird and nothing really nothing else … well, we made it in time and had one of the most beautiful hiking experiences of our lives.

Gesine filmed the exploring of small private paths of Taganana starring half of the animal inhabitants —> taganana1.MOV

I’ve always known … rainbows begin in the ocean!!

… and a good place to end is La Carta (Calle San Felipe 53; www.promocanarias.com/lacarta) – we had Tenerife White Wine and Salad tonight and it matched just perfect with our salted sunsoaked skin.

… a toilet. I don’t remember where it was, I think Bar Neptune. Light on, music on, light out, music continues —> klo.MOV

They have the highest vulcano mountain of Europe here – the Teide – looks like a breast with a little amount of snow or fog on top! Ten or twenty years ago there was a group of weirdos there waiting for a UFO to take them to a better planet but I don’t know if they ever got picked up or if they did it lemmingwise down the abyss or just got spirited away …

We hiked a nice circle around the breast top across huge lava fields, through magnificent stone cathedrals, frozen lava waves, moonlike sands …

… here’s a café where everyone’s waiting fort he one and only Guagua at 4 pm to take us back down again, after a long hike, steaming boots, having coffee and apple vanilla pie or like those two hardcore guys red wine …

… until we got picked up thanks god not by a UFO but by a Guagua taking us down through different vegetation levels like desert shrubs, foggy pine woods, dry smaller pine woods, down 2000 meters to level ocean with salty air and buzzing flowers again … beauty continues.

Today the two famous Wanderwomen fell in love with the Tenerife public transport system aka bus aka Guagua – a net of green buses (www.titsa.com) with brave speedy drivers inside. Took a ride from Puerto de la Cruz via Icod de los Vinos (where we admired the 2.000 years old endemic Dragon Tree with a mystic history – read below) to a small town called Erjos where we started our jungle hiking trip.

Elvises mark the route!

About 20 kms through misty laurel woods through valleys called Barrancos and cactus fields and stony paths until we finally reached a tiny quiet town called El Palmera.
Next Guagua direction home? No way, we would have to wait 2 hours so we decided to continue hiking to the next big city (Buenavista) and after some kms a friendly farmer grandpa picked us up offering us a ride to the … Guagua station downtown! Thank you Tenerife señor!!

And then again Wuwei hit us in the face with lucky coincidence: the Guagua to Puerto de la Cruz was just about to leave!
We enjoyed the whole trip so much, tried to inhale as much beauty as we could!

Ready for another coincidence? We decided that we felt like craving for potatoes, a specialty called Papas Arugadas served with green and red Mojo, so we just walked around and incidentally stumbled on a Tapas Restaurant (Arcon Tapas, www.arcon-tapas.com) where we had the Papas of our lives! Plus something colorful lovely for the eyes, the park nearby decorated with lots of Christmas lights and symbols which I feel free to interpret as New Year wishes for me and her and him and you:
Red boot is for more travelling; star is for a wish come true; green tree is for nature; the bell is for good music!

Oh yes, the Dragon Tree … an endemism! More than 20 meters high, its „blood“ is red and was used as a curative and cosmetic potion, a subject of legends and symbolisms …

Tegel Berlin Airport 8 in the morning, sun’s not yet up, sitting in a fat plane direction south, waiting fort the de-ice-machines to ride the wings and brush them with nicely stinking defrost chemicals while it snows and snows and snows and snows …

24 hours later I dive my corpse-pale feet in black glittering beach sand smiling like a Honigkuchenpferd (ginger bread horse? Does that make sense?) and the waves wave and the sun makes me feel alive again.

I’m on the isle of Tenerife!

For an internet addict like me there are not so many chances to spread my sprouts … there’s only one hotspot in the city of Puerto de la Cruz where I (and my friend Gesine) stay – McDonalds. But we soon found out: stepping outside with the laptop, across the place towards the church, 20 meters away, sitting down on a stone bench (which is still warm from the days sun mmmh) – the hot spot follows us like a shimmering duckling and we start to giggle and communicate.