Loro Parque, Tenerife

So, the last proper day of the holiday had arrived (boo!), but it was gonna be a good one (yay!), having resisted the hard sell at the "welcome" meeting (53 Euros a head) we had gone through the hotel and been booked up with an independent coach operator for the bargain price of 42 Euros each (quite a saving between the four of us)...the coach turned up on time and we had a couple of other pickups (took about half an hour I suppose, so not too bad), before heading out around the mountain road to the west of the island...we *had* been warned that this was going to be the case, "Make sure you have your seat arms firmly down, we don't want anyone flying out the window", we had all chuckled heartily and exchanged amused glances at that...by the time we were 30 minutes into the TWO HOURS of breakneck speed hairpin turns up and up and up, over and *over* again everyone looked rather green and were clinging onto the handles for dear life...

Mount Teide was visible for much of the journey, we skimmed past it (ears popping with the altitude) and then descended back down the other side (ears popping back again) to genuine exclaimations of relief when we pulled off the mountain path and onto a proper road...Loro Parque was a short hop from the motorway into Puerto de la Cruz (Port of the Cross, didn't see one, but I'm sure there was one there somewhere)...the driver dropped us off at the far end of the car park, so, still swaying slightly with the after effects of the journey, we made our way towards the "pre-paid tickets" entrance -

- there wasn't even a queue to pay for tickets, but once through the door there was about a ten minute wait for the mandatory picture with a parrot before you could actually see the park proper, and boy must they use a lot of water on the grounds (reminded me of Lost!) -

- Anyway, quickly checking the park map and show schedule revealed that the Orca show was going to start in about 20 minutes time, so we started following the signs (as quickly as we could), this worked fine until we reached a 4 way split that didn't have a picture of an Orca on it, so we just picked the one that seemed to be heading in the right sort of direction and when we got to the next "You are here" map (about 5 minutes later) we had somehow ended up on completely the other side of the park! So now, in much more of a hurry we retraced out steps and luckily fluked the right path on the second try, arriving at the back of a traffic jam of push chairs trying to cram their way through the unbelievably tiny entrance to the arena, some mountain climbing up rows of seats got us into position just as the introductory video came on the big screen (it showed how the Killer Whales had been shipped over to Tenerife from Florida 6 weeks earlier and hyped up how much Loro Parque is dedicated to taking care of the environment, although when they started with "The ocean is like a garden, and without a gardener it will suffer", I kind of switched off, what nonsense)...then, gasps from the crowd at the front drew my eyes to the side of the *huge* pool in front of me as we all caught our first glimse of one of the creatures in the flesh -

- seeing how enormous they actually are hit me like a brick, and sent the people in the "Splash Zone" into a purchase frenzy for 5 Euro plastic ponchos (hehe) -

- which didn't help ;) After this splash a few people actually walked out of the arena carrying their extra-hydrated packed-lunches dripping behind them -

- the show was awesome, but I think because the trainers and the whales are fairly new to each other the humans didn't actually get into the water (fearing accidental mistaken identity as a seal, no doubt), which was a bit of a shame, but that does mean it will be well worth making a trip back in a few years to see how things have come on -

Next, it was on to the penquin house, where they keep everything suitably chilly all year round (impressive for Tenerife) and have a number of snow machines that keep things authentic for the residents (who look happy enough) -

- which is more than I can say for the bloke whose job it was to clean the bottom of the tank (with what looked like a nail brush) -

After the penguins we had a bit of a wait before the dolphin show, so we had a little wander round, saw a huge number of extremely miserable looking parrots, and the odd slightly larger creature -

The dolphins were great -

- can't help but think they must get bored doing the same old things each day for their dinner (I paid for mine, and then wished I hadn't) which was a pretty terrible kebab -

- we went and saw the parrot show, which was actually *not* lame (climax was several large parrots and a flock of small ones circling the audience practially bushing our faces with their proximity) -

- then we went back into the penguin house to buy Flyingpops a present (a nice blue breakfast mug and a tiny plush parrot keyring) and I managed to take this shot of their amazing tank by the exit (it's about 3 stories high and about the same width as a tube train!) all the fish (pretty much) swim in the same direction like a vortex, really hypnotic -

- then we just had time to catch a bit of the sealion show -

- before it was time to head back to the coach (not really enough time there, but we *did* get to see everything, albeit briefly)...
The journey home was *much* better (initially), being along the motorway but the same traffic problems hit us as on the transfer when we got near our resort, without going into details it was a nightmare (especially for Flyingpops who had really liked that carrier bag)...
For our last night supper we found a place doing gazpacho soup (yay!) -

- and a nice steak (but not as good as the evening before) -

- and then we had a few drinks in the hotel bar watching a truly appalling rendition of "Grease" by the hotal staff...really didn't know where the holiday had gone...pickup was midday tomorrow, so we did at least have half a day left in the resort... ;)