November 14 - Loro Parque and Puerto de la Cruz

Today we head off to Loro Parque (Parrot Park) on the north side of Tenerife.  Turns out it is really a zoo and a sea park.  Not sure why we agreed to this tour.  We have been many zoos and sea parks and we prefer to see the animals in the wild.  However, since we were here we made the most of it. 

The park started out as a parrot sanctuary and today has over 4000 parrots from 350 species and sub-species of parrots.  They also have a fairly full range of other zoo animals including gorillas,

chimpanzees,

hippos,

and big cats including lions, jaguars, and tigers.

We went to the dolphin show which started with a fly over by a number of parrots.

Then it was on to the orca (killer whale) show.  One of the whales, Morgan, was found abandoned by her pod near the Netherlands and ultimately taken in by Loro Parque.  She was later determined to be deaf.

The route to the orca pool went through the "Zen Garden" which was where the jellyfish tanks were housed.

The park also had a large orchid room.

We decided not to take the behind the scenes tour and instead headed out into the town of Puerto de la Cruz. We found the coast line...

and a cemetery.

But we never did find the old town but the area of town that we did walk through was very interesting. 

Behind an old fort type building near the water we found an a pretty big area filled with rock towers.  A bit of research wasn't really helpful in determining what they are "for" although they are called cairns and one of the articles suggested they are built as a way to commemorate the completion of a special task.  Regardless, they were pretty interesting and there were a lot of them.

After walking for a while we settled in for a dish of ice cream and called our driver.  After getting back to town we rested a while and went to a small cafeteria next door for a light dinner…then to bed.