High On A Volcano. . .

In 1994 my wife and I spent a week on Tenerife and La Gomera in the Canary Islands to recharge the batteries and change the scenery. One day we drove up (way up, about 9000 feet in altitude from the beachfront hotel we were staying in) to the area around the volcano, still active, name El Tiede which crowns the western end of the island of Tenerife. We left the car by the road and hiked up the pumice fields until we got to the base of the last fairly steep part that went up to the summit. Given the time of day we didn't go any higher, but already there were beautiful views in all directions. . .

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I don't mean to be morbid or anything, but way up high on the slopes of that volcano, we came across the hindquarter of some once bushy tailed canine creature that had come to rest there. God only knows how it got so high on a mountain like that, I remember imagining that some large bird of prey had carried it up there. And in all those vast spaces of lava flows and pumice fields, how we managed to stumble on these remains shall remain one of life's little mysteries.

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