Well, talk about a different kind of Christmas Eve!
I could actually just mention kangaroo meat steaks for dinner and be done with the story, but pretty much the whole day was nothing like any of your traditional Christmas Eves, with a 7km hike replacing the typical dinner preparations. When all our friends back home were for sure half way through unwrapping their presents, we were just rounding the corner of La Caldera area in the Orotava valley, getting ready to spread out the Christmas Eve picnic we were having.
It wasn’t until we got back to the starting point that we realized that most of the trail was actually closed because of the danger of rock fall along some of the slopes. Somehow, we managed to navigate various shortcuts without having to cross any barricades, so, basically, did nothing illegal whatsoever. Yet, when closing the circuit, we found ourselves on the wrong side of a closed fence. Well, go figure – all is well that ends well, and this day definitely ended well. The trail was very easy for everybody and with different kinds of terrain and surroundings. Gorges, forest, old dry riverbed (we were guessing what happened to the river – most probably diverted into some sort of irrigation system). Even an area with small plots of land probably rented out to the nearby locals to be cultivated as kitchen gardens or something like that. Lots of those were guarded by viciously looking and sounding dogs. The forest areas looked magic, probably also due to being completely empty. Christmas Eve is the beginning of the home celebration in Spain, so people were for sure getting ready to sit down for their big family dinners at home while we were still rambling.
We eventually got to our own dinner back at the hotel, with aforementioned kangaroo steaks, something that will definitely go down in the history of weird Christmases of this family.
Merry Christmas to all!..