Inspire... » Spain

Fuerteventura

jordanrandall — Mon, 27 Aug 2007 21:09:55 +0000

Off the coast of Morocco and about 100 miles Southwest of the Sahara Desert, you will find the Canary Islands. My flight in was approximately 9:00 PM and what better place to be than geometrically centered on the zenith for a desert sunset. The phenomena of light scattering by particles of dust in the atmosphere from desert storms created some of the most intense orange and red spectra imaginable.

Once I arrived it was time for 7 days of kitesurfing, scuba diving, and a motocross action.

I stayed at the Melia Gorriones which is about 5 km from Costa Calma and less than 500 meters from the Rene Egli Pro kitesurfing center. Kitesurfing magazines rate this place as one of the top ten hot spots for kiting enthusiasts, and rightly so with its consistent 28 knots of wind perpendicularly offshore. ROCK!

The instructors were cool to hang with, the drinks weren’t bad, and the water temp was perfect. The only negative comment I could make is the price. For a private lesson of kitesurfing you have to pay some exorbanant amount close to 300 euros. Forget that! Unfortunately, I ate the cost to see if it was worth it… it’s not. As I said, the instructors are cool people to hang with but they suck at instructing. There just like any dude off the street who made kitesurfing their hobby. My instructor up and decided to kitesurf himself for the last hour of my 3 hour lesson… not much teaching going on from 10 feet in the air. Oh well, still a fun time.

The island itself is 90% desert with roughly 10 days of rain a year. It also has 3 or 4 volcanoes which we took the Suzuki 4-stroke enduros up the side. I had the bike wrapped out in 3rd gear trying to climb these enormous volcanic sand dunes and it just wasn’t haven it… kept sinking the back tire even though it had paddle tires.

The scuba diving wasn’t the great barrier reef in Australia, but the underwater volcanic remnants were also a site to see. Saw a few stingrays, human-sized grouper, and a manta ray (do not piss it off!).

People ask me if I would visit this place again and I tell them no. With 6 other islands to see in this volcanic origin of the Atlantic, I would rather take my chances on one of those or possibly visit Egypt instead… but nobody knows what the wind blows?!?

If your interested, I put a few more pictures from Fuerteventura here

Running with the bulls

jordanrandall — Tue, 24 Jul 2007 00:17:50 +0000

There is no time better to convene with scores of kindred spirits in the legendary running of the bulls, and muster up enough courage (possibly insanity) to join them down the narrow streets of Pamplona.

Pamplona, Spain in July: Thousands of drunken gringos, thick with morning due, cobblestone streets and, at times, 12 seriously pissed off bulls. And if you’re lucky enough, there’s no better place to be than smack dab in the middle!

See If you can guess (before watching) who said the following quotes: “Were talkin bout 6000 pounds of bull coming right down some Texas a$$”, or “Don’t uh, Don’t wanna be on the outside of that bad boy”, or “We are smack bang in the middle of hell” and finally “absolute carnage”.

Hola mi amigos! Madrid or Bust

jordanrandall — Mon, 04 Dec 2006 12:12:42 +0000

Madrid was fantastic! If you think Brian Spears is the most likely to be seen at the bars on 6th Street, then you have another thing coming. My roommate Jaime tops the charts! Jaime is an AE from Spain who is in Italy right now for training. Jaime tried to warn me about how much people like to party in Spain, but he didn’t tell me that every square mile of that city is filled with the bar scene. Let me just put it into perspective… If you take the party scene on 6th street from Buffalo Billiards to Esters follies and extend from 35 to Mopac, rotate it 180 degrees, and keep it open till 7:30 am… THEN you might be able to fathom what this place looks like. Usually, (from what I’ve heard but not experienced) you can have a drink at each bar on 6th street in a single night. Whereas if you tried that in Madrid, I’m afraid you would never see the light of day again.

Well, overall I would definitely rank this place as one of my favorites for atmosphere but not even close to Italy in Cuisine.

Here is a picture of downtown when I arrived Friday night. Almost every single street already has all of its Christmas lights up.

Here is the motorcycle I rented while I was in Madrid. Haha, j/j some restaurant had it parked out front.

During the day I had a chance to see the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia and the Museo del Prado. They had paintings from numerous artists including Pablo Picasso, Salvador Dali,…, well actually that is all I remember. If your interested here is a picture of the museum, unfortunately no pictures could be taken inside… Sorry to all the art history buffs

A few other bar scene photos… these are some random friends I met up with from Australia, the UK, USA, and Spain. I have a few videos from that night that are hilarious!

And last but not least, I’m afraid the civil engineers for the underground in Spain have something against tall people, That or nobody in Spain is taller than 6 feet. Almost every subway station I went to was approximately 6 inches too short!