We had a fairly early flight from Madrid to Tenerife, thank goodness we stayed close to the airport. I’m already dreading our early flight back to the States on Saturday am and making the trek via Metro.

We grabbed the shuttle, made our way through security and boarded the lovely Iberia Express flight – that plane was gross. Both of us slept for a fair amount of the flight, waking to see the cliffs and oceans surrounding the island.

Upon landing we made our way to the rental car desk, worried that they would request our international drivers license. Shortly before leaving the house on Thursday night I was making sure that I had all our reservation information saved to my phone when I noticed that it stated a requirement to Rent-A-Car was an international drivers license. I was trying to figure out how we were going to get an international drivers license in less than an hour and head to the airport. Thankfully when I called Budget, Nina said all we would need was a passport and a valid US drivers license. Thankfully for Nina, she was correct!

After picking up the car, we made our way to try to find our AirBnB, even though we could not check in until 4 P. We wound our way around the tight streets of Tenerife. After locating it in the side of the cliff, and a steep street, I needed a drink.

When we checked into our hotel in Madrid the lady told us that when in Tenerife we had to go to guachinche, which were local restaurants, with cheap, good food. Nick looked one up on the map only for us to drive there to find it closed, but up the road a ways was another one which we weren’t 100% sure was open. We made our way in to what appeared to be an abandoned building with lots of empty tables. The young girl who greeted us spoke less English then we do Spanish so made for an interesting encounter. We ended up ordering queso, ensalada and what we knew was going to be some type of meat, but again were not 100% sure of what we were getting. At one point Nick even pulled out his Google translation on his phone however that still was not helping.

Each of the dishes came out one by one, and we even were surprised by some French fries that accompanied our meal. I commented to nick that I was nervous the meal was going to cost us €100 at the hole in the wall place alongside the road because there were no menus and we had no idea what we ordered. Thankfully when the bill came it was only €25 for the cheese, salad, pork and 1/2 bottle of wine. Guachinche Antonio el Morreta was not a bad find after all.

With bellies full we made our way to a winery that we had read about which was not too far from where we were. We enjoyed a bottle of local red wine, and took in the views of Tenerife from a top the hill. I spent most of the time attempted to pet a stray momma dog begging everyone for food. With nothing else on our agenda for the day we decided to grab some dessert and try a bottle of white. We asked our waitress if we could cork our bottle to take with us prior to ordering, she gave us a strange look and raised her shoulders like she either didn’t understand or care. However, she failed to leave the cork so we were “forced” to finish the bottle. Along with our vino blanco we enjoyed a traditional custard desert, which Nick said tasted like baklava. 

We then made our way to our AirBnB to check in, Nick dropped me by the door to drag the bags in as we weren’t able to find street parking on the steep street where the entrance was – thank goodness – because he only stalled the car twice trying to get it back up the hill. 

The view from our place is amazing – even though beautiful, I was exhausted from the days adventures and passed out at 7 pm. Thankfully Nick said the sunset wasn’t that great, so sounds like I didn’t miss too much.