on the moon, Asparagus and a dog

Woke up today before the sun and watched the sun rise for a bit and had a simple but good breakfast, good bread, good cheese, good scrambled eggs, bad orange juice... soon we began walking, first the 1k to town to collect Amit from his musty windowless room. we waited for Amit for a while and Moti decided to go up the hill alone and wait for us at the 1st junction. he had road instructions, but managed to get lost a bit. we tracked him down and soon began a steep climb . 2.4 k in 1 hour and 10 minutes of muscle working extra hard. the next 4k were mostly up hill but more mild and easier this is a pine forest with patches of flowers, mostly yellow and glimpses of the peaks above. morning had bright blue skies, but as the day progressed, clouds set in. there was a cold breeze but with the clouds came very unique warm air, the cold and hot interchanged to result in great walking weather.

we reached the views of the Paisaje Lunar and were not overwhelmed by them. we snacked a bit and descended closer. then i continued alone and reached the surface of the moon, nice but not Brice canyon. 

two families traveled together, with kids and a dog on this not so easy trail and reached the moon surface with me. this is a protected area but one of them went on it, slid, and his marks can be visibly seen, the dog also went on the moon , but left no marks at least. i left the loud Russian family and hope the moon will survive. I collected the two resting people and now it was mostly down hill, 4k of gentle slope and 2.4 steep down hill, much faster pace on the way down, then in town we need to go again up and up as the hotel is at the far end, and way way up. 

i stayed with Amit for lunch and tried to be good and ordered Asparagus. in my world, Asparagus, is green and served hot. here is was alien white, tentaclky, cold and blah... couldn't touch it. lucky we had some bread and potatoes.

in the hotel after a life saving shower we had to haggle for dinner. this is a good hotel, but today they have a special event, with 2 astronomers and a special dinner- only 1 choice... no order from a menu. i looked at the options and was horrified. pork, salmon tartar, caviar , avocado - all the things i avoid like wildfire. i managed to have my pork changed to a fish. Moti did the sam and amit will get lasagna. all this ordering is done in advance of the meal. we go to dinner in 30 minutes... 

tomorrow , we leave one behind to rest and plan to take a bus to teide park and do an easy 15k flat hike along the crater wall

cheers from covered in cloud VillaFlor (not good for an upcoming astronomy show)