Uno, dos, tres, whiskey...

The group slept in this morning because of the late night at the Pirata Fiesta. We walked to breakfast around 9:30 am and ate another meal. After breakfast, we all checked email and caught up on various work activities. Today is the day that we were to do our first presentation on the islands. We were instructed to be in conference around 11:15 for our introduction at noon. This gave us plenty of time to walk around and see a little more of the beach and the hotel (which is a 5 star hotel). Around 11:00, we walked down to the conference area and prepared ourselves for our first moment in the spotlight. Bert seemed very anxious as the time approached 11:30 and we were still not summoned to the auditorium. There was supposed to be a coffee break around 11:00 and then the conference would start back, begin with a presentation from the team that visited Greenville and then us. That didn’t happen. Instead the “island time” controlled the day and we finally got into the large room at 12. Marcos and the gang gave a wonderful speech and showed lots of pictures of the time they had in our district. We were called to the stage and faced a crowd of 200 people all anxious to hear us habla espanol. We began with an introduction from Arturo and he rambled for a little bit in true Ken Tucker fashion and took up the majority of our time. We began and everyone performed in perfect Spanish. My part of the presentation got a huge laugh…(for those of you who haven’t seen the presentation, I have a slide in my portion that shows the textile influence that our area has on the world with a large picture of Mr Milliken in the center…In the presentation, I make a comment about the man in the middle…pause for a little bit and say “mi jefe” This got a huge laugh from the group and then I continued to say that I had to put his picture in the presentation so that he would allow me to come to the Canaries…At this point, the room broke out in an ovation). As the presentation continued on, the newspaper photographers snapped tons of pictures and video taped us as we spoke. After we were finished, the district governor approached the stage and we presented him a few mementos in the name of the district and Rich Waugh and he said a few words and shook our hands. When we exited the stage, we were met outside by numerous people telling us how wonderful our presentation was and how happy they were to see it. I think we did pretty well for the first time. Side note: Everyone here has told us to not say cheese when we say pictures. For some reason, they think that it makes your face look funny in pictures. Our favorite one that we have been told this week - was taught to us by Eileen (Wolf's wife) - uno, dos, tres, whiskey...try it - it makes a better smile in pictures.
We headed home and changed clothes because we had to be back soon for our trip to the volcano. We got out of our formal clothes and changed into something more comfortable for our afternoon excursion. The team made the joint decision to walk along the beachside to the hotel. The beach (which is the same one where we were “baptized” earlier in the week…yes the one that I translated in a previous blog as the one where little clothes are worn) was beautiful and we stopped a number of times to take pictures of the sights.
The excursion began at 2 pm and there were a few stops on the way to the volcano. We stopped at the house of Benito Perez who was a famous author from the islands…inside was an art exhibition from Bambino, a local artist who ain’t no Picasso. We stayed for a few minutes and were off to the National Park Timanfaya where the Montanas del Fuego stands. We walked around to the entry way and our group huddles around a large circular area. The tour guide explained to us that we were standing on volcanic rock, at which point the guy dug down a few inches and pulled out a shovel full of rocks, walked around the circle and handed each of us a small sampling of the rocks. He told us to move them back and forth in our two hands…as soon as they touched our hands, we understood why…the temperature of the rocks was over 100 degrees and it burnt our hands if we didn’t move the rocks back and forth. Finally, they cooled down and we all put them in our pockets. Next we were led a little farther up the mountain to a hole. You could feel the heat rising from the hole and as we crowded around it, the guide dropped some brush from the area into the hole and it quickly caught on fire and rose up high into the air. We made the comment to the tour guide that the area looked completely barren and there was no greenery anywhere in sight. She told us that Neil Armstrong visited here some time ago and said that it was the closest thing on Earth that he had seen since he visited the moon.
The restaurant that sat on top of the hill overlooked the badlands and was called Restaurante del Diablo. We all sat down for lunch and learned that our food was going to be prepared over heat from the Volcano. We had a wonderful meal with a few appetizers and a huge plate of chicken and pork and beef and wine to drink (of course…I think we have all finally gotten used to the fact that we are served wine and water at every meal). The meal was amazing and the view was even better. After lunch, we headed back to the bus and drove down the very narrow roads into the lava river. The rock formations that had formed throughout the area were breathtaking and none of us could believe what we were seeing. We continued until we reached a church call Ermista da la Virgines de los Delores. The story goes that in the 18th century, the lava flowed from the mountains and continued for several years…Finally the lava began to flow towards one of the more settled villages and the residents were scared. The spirit of the Virgin Delores appeared and a town’s person took a crucifix at the urging of the spirit and placed in the road where the lava river split and avoided the time. The residents promised Delores that they would built a hermitage and the building was constructed. We walked around the area and heard the story and then loaded back on the bus. We ended our tour at the Winery – Bodega de Ramon Melian – where they are famous for Moscatel and Malvasin wines. We sampled some jamon (ham cut straight from a dried out leg of a pig) and goat cheese. Catherine, Carla, Tong and I stood around drinking the various wines while Chris and Bert went with Pepe for a tour of some of the wine vats. After the full stomachs from lunch and the winery, we loaded the bus and slept most of the way back to the hotel.
The cocktail party began at 9 pm and we had to be dressed and back at the conference center at 9 or so for the formal dinner. This was the closing ceremonies for the conference and was a big deal for all Rotarians. Catherine, Chris, Carla, Alfredo and I sat down with the President of the Rotary Club of Santa Cruz, who we will be visiting this coming week in Teneriefe while Tong and Bert sat at another table with Marcos and Merci and Wolfgang. The dinner started around 10:30 or so and was a great dinner except all of us have learned that we can only eat half of what they bring us. Dessert was served at midnight and we thought we could sneak out the back door because we had to catch a flight in the morning early. As we were planning our escape, the team was told by Arturo that we should stick around. A folkloric group began performing a traditional set of songs around 12:30 and more dessert was served at 12:45 along with café. Around 1 am, the band played a song that we had to get up and dance for that celebrated International Mothers Day. All the women received roses for the occasion. We all were dead tired at this point and wanted to go to bed. Most of us had still not packed our stuff for our trip out of town tomorrow. The evening was remarkable but went on way too long for our level of energy. After the closing of the conference, we all headed upstairs for our ride home. By the time we had climbed the stairs, we were summoned back downstairs to receive a gift from the District Governor. After the trip back down, we met with Juan Jesus and were thanked for everything and presented with books about the Canary Islands and a flag from the host city of Lanzarote. After a few handshakes and a few kisses on the cheeks, we said our goodbyes to all the wonderful people that we had met in Lanzarote and headed to our houses for the evening…around 2:30. On the way home, we found out we had to be out of the house at 8:30 am…