Life, and Other Absurdities.

The Canary Islands. Ah, those Canary Islands. They were a seventeen year old American girl's dream come true. They were the type of place you always imagine but would never believe really exists, the quintessential island paradise, the.... just picture, if you will, a sunset. The sky is red, purple, pink, and gold reflected over a sea that extends to Africa. There are palm trees, sprawling beaches along the coastline. As your eyes travel along the beach they pick up the glitter of lights in every color, neon, twinkling, beckoning. There are Christmas lights strung between palm trees lining the boardwalk, and hanging paper lanterns dangling above.

As you approach the town, you first see outdoor restaurants and pizzerias, then open California-style surf-shops. Later on, you reach a plaza shopping center with both chic boutiques and designer clothing stores. Turning, you pass restaurants, night clubs, arcades, mini amusement parks, go-Karts, all of which continue parallel to the beach.

In the background lies an active volcano surrounded by rainforest, and that's when you realize.... you're in Pleasure Island. This is it. This is the place where those naughty boys in Pinocchio ran off to before they turned into donkeys. It's like Las Vegas meets Mexico meets California, yet it's somehow not as trashy or dirty, icky or sleazy, as it is... well... fun!

Our aparthotel was more like Aladdin's Palace turned resort. The entire center of it was pools and palm trees, and the four sides rose up into turrets overlooking the ocean. There was a pool and hot tub on the roof, a bar in the lobby, a comedy club, a supermarket, a sauna, a gym, a laundromat, an English restaurant, a Chinese restaurant, an Indian restaurant, an Italian restaurant, a disco underground, and a rooftop terrace for tanning.

The bit about rooftop tanning sounded very glamorous, and so Chastity and I headed up there almost as soon as we had unpacked, anxious to take in the last few rays of sun before evening set in. We were very quickly disenchanted, however, as we were no sooner out the door than we were assaulted with wind and flying debris. 

"Jesus!" We ducked into two chairs as a gust of sand came sweeping over the rooftop, hurling small grains and pebbles against our bare and goose-bumped skin.

"This," I proclaim to Chastity after the worst of it has passed by, "is extreme tanning!"

"It could be an Olympic sport!" She yells back, before covering her face from the latest burst of rock fragments.

We soon conceded defeat and headed back to the room, where we saw that Rose had been quite productive. She had bought a large bottle of tequila at the hotel supermarket, and procured lemons from the bar on her way back. Now, she was dolling out the tequila in large coffee mugs. 

"Get out of your bathing suits and into your clubbing clothes," she said. "I'm going to show you girls how we drink in Mexico."

And just like that, our routine in the Canary Islands was underway.