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 Food, Friends, Life, People, Spain, Tenerife, Travel, tagged Canary Islands, cooking, Food, football, gringo, Peru, Peruvian food, puddings, recipes, Red Square, South American, Spain, Tacaronte, Tenerife on June 19, 2008 | 2 Comments »
It’s 2.30pm on a hot Saturday afternoon and we’re sitting in a large shed at the bottom of someone’s garden in Tacaronte.
Our party of 7½ (Bea is only 5 years old) are seated in front of the corner bar. To our right, a long trestle table seats 20 or more people, predominantly women. Above our [...]
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Posted in Life, People, Spain, Tenerife, Travel, tagged Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain, crater, tropical, hiking, El Médano, naked, men, beach, walking, coastline, pinewoods, world's third largest volcano, Happy Feet, La Montaña Roja, buttocks, rock formations, coves, naturist beach on May 21, 2008 | 2 Comments »
Yesterday I was in the kite-boarders’ and wind-surfers’ paradise resort of El Médano and I’ve never seen so many naked men in one place.
That’s not to say they were wandering around the streets, nor even stretched out on the town’s main beach. No. I had to walk quite some distance to find them.
‘Walking’ and ‘hiking’ [...]
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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, Spain, Tenerife, Travel, tagged banana plantation, calima, Canary Islands, Echo and the Bunnymen, Echo and the Bunnymen in Tenerife, Ian McCulloch, in concert, Killing Moon, La Laguna University, Lips like Sugar, live, Mount Teide, music, rock, Spain, Tenerife on April 27, 2008 | No Comments »
You know it’s calima when… the temperature cranks up into the red zone, the sun turns white and Mount Teide disappears from the horizon to be replaced by a white veil behind which shapes ghost in and out.
You know it’s calima when… you’re woken at 6 am by the sound of the wind howling and [...]
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Posted in Life, Spain, Tenerife, Travel, tagged alfombristas, Attacus Atlas, butterfly, Canary Islands, caterpillar, cocoon, cornflower, Corpus Christi, flower carpets, Guardia Civil, Guinness Book of Records, Icod de los Vinos, La Orotava, lavender, mariposerio, metamorphosis, Monarch, primrose, religion, Renaissance, sand carpets, Spain, speeding, Tenerife on April 17, 2008 | No Comments »
It’s been a fleeting week for me. I don’t just mean in the way that time has a habit here of running away like water down a drain, I mean because I’ve been involved in things that fleet.
Firstly, we’ve been working on a feature about the flower carpets of La Orotava. On the feast [...]
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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, People, Puerto de la Cruz, Spain, Tenerife, Travel, tagged Tenerife, Puerto de la Cruz, spanish, garden, seasons, jasmine, freesia, perfume, smell, scent, sandals, spring, Playa Jardin, sunbeds, swallows, German, British, Easter, unbrellas, Canarios, Scarborough, spring tides, lifeguard, Daniel Craig, Lee Evans, Yankee Doodle Dandy on March 17, 2008 | No Comments »
As a visitor to Tenerife, you’re likely to discern only minor differences between your January and your June holiday. In January the backless dress you’ve been saving for your last Saturday night when the tan would be optimum may have to stay in the suitcase, or you may decide to wear it anyway and go [...]
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