The wanderings of two best friends...

The eventful month of April came to a climactic conclusion with the visit of my beeeest friend in the whole wide world, Rachel. Rachel and I met in third grade and have been the closest of friends ever since. We have always considered ourselves lucky for being blessed with a non-biological sister. It sounds cheesy, but this sisterhood we've created will forever tie us. Due to the general business of life, we can go months without talking much, and when we meet up (whether in our home-sweet-home of MPLS, in her new home in NYC, or in my new home in SPAIN) it's as if we've been together every day since the last day we saw each other. When we're together it's a silly fest... we revert back into our childhoods and behave like the little girls we once were (and still are?). When we're together, there's always an adventure.

So, if you can imagine what it was like when she visited... there was a bit of an adventure everywhere we stepped...

Rachel arrived on the afternoon of the 24th, and (being the trooper that she is) was willing to jump right into our first mini-adventure within a half an hour of arriving. Some friends of mine were heading to el campo, the countryside, for lunch and an "excursion." While driving through the hilly mountains dotted with olive trees, Rachel explained what she believed to be the history of the rocks and the mountains in the area (nerd), which I was completely fascinated by (double nerd). We arrived, sat on stone benches, and ate our homemade bocadillos while Rachel was quizzed about all the famous people she has met through her work at Universal in NYC. After ingesting our makeshift lunch, we were off on an uphill hike to see an old Moorish castle.

Monday we day tripped to the UNESCO World Heritage City of Baeza!
....and Tuesday jointly headed up to Madrid, where we spent an evening shopping...

...aaaaaand the next day we were off to Lanzarote, one of the Spanish Canary Islands. Lanzarote is a tiny tiny island covered in volcanic rock off the coast of Morocco, and is home to just under 140,000 people! It takes only an hour and a half to drive from the most northern tip to the most southern tip, which made it easy to visit every inch within just four days. The first day was spent driving from one end to the other to check out all the small towns and tourist sites. It didn't take us too long to discover that ALL buildings on this island are white with green windows and doors.... I'm not exaggerating when I say ALL. Houses, tourist buildings, the airport, everything is white and green. Why is that?? There's this guy named Cesar Manrique who has a strange and unofficial monopoly over the art and design of the entire island... he was the one who decided that all the houses should boast the same colors and that none should be taller than the tallest palm tree. It gives the island a picturesque, romantic kind of look and feel... but I would say that it's a bit creepy when everything looks identical.


Our main stop was to Cueva de los Verdes (Green's Cave), named for the Green family, the people that supposedly used to own the caves at some point in time. Somewhere between 3-5,000 years ago the caves were formed by dried lava from a volcanic eruption. In the 1960's the caves were decorated with artistic lighting and music and turned into one of Lanzarote's biggest tourist attractions. Who ever would have thought that caves would have great acoustics?



We also stopped by to see some amazing views of Isla Graciosa (Graciosa Island) which is off the North coast of Lanzarote and is home to only 700 people. Eek, imagine growing up there.

Of course, a stop by the a local, family winery was obligatory. There they made white, red and rose wine, along with some other strange variations. Our purchases included a block of the owner's mom's home-made goat cheese and a bottle of cactus liquor-- a sugary bright lime green alcohol made out of the leaves. In all honesty it was terrible. We threw it away.

We ended up in our home base of Playa Blanca late every night. Playa Blanca is an overly touristy town on the Southern coast lined with white sandy beaches packed with mostly English tourists. The vast majority of pubs and restaurants are English, leaving me with the impression is that the English flock to the Canary Islands like Americans flock to resort towns in Mexico. We stayed in a super cheaply priced beach side resort that has, surprisingly, a lot in common with the rockin' resort in Dirty Dancing. How so? For starters, our resort was filled with retired people or children under the age of five. Most days we were woken up around 10am to the sounds of poolside Jock Jams style music on repeat, which included such great tacky resort classics such as "Livin' la vida loca." (But, I have to say, my favorite poolside song was one with a laugh track built into it...) Bingo and darts were the most exciting daytime activities, and at night there was a live singer or two doing mediocre covers of everything from Alicia Keys to Bryan Adams. The (more than likely underpaid and tortured) performers were surrounded by retirees sitting in lined up couches watching out of sheer boredom while some of the more outgoing seniors danced along, giggling their hearts out. Oh, there was also a "SHOW ROOM" that, on one particular night, was hosting a show called "Lord of the Dance." Yes!

The highlight of the trip was our visit to the Papagayo beaches, known for being the best on the island. Safeguarded by a natural park, the beaches are quiet and untouched by the cafes, umbrellas, garbage and loud city noises that sometimes plague normal city beaches. We went to the last and most hidden beach in the park and enjoyed a peaceful, quiet, nude day under the sun. That's right, we went to a nude beach and partook. It was quite liberating actually-- it was a totally new way to experience the beach and the ocean! On my days on the beach I usually tend to miss at least one spot with the sunscreen... and this time it was the top of my feet. I think I got lucky, considering.


Our last two side events were a trip to visit Timanfaya Park and another to ride camels. Timanfaya Park was a little bit of a let-down, as it consisted of a 45 minute bus ride through dried lava and volcanic rock. There were some neat sites to see... the way the lava dried was really cool- but by bus wasn't the best way to experience the unique views. Now, a great way to experience the views of Timanfaya is by camel. Rachel and I were seated on the tallest and proudest camel of them all. The ride was a short ten minutes but that was enough camel for me.

Wander on, wander on....