REDO - Live tweets from the Canary Islands.

These last two days in the Canary Islands has been very fun and fairly relaxing. We have discovered some random things about the islands, such the fact that they aren't named after the birds at all; the birds are actually named after the island. The name comes from Island of the Canines. Weird, right?


Day one, Bronwyn and Katie joined me as we roamed through a HUGE market in one part of Santa Cruz. This place had everything you could possibly imagine as far as stuff goes. A plethora of undergarments, random flea market stands that sold various household goods, clothing stands, and lots of cheap sunglasses. No food, but still pretty cool. After pursuing that and grabbing some food and water, the 3 of us headed to one of the golden beaches. We spent the afternoon there in all the random weather. One second, it'd be sun shiny and gorgeous, and then the next thing you know it's raining! We had an odd assortment of of sun showers, too.

Day two, Bronwyn and I joined a huge group of S@S kids to hike one of the huge volcanic mountains! (Yes, mom, i took my inhaler and made sure to use it before, during, and after.) If you couldn't tell, we have a thing for the mountains. She's from Minnesota, so that's not much of a surprise. I must say I was a little shocked at the amount of vegetation on the mountains. They have large numbers of pine trees and such,which definitely made it feel like riding up the mountains to my grandparents house again! It was absolutely beautiful. And they have very few animals roaming through them, which I thought was interesting. The hike itself was incredible! Definitely very sandy and dusty, but it had absolutely amazing views at the top! We didn't hike the volcano itself, but a nearby mountain. Nonetheless, it was once formed by volcanic eruptions and has all the odd shapes and colors to prove it. It was breathtaking - literally. We began the hike at approximately 6,000 miles above sea level and continued up from there. The altitude change definitely got to some of the people. But being at the top of it was a jaw dropping experience.

I've also come to notice that the pictures have a mind of their own and decide what order they want to be in, so I apologize that they're always out of order! Hope you enjoy them anyway. To put some faces with the names - the red headed girl in the mountains and on the beach with me is Bronwyn! She's been in a bunch of the pictures. And Katie is the brunette in one of the pictures. She would be my roommate for the voyage and one of my closest friends. Max is the red headed guy in the picture with Katie. He, too, has become one of my closest friends! I've also attached a picture of our ship docked at night with all her lights on and in all her glory.