Tag Archives: Sunset

Montaña Bocinegro, Tenerife

February 8, 2025Tenerife, Travelbuskers, El Médano, kite surfing, Montaña Bocinegro, Sunset, WWII bunkerkarenfranza

Feb 7 – can we top yesterday’s adventure for sheer excitement? I don’t think so, nor do I want to! Today we are walking up the teeny weeny elevation next to yesterday’s Montaña Roja. It is also called a mountain, but it’s just a bump in the landscape. The sign tells us it is called Montaña Bocinegro, literally the Black Horn, also the local name for the sea bream, a popular and plentiful Atlantic fish.

The shops are not open yet, but I just love the sentiments on this door. Only one who knows how to be small is great in life. For death or for life, food comes first! (It rhymes in Spanish)

The Black Horn is just a bump to the left of yesterday’s mountain. We are up before the kite surfers. The wind seems milder today.

We passed a morning yoga class, and a guy doing Tai Chi on the beach

In two shakes of a lamb’s tail we reached the top. Jim laughed when he read the sign (below)

There may be a risk of falling, but we can’t see the height shown in this sign!

Looking behind us at the side of Montaña Roja that we didn’t see yesterday. Can you see the tiny people climbing up the trails?

Here’s more of the red volcanic rock. The loose rock makes the path slippery – I’m glad I brought a hiking stick.

Google says these are “curious geological formations”. They look like a sea creature’s tunnels, but they are rock, not sand. We see them in several places along the beach.

A bunker from WWII. Spain was officially neutral, but built bunkers out of fear of invasion from both sides. The Allies and the Axis both wanted use of the strategic Canary Islands, and it is said that Spain turned a blind eye when the Germans used the islands to resupply their U-boats.

We continue to marvel at the kite surfers. We watched one young man as he repeatedly barreled toward shore, then lifted up into the air and flipped over with his board before landing gracefully back on the water. What fun!

We drank a café con leche as we watched the surfers. I liked the mural depicting this little town.

After supper we gathered with our fellow tourists to watch the setting of the sun

We were serenaded by this talented combo, who played songs from the last century like Fly Me to the Moon and All of Me. A young girl joined in to add French vocals to Strangers in the Night. Quite lovely.

Farewell El Médano. You’ve been grand! ❤️

Montaña Roja, Tenerife

February 8, 2025Tenerife, TravelEl Médano, grilled squid, Hiking, kayakers, king prawns, Montaña Roja, Sunset, very windykarenfranza

Feb 6 – today we put our boots on, grabbed our trekking sticks, and set out to climb Montaña Roja, or the Red Mountain, so named as the bits of iron in its volcanic rock composition give it a ruddy hue.

We started out early, before the kite surfing rental shops opened. Looks like it’s going to be a nice day.

The Mandela Man left us a new early morning message: Love yourself first, then love others

The start of the trail. The mountain is a piddling 400 foot climb, and doesn’t look red at all from here. This will be a walk in the park. My brain started singing, “Saturday in the Park” by Blood, Sweat and Tears.

Some hikers left their mark next to the trail

As we climbed, the wind increased – you cannot imagine how windy it was! The song in my head switched to Marilyn McKoo: Blowin’ Away. “I feel so high, I feel like I may be blowin’ away…”

This poor tree doesn’t stand a chance of growing straight in this wind!

Our destination! It was so windy up here that I repeatedly had to stop and crouch down to avoid getting blown off the summit. My full water bottle, stored in a side pocket of my pack, sailed up, up and away at some point, never to be seen again.

We made it! I almost lost my hat at one point, and the wind almost tore my glasses off, but, standing on the lee side at the top, this is the look of success.

Jim is so happy when he’s standing at the very highest point!

Time to head back down. We passed a young couple with an infant in arms on their way up, and all I could think was, “you better hold tight onto that baby!” See the cluster of white buildings that is our little town of El Médano?

Now you can see the reddish color of the rocks

Ta da! Back to the signpost! Some friendly Brits snapped our picture.

Returning to the beach two hours later, where the kite surfers were just getting started.

To celebrate our victory, we had lunch at a seafood restaurant. Jim had the grilled squid…

…and I wrestled with the king prawns. I prefer my shrimp when they are not looking back at me. Delicious, but too much work!

Tonight we encountered some buskers entertaining the crowd, which is growing larger by the hour as the weekend nears. This group had a very danceable tune, and, yes, we danced!

Time to watch the sun go down, as the last of the kayakers bring their boats back to shore.

Phnom Penh to Kampot, Cambodia

June 6, 2015Backpacking, Cambodia, Flashpacking, TravelKampot, Kampot Manor, Kep, Phnom Penh, Sunsetkarenfranza

5/30 – We are looking forward to getting out of the noisy bustle of Phnom Penh, and seeing the Cambodian countryside. It seems that the more we travel, the less we like big cities. Even 9000 miles from home, cities have a sameness in their traffic, squalor, shops, hawkers, taxi drivers and press of people.

Several travelers suggested that we head south to check out the adjoining towns of Kampot and Kep. This is easily done by booking a $6.00 ticket on a bus heading south, and today is our travel day. We were told the ride would take three hours, but it took five. Nothing wrong; we have become accustomed to the exaggeration of ticket sellers who want you to think that their bus line can get you there faster than the line next door. The bus curtains were closed against the heat of the day for most of the trip, so only a few pix of the countryside. Lots of skinny white cows foraging at the roadside or grazing in the fields.

The bus stopped first in Kep, and most of the young tourists got off there, right at the oceanfront. We stayed on, as our lodging for the next three days is in Kampot.

The tuk-tuk brought us right to the door of the Kampot Manor, a beautiful French colonial on a quiet road outside of town.

Our host David was surprised to see us, and told us that perhaps an error was made at Booking.com, as he did not have our reservation. No worries (he is Australian); he asked us to wait while a room was made up for us, and we were settled in no time. Come to find out, we had mistakenly booked online for June 30 instead of May 30. Darn these new-fangled computers! David got it all sorted out.

Our room was on the upper floor, with a wrap-around veranda. We ordered supper (David is an excellent chef), and he delivered it up to the veranda so we could watch the sunset. We were not disappointed – what a stunner!