Posted in Food, Friends, Life, Party, People, Puerto de la Cruz, Spain, Tenerife, Travel, fiestas, tagged banana plantation, beer, Botanical Gardens, calf strain, Embarkation Tuesday, golf course, hiking, July Fiestas, La Paz, Las Cañades, Latino, Puerto de la Cruz, Sardinada, Teide National Park, volcano on July 23, 2008 | 1 Comment »
Those blessed with powers of observation will have noticed that there’s been blog silence here for a couple of weeks.
That’s because we’ve had our 19 year old nephew staying with us and he’s 24/7 maintenance. From the moment he drags himself from his pit at the crack of 10 am to his self-imposed curfew at [...]
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Posted in Life, Party, Spain, Tenerife, Travel, fiestas, tagged "Los Realejos", air bombs, battle, Canary Islands, candles, Catholic, church, colour, comets, conquest, cross, crucifix, Europe, explosions, fairy dust, Fiestas of the Cross, fire, fireworks, flowers, gold, gunpowder, incense, jewelled, mañana culture, night, pyrotechnics, religion, Spain, spectacular, Tenerife on May 8, 2008 | No Comments »
The opening shot across the bow comes with an ear-splitting explosion out of which a magnificent glistening gold crucifix forms and hangs in the firmament above the church square. The crowd draws its breath in a gasp and the fading crucifix is replaced by a fiery row of red and silver fountains above which barrages [...]
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Posted in Life, Party, People, Spain, Tenerife, Travel, fiestas, tagged Tenerife, Canary Islands, Puerto de la Cruz, salsa, Spain, tropical, music, hip-hop, live, Orishas, Cuban, band, paragliders, paramotors, "Socorro Beach", festival, May, skies, cliffs, colourful, "extreme sports", parachutist, Latino, "Los Realejos", "Flypa 08", concert, hat, Yotuel, Ruzzo, "Hip Hop Conga", Amy Winehouse, Scissor Sisters, Rehab, I don't feel like dancin, Castro, Glastonbury, diabolos, black sand beaches, ribbon dancing on May 6, 2008 | No Comments »
In the unlikely setting of a basketball court in Los Realejos Bajo on Friday night the Cuban hip hop band ‘Orishas’ took to the stage in an atmosphere of euphoria, and not until they’d gone through their entire repertoire would they leave. Even then, they were still thanking the audience and promising to return as [...]
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Posted in Life, Party, People, Puerto de la Cruz, Spain, Tenerife, Travel, fiestas, tagged aerial ballet, breakdancing, fairies, high wire, hip-hop, living statues, mime, Mueca Festival 2008, Plaza del Charco, Puerto de la Cruz, R & B, robots, Simon Says, street acts, Tenerife on April 8, 2008 | No Comments »
It’s a hot day. At the pharmacy the neon green sign is alternating between 11.20am and 28 °. Down at the harbour a small stage is in full sun. Stacks of speakers are vibrating to the rhythms of R & B and hip-hop that resonate around the little plaza, setting the heat haze to sound.
At [...]
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Posted in Life, People, Spain, Tenerife, Travel, fiestas, tagged Brotherhood, Canary Islands, chains, Chinese lantern, dark, Dickensian, Easter, full moon, Good Friday, hooded, hoods, La Concepcion, La Laguna, Magna Procession, religion, silence, Silent Procession, Spain, Tenerife, torch bearers on March 24, 2008 | 1 Comment »
I kept wishing I’d worn the scarf Aunty Barbara bought me for Christmas.
Less than a week ago I’d been stretched out on Playa Jardín, turning intermittently like a chicken on a spit. Now I had my collar turned as high as it would go and my ears hadn’t been this cold since I spent an [...]
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Posted in Life, Party, People, Puerto de la Cruz, Spain, Tenerife, Travel, fiestas, tagged Tenerife, Canary Islands, Puerto de la Cruz, salsa, Party, High heels Marathon, Carnaval 2008, fiesta, drag queens, false eyelashes, wigs, drinking, Arehucas rum, Lupita, Marge Simpson, Miss World, obstacle race, pantomime, Dorada on February 9, 2008 | No Comments »
From barrels at either side of the stage, draught Dorada is being dispensed in small plastic glasses and disorderly queues are forming. In the mêlée, there are several minor casualties; two wigs, a bedside cabinet whose contents are spilling from its drawers, a fortune-teller’s headscarf and a false nail. When everyone’s got a least one [...]
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Posted in Life, Party, People, Puerto de la Cruz, Spain, Tenerife, Travel, fiestas, tagged Canary Islands, Carnaval, costumes, fancy dress, opening night party, Party, Puerto de la Cruz, Spain, Tenerife on February 3, 2008 | 2 Comments »
The fluorescent red grass-skirt did its very best to save the night. I don’t quite know where it came from. I found it in the dressing-up box and I have a vague recollection of someone in our party acquiring it last year but I can’t quite remember who…or why.
It’s 10pm on Carnaval’s opening night and, [...]
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Posted in Party, Puerto de la Cruz, Spain, Tenerife, fiestas, tagged Barcelona, Boho, Canary Islands, Carnaval, Castillo San Felipe, Corpse Bride, fancy dress, fear, Folies Bergère, Halloween, mosquito net, Paris in the 1920s, Plaza Charco, Puerto de la Cruz, Rome, Spain, Tenerife on January 28, 2008 | 1 Comment »
It’s the clothes crisis to end all clothes crises; the one where my anguished cry of “I’ve got nothing to wear!” is more founded that at any other time of the year.
It’s the clothes crisis that has me eyeing up the bedroom curtains sideways while my mind concocts some vision of me looking like Cleopatra [...]
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Posted in Food, Life, Party, People, Puerto de la Cruz, Spain, Tenerife, Travel, fiestas, tagged cava, dancing, fireworks, good luck, grapes, knickers, La Villa shopping centre, live band, music, New Year's Eve, Party, Puerto de la Cruz, red, Spain, Tenerife, underwear on January 7, 2008 | 1 Comment »
The Cava’s chilling in the fridge; the grapes have been de-seeded and wrapped in small foil bundles; the picnic cool bag has been rescued from the garden shed and its plastic wine glasses rinsed and, most importantly of all, I’m wearing my new red knickers.
New Year’s Eve is a complicated business in this part of [...]
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Posted in Life, Spain, Tenerife, Travel, fiestas, tagged Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain, Alice in Wonderland, Los Silos, International storytelling festival, festival internacional del Cuento, fairytales, goblins, princesses, spiders, story books, wendy house, tales, storytelling, stories, Dr Ernesto Abad, magic on December 12, 2007 | 2 Comments »
She stands beneath the web, seemingly oblivious to its occupant whose legs could reach around her small waist twice should it choose to move closer. In front of her, a man in a white coat with a stethoscope draped around his neck is playing with a syringe the diameter of a toilet roll. The girl [...]
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