Two days at sea fly by – we never ever remember what we did, but we’re never bored! And here we are in our last port of the cruise. The weather is not the best today – very overcast and rainy, although it is pleasantly warm. We’re docked at the new port, which is pretty far from downtown. Once again there is a shuttle, but once again, we have a car and it is in between the ship and where the shuttle drops off. Another morning exercise walk.
At least we know exactly where we are going now – this being our 4th time here. We follow the blue line around the new terminal and toward the city (the blue line is literally painted on the walkways and is the pedestrian route to get into town). We don’t go quite as far as town, but stop at the ferry terminal building for the 2nd floor Cicar rental office. Keys in hand, we walk back toward the ship, now following the red line (yes, it is painted on the ground as well) to the parking lot with the rental cars. We have a cute little brown Seat that we finally find by clicking the lock/unlock buttons on the keys (the lot is packed and our car happens to be in the far back corner).
We are on the road pretty quickly, avoiding the rush of Aida passengers (their ship sailed in after we docked) who are more than likely renting all these cars in the lot (we sincerely doubt there are many Celebrity passengers renting cars – this is the weirdest group of seemingly lightly traveled passengers we’ve seen in a long time).
So, anyway, today we will be heading the to north coast to visit Icod de los Vinos, home of the dragon tree, and Garachico, a neat looking little village on the coast. The drive out goes smooth enough, although the port roads are new, so you know that throws Alice off – but we make it out of Palma proper and onto TF-5 without any issues. The car only has half a tank of gas, and we have to return it like that, which is always a pain trying to get the fuel level right. We decide to not bother messing with it, and pull of into one of the gas stations along the side of the road to get 15 euros of fuel. And boy are we surprised – gas is so cheap here. It is almost as cheap as in the states. Only 85.9 euro cents per liter. The 15 euros we put in is probably way too much, but at least we don’t have to concern ourselves with gas any longer.
After gassing up, it’s a quick drive out to the other coast, and we are in Icod in no time. We navigate a couple of new round-abouts and highway exits without Alice, who we’ve had to deactivate because of the new roads, and make it into the heart of town pretty easily.
We luck into a parking deck right off the main square and stuff our little Seat into a spot on the first floor. Out into the cool, wet morning we stroll, walking up the street to the Plaza de San Marcos, where the old church is located, and where there is a perfect viewing point of the Dragon Tree. You have to pay to go into the garden of the Dragon tree, or, you can come to this Plaza and view the tree for free. Gee….what should we do?
You know what we do….
…the tree is really cool looking. It has blood red sap, like dragon’s blood, which gives the tree its name. The sap was used for healing and dyes for various uses. Supposedly the tree is 1,000 years old, but it can’t really be dated because the heart of the tree rots away so you can’t count the rings.
We wander around the square a bit, but we can’t visit the church because it is under major reconstruction. (Although we do try, because there is a door that is open, but it is apparently for the workers and a tour of locals – when we go walk up to door, they tell us no – we cannot go in.) So, we meander about, looking at the cool trees (odd looking wrapped trunks – sort of different), interesting fountains and the marvelous wooden balconies for which Icod is famous.
It is still really, really early so we decide to stop at a little cafe located at the head of a pedestrian area for cappuccino. The little pedestrian walk is being set up for some sort of festival (really, a real festival – with tents and tables – not tents and water bottles and tires and barbed wire like in Bangkok that one year), and we sit outside watching the workers erect more tents and tables as we sip on what seems a lot more like mocha than cappuccino. It’s very tasty, there is a coffee bean in the bottom of the cup and when we go to pay, they charge us for cappuccino – so – guess that’s what we got – the whipped cream and chocolate stick just made it totally make it very different from the traditional version usually drink.
It starts to rain again, and we decide it is the perfect time to head further up the coast to Garachico. We retrieve our car from the garage – which is now filling up quite quickly – and head back through the little streets to the coast road and Garachico.
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