Holiday Snaps: Loro Parque, Tenerife

Tripping to another island

The day trip to Tenerife is now a constant feature of my holidays to Gran Canaria where I have the choice of visiting Loro Parque or just doing a tour of the island.

The port of Santa Cruz de Tenerife is just a 70 minute boat ride from Puerto de las Nieves on the north-eastern coast of Gran Canaria, but this all takes a lot out of you.

I felt going to Loro Parque was essential especially for my friend who was having his first package holiday at a seaside resort. At least to prove the point that there was more besides sun, sea, sand and sometimes sex.

We had already visited Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, the capital city of the island of Gran Canaria and between fable, legend and truth, gone to the Christopher Columbus house purportedly resided in, which is now a museum. The view is that most trips to the New World as it then known passed through the Canary Islands.

Off to Tenerife

For Tenerife, we got a wake-up call at 5:15AM having been out most of the night, we were somnambulists for the hours that followed. Though we had planned for an early breakfast at 5:30AM, we had no stomach for such.

The shuttle bus to take us to the port arrived around 6:20AM and the sooner that I got in my seat, I attempted a half slumber and for the journey between Playa del Inglés and the Las Palmas, the chaperone allowed us some peace to catch some shut-eye.

I noticed a few changes to the scheduling, the trip was better planned, we were given hints to what shows to see and the best order to maximise the usage of our time at Loro Parque. The ferry was an hour earlier and it also meant we returned in enough time to make dinner back at the hotel.

Our chaperone was a chatterbox extraordinaire, he switched between 4 languages with ease and repeated his advice in as many ways possible that the stupid would be highly enlightened, yet there were times I wished I had travelled with my ear plugs, for I was on the verge of telling him shut up for a nanosecond and give our eardrums a rest from the din.

The shows

The sea was calm, the journey easy and we were at Loro Parque just before 11:00AM, and we made for Orca World where we were to see killer whales in performance. Though the show as to start at 11:30, the arena was quite full some 15 minutes to the start.

The orca whale is really not a whale, it is a dolphin and yet apex predators. These creatures are huge and could measure up to 6 metres long.

The handlers do not get in the water with the orcas as they do with the dolphins that are much smaller or even the lion seals.

Though Loro Parque was created for parrots, parakeets, cockatoos and birds of that family group, it is essentially a zoo, but one of significance for the rarity of the animals, their conservation efforts and the documentation that accompanies their exhibits.

And then

We attended the orca and dolphin shows, but decidedly missed the sea lion show, at the dolphin show, I learnt something new, how to determine the sex of dolphins and what to do if I encounter a beached or stranded dolphin.

The service at the publicised restaurant for which we had vouchers for a discounted price for a set meal was perfunctory to the point of almost appalling.

The waiters at Patio del Loro looked like if they smiled they might have a terminal cardiac arrest, even I could not wish a smile for them, lest it became an emergency. I left a tip, well the tip was, please find ways to smile. As for the bill, it was not a penny more and not a penny less than what the bill said.

Much as literally every venue in Spain displays the WiFi free logo, nothing is as annoying as to find that the service is poor to the point that you could not connect. My view was that Loro Parque did not add enough capacity to handle the crowds that throng the place. I would rather they did not have the service than have signs everywhere and yet not deliver.

Holiday Snap: A granny for a penny

Getting busy doing holiday

Coming into our fourth day of holiday, we have been taking things quite easy, but it is about to get a bit frenetic.

There are many things I would like us to do, but the shortness of this break means we have to choose what to do and what to leave to another time.

Already, we have been booked to go to Tenerife which is a 70 minute boat ride from Puerto de las Nieves on the north-eastern coast of Gran Canaria, this is to go to Loro Parque and what a long day it would be. The bus picks us up at 6:10AM.

For a pound and more, these fakes

Meanwhile, we have concentrated on Playa del Ingles, a walk up to Yumbo Centre where the shops stock imitations and counterfeits of brands names made to look like original and properly sourced products with such sweet-talking merchants who would at a whim sell their grandmothers at a discount if it would leave them with a coin of currency richer.

On Saturday, we went to Maspalomas and walked some 3 kilometres up the promenade from the lighthouse to Meloneras where the competition from the somewhat isolated restaurants was brisk and almost aggressive.

Food cooked with calumny

In a stretch of hardly 100 metres we were accosted by waiters selling their fare so well by disparaging their competition. Our hands were filled with restaurant business cards that by the time we reached the end of the promenade, the last card handler quipped that the cards of the other restaurants were bigger, but in his restaurant, the plates of food are bigger, the quality fresher and much else.

It was all too much for me, I hate having food forced down my throat and most especially bargain food. When we turned round to walk back, I could not run the gauntlet of that crowd again, we walked that part in front of the restaurants on the beach. Phew!

Then Sunday, we headed for the beach negotiating the dunes following the red-marked pillars. It takes just about 30 minutes to make it to the beach from our hotel. For the very first time, I did get my feet wet in the sea, I might get more wet next time.

Holiday Snaps: A haul of perfidy

Getting sorted

We finally broke away and the holiday we had been preparing for arrived just in time. It was quite a struggle of persuasion with guile to get my good friend of 30 years to agree that we need to spend some quality time together away.

Something substantial beyond the times snatched on the phone or when we met up for short meals whenever our paths crossed in London.

Reticence and reluctance is what I have to tackle as hurdles and this time I had the full force of the elements as I wanted us to go away for two weeks to one of my haunts that I had spent 100 days at, a place where at the reception, I am welcomed, “Mr Akintayo, welcome to your second home.”

And finally

I had not been since December 2010 and I was quite looking forward to it, my friend however, was wishing I had forgotten or some other circumstance would crop up that it would never happen.

At best, he wanted to go away for a week, at worst, a week’s holiday for me was no holiday that in the end, I booked 11 nights, and yet, I almost did not hear the last of it because 10 days was the halfway point, as if you could go away from 10 and a half nights, anyway, this is for the record, because, it would be referenced when next I need to tackle reticence and reluctance towards getting away.

A pedantic inconvenience

He arrived from London, we had a quick meal at my apartment and they made off to the airport. Though he would not believe it, I do suffer a few privations when I go on holiday alone, but when with company, I try to ensure there is nothing, if anything to complain about.

We first encountered the facetiousness of a Thomson Holidays check-in clerk who was particular about my hand baggage weighing 6.8kg when it should according her be just 5kg, we lightened my hand baggage by transferring some things into my friend’s luggage.

I later did a search on the baggage restrictions of Thomson Holidays and found that the weight restriction applies to checked-in baggage, but it is dimensions that applies to hand luggage. If there is a rule, it is unwritten, but enforced under duress at a point where one does not have the means to argue the case with evidence. I was not pleased.

Through not thorough

We fast-tracked through security, though I noticed there was no rigorous border checks either on our way out in Manchester or at our point of entry at Las Palmas de Gran Canaria airport.

Not that our fast-track was anything like it, two families with kids ahead of us were as disorganised as you could have a troop of people that the normal paced security checks seemed to go through briskly.

Then we settled in the airport lounge for the less than two-hour wait for boarding. Though boarding seemed to happen on time, we were held at the gate for another 20 minutes and it was 30 minutes beyond schedule before we took off.

A haul of perfidy

The safety announcement appeared on the screens on the backs of the seats we faced, it was a girl probably lip-syncing the safety instructions with other kids demonstrating all the safety procedures. It was funny, entertaining and well, serious too.

The screens then returned to a repeating cycle of holiday offers besides which we suffered sensory deprivation for almost 4 hours unsure of where we were, how much long our flight was or if there was anything to observe even if it was a night flight.

When I asked the air hostess about getting some entertainment on my screen, she said it was not a service offered on their short-haul flights.

Now, that threw me because a typical film would run for two hours or thereabouts, the flight from Manchester to Las Palmas de Gran Canaria was of a 4 hour 10 minute duration.

Checking Wikipedia for the skinny on flight lengths, short-haul flights last less than 3 hours, medium-haul flights up to 6 hours, long-haul up to 12 hours and ultra-long-haul flights are over 12 hours.

Then the definition becomes obfuscated that a short-haul flight can be limited to 500 miles (800 kilometres) or for UK Treasury purposes, it is an absolute flight distance of under 2000 miles (3600 kilometres).

Then, I realise the subtle technicality that Thomson Holidays has liberally adopted for the purpose of passing off the required Air Passenger Duty £138 per passenger as a discount amongst other things. The distance from Manchester to Las Palmas de Gran Canaria is just 1,877 miles (3379 mile). The travesty and perfidy of it all.

Yet more time

I had arranged to be picked up from the airport rather than take the Thomson Holidays shuttle service which from past experience has me delivered to my hotel last, after travelling round Maspalomas and Playa del Ingles discovering where all the luxury hotels were.

Yet, it took well over an hour for our luggage to hit the conveyor belt because we arrived when luggage handling shifts changeover, something I thought could be better managed with an overlap so as not to inconvenience passengers at the end of a long flight that kept them at the airport beyond 1:00AM.

We got to our hotel just before the crowds arrived, were booked in and basically, the holiday has begun.

Rest, relax, rejuvenate and recuperate.

Holiday Snaps: The message to kids about the times

A mind on the run

Wandering thoughts as the mayhem and noise around you gets blanked out for the mind to consider, contemplate, ruminate and meditate.

Between the madness of the outrageous to that goodness of the sublime pictures and scenarios are created, analysed and discarded one thought jumping to another without any sense of how they link up.

Cleaning up with English

The sign I saw, “Need? Clean you house, #”, got me thinking about how English can be so forgiving that we almost fully understand what is intended. This was no doubt a collision of Spanish and German aspiring to a global audience.

A little help from an English friend would have cleared out your house not leaving a speck of dust and the malapropisms that accompany describing a mess. “Do you need to clean your house?” or “House Cleaner Needed?” for brevity and directness, but everyone seems to have the notion of being better users of English than they really are.

Just because their command of English is better than your fluency in their language does not automatically mean their command of English is of the quality that allows for publication of good notices, it only means you can both communicate, even if barely so.

From David to everything else

Children; sons and daughters; their parents and the interactions but it never ceases to amaze me the resemblances I notice seeing that visage of the father or the eyes of the mother, evidence without the need for intrusive testing.

Michelangelo’s David is probably the most perfect specimen of how a man should look; the excess of lipid tissue or muscle just does not enhance the appreciation of that bearing.

When a child begins to take on features that prognosticate a future of obesity, there is need to worry why we do not allow kids to work themselves out a bit and keep fit for the sake that it would be good for them as much as it would be good for the parents. However, in the absence of good example the future might be bleak.

At breakfast, it was not the three musketeers but musculars if that word might be permitted, just this once. Walking with arms almost akimbo not because they have taken that pose but the gym has seen too many visits that the muscles have become a deformity. Muscle Marys, they are called and they are – Oh! Not so David, trust me.

Hard times for tough people

The times are tough, hard and difficult, more businesses have closed, bars have notices that have hung there for months and there have been no takers.

The ones that have stayed open to the high season are having brisk business, in the years since I wrote the blog about settling in Gran Canaria things have changed and people have had to adapt to the situation and circumstances.

I braved the carterista (pick-pocket in Spanish) shops for a cable and was pleasantly surprised at being offered the cable at 33% less the price tag without having even seen the price, maybe lessons have been learnt that we would go elsewhere than be fleeced.

As for the chap who has been frazzled by the warmth of Canarian sunshine that he is planning to settle here, if you can survive these times, you will definitely live here a long time.

I must spare a thought for those who gave up everything for the hard life in the sun with the hope that they will retire here and had to make the very difficult decision of closing shop, the brave and courageous fight to avoid failure in which they might have lost homes too, returning to their lands of origin hopefully plotting a return – these have been really hard times and everyone knows that.

A Vampire Mocca Grande with Bloody Cream

Too early to last minute

My nocturnal habits must be getting the better of me, the cuckoo will pop-out announcing the unholy hour of three in two minutes and I am sat at an airport departure lounge. Madness!

That is the problem, without the anxiety in preparation for travel in the way, I could well be awake at home now, ready to juggle 4 balls balancing on a unicycle playing a harmonica as if I have just returned from Nashville.

It was all last minute preparations and that was fine because if things had been planned earlier the snow would have kept me for days in some airport terminal unsure of when I would depart whilst I am being fed something between encouragement and discouragement but no truth about the state of things, being in the Netherlands, someone might just have the Dutch courage to spill the beans and face an irate mob.

Disconnected voyages

I had hoped that was what travel agents were for when I planned to visit Gran Canaria and Boa Vista, the latter is one of the Cape Verde Islands - a good swim south of the Canaries when I was told I would have to return to Portugal to get out there – for a few hundred kilometres I was to traverse almost 7,000? Incredible!

So I stuck with the familiar, the known, the usual, the regular and the used-to – Gran Canaria it was for 11 days, the sun having set on the 29^th of December and I was not spending the New Year in the Netherlands.

The travel agents never have an easy task of my simple requirements, they had to phone up the chain and out of the loop to get things sorted, things that take 5 days of inefficient pussy-footing had to be resolved within 12 hours or my lightened wallet that had vomited into their coffers will be retrieving every single Euro cent-ime.

I was not doing alternatives, not that I am that particular but then the things that need be done, just need be done the way one wants them done, which is hardly demanding; it stress tests their procedures and highlights flaws in their system.

Surely, a stopover in the Canaries on the way to Cape Verde Islands is a no-brainer.

Weigh me, weigh me goods

In any case, I am flying charter, which is unusual and that is why we are up this early to catch the worm, the complete package had to be picked up at the airport before check-in; allowing for time, I had a taxi pick me up and a van arrived, I sat in the front and when we got to the entrance, it had been blocked off that it required a 100 metre walk to another door.

The check-in was smooth, 21.9 kilograms my baggage weighed, that was me travelling rather light, I have lugged a good 30 kilograms through the system before which loyalties allow but there was a time I had to do excess baggage; the humiliation of having your wares tossed around until you have coughed up those outrageous charges.

I would that we were weighed along with our baggage and surely a good few of us would have our flights paid for in luxury class just by redistribution and compensation, it would eventually come to that and I had better have shares in the gym business.

So tame but very lame

It was too early to exercise priority access through Customs that had set up the shortest conveyor belt they could find, probably because people travelling at that time were not on some business trip.

The strip-tease complete and cane through the system, I sauntered through leaning on everything I could, a sudden weakness seems to overcome me at those times, I am most needing of help and assistance, my cane brought to me immediately and every request to move on is a major chore.

At least it is not Heathrow, after taking off your shoes you might be asked to take off your pants too, the other Christmas someone had contraband or was it fireworks attached to the most sacred crown jewels; I quiver and shudder.

By pants, for clarity sake, I might have used Americanisms at the beginning of the blog but the pants I meant are not your trousers.

I still have not come across those full body scanners, I have nothing to fear though, the myth lives and please keep your thoughts pure. Thank you.

Just after Customs, some people had rated their performance at an average of 8.6, the multi-colour touch screen was irresistible in its draw as my finger found the score of 7; it did not however budge the average, annoyingly, but it gave me much satisfaction.

Free to post

It would appear having fleeced us for more than is necessary to get online the airport is giving us an hour of free WiFi connectivity, the given in most airport lounges except when in Spain – they get all that tourism and still would charge for the air we breathe – shame on them.

I think I have decided to use my allocation in quarters; there should be 45 minutes left of which 15 should help post this then because it is only 3:45 AM, I should go to Starbucks and get a Vampire Mocca Grande with bloody cream because it is that time of the day.

Another hour to boarding as I think of the sun caressing my ebony … sorry, that was a line for my X-rated story.

Holiday Snaps: Holiday ends

July should find other places

And so the day came to pack my bags and return home after 17 days away. I cannot say July is the best time to visit Gran Canaria, it is hot, can be humid and many of the locals have gone on holiday.

I cannot say I was much enamoured by the holiday crowd either, things were strange, bizarre, incredible and quite unfunny at times nothing like the people you see in over Christmas and the New Year or in May. I had to deal with animated squeals of negrito, negrito caught between disgust, annoyance and amusement.

I have also been on the island in June, August and September, I think I like May and the turn of the year is usually running away from the cold of Northern Europe.

Almost a disconnect

My pickup arrived on time and the drive to the airport was without event, I was next in the queue and after check-in I settled in the lounge waiting for boarding.

There was a delay to boarding; it took the best part of one hour, with a stop-over in Madrid there was the risk of not making the connection to Amsterdam or having to run for the plane with the danger of my baggage following a lot longer after.

There was only 10 minutes to spare before boarding when I arrived in Madrid and I was already mentally prepared for a night at the airline’s expense in Madrid if things did not link up but the airport crew strike in France meant my connecting flight would also leave late.

Not caught speeding

The flight still took off just 5 minutes later and watching the flight tracking system on the monitor we reached the cruising height of almost 28,000ft but never made 1,000 km/hour, I had my camera ready to take the picture of that but the highest land speed we reached was 998 km/hour before we began descent and the feeling was strange to noticed the reduction in speed to just over 700 km/hour and the to think you’ll never be allowed to do 298 km/hour on land itself except in special circumstances or on high-speed trains.

We arrived in Amsterdam on time where it was 22° Celsius at 22:40 hours, not much different from where I had departed earlier in the day.

Truly home

My good friend came to collect me saving me the struggle of hauling my 30kg of baggage back home. Now to sort out the leakage on my boiler, holiday sometimes takes you from of thinking about these things, but for every journey away there is that home is really sweet home.

In response to the question that came on up on my Facebook page about where that home is, well, it is not in Nigeria, it is in Holland, my heart is in Europe even if my mind does do a lot of thinking about Nigeria not to say that I feel like an Englishman – there is no point pretending the association back then amounted to acceptance, we were singled out as foreigners no matter how hard we tried to adapt to being like our people.

Holiday Snaps: It is hot in Las Palmas

Formula 1 bus travel

I have always loved visiting Las Palmas the capital of the island of Gran Canaria. In fact, it is known in full as Las Palmas de Gran Canaria and it has that dreamy feel of paradise not too far from home and a wonderful experience.

From Playa del Inglés it is just an hour by bus, buses driven as if Fernando Alonso is at the wheel, you must brace yourselves, but it is nothing like plying the swivelling helter-skelter route to Puerto de Mogan to the West of Playa del Inglés.

The English Cut

I have visited a few museums including the Christopher Columbus residences on other visits but the shopping experience at El Corte Inglés translates to English cut is quite good fun, it is big, basically the Harrods of Spain on 6 floors in 2 buildings with a major road between them.

The driver was kind enough to let me out before the Santa Catalina bus station at the long-wait traffic lights at the junction to the road that leads up to El Corte Inglés.

There is no doubt that I feel quite safe shopping there than any of the other shops down in Playa del Inglés, something about prices being in plain view without the hanky-panky of less-than-scrupulous shopkeepers give a sense of safety and security.

Stripping Spanish notepads

I was able to look for a camera and also get Miquelrius notepads which I have not obtained anywhere else, I am not a Moleskin fan at all, Miquelrius, a Spanish firm just has that right feel about them. It has saved me a trip to Barcelona again, I have wondered how to get the notepads especially when the specific type I bought in November 2007 is no more available – the pictures on the website did not convey as well as sight and touch afforded me today.

The Spaniards never expected to meet the Netherlands at the World Cup finals, they seem to have catered for country strips of all the big footballing nations as France (deplorable), Italy (disappointing), Argentina (overwhelmed), Brazil (expendable), England (unfortunate) and Germany (promising) apart from our Netherlands (excellent). Well, Spain was all over the place with every kind of brand, I just could not think of spending EUR 80- on a polo shirt.

For that slight however, I expect Spain to be punished with the relentless dominance of total football by the Netherlands tomorrow, the little shop outside El Corte Inglés was doing orange t-shirts for a pittance, it was not hard to dip my hands in my pockets for one.

Restaurants closed for a nap

Then a walk up to Santa Catalina to Le Muelle the shopping mall of affordables, if one might put it that way, and how I had forgotten that Spanish restaurants do have breaks during the late afternoons that I had to make do with a snack.

The Port of Las Palmas is quite a busy place, with heaps of containers with supplies for the whole island, though I do wonder why when translated signs are put up no one cares to consult native speakers to ensure the English signs are correct. Oh! I forgot; if the British Center (sic) was anything to go by, I have to forgive all the Spanish mistakes, now, that leaves one rather irked if those whose mother-tongue it is, fail to conform to correct usage.

With it being about 30° Celsius beyond the shade, it is no time to walk along the northern beach promenade, just viewing the city from this high level, the fourth, should suffice as I wait to catch the bus 30 back to Playa del Inglés again.

I believe I will pay another visit here before I return home in just about 11 days'.

Holiday Snaps: Spanish flight of business

Haunts of times past

Walking up the arterial road Avenida de Tirajana is sometimes a spectacle, my hotel sits at the very bottom of the avenue at a roundabout that splays out into a T-junction which is part of Avenida de Gran Canaria; a ring-road that is probably the longest named street on the island.

Anytime I have missed breakfast which ends at 10:30AM I have walked up to Moby’s Restaurant where a Barbara Windsor-like matron serves with all concern and friendliness a good English breakfast with all the trappings apart from the dreadful black pudding.

Economic tombstones

In the last few days, I had the feeling the business was no more, so today, I walked up to satisfy my curiosity and yes, the restaurant space was up for rent, possibly a casualty of the Spanish flight of business confidence.

A few yards, I am thinking English today; yards before the restaurant, just before my hotel found the wisdom of having wireless access as a free service in the lobby, there was Café Punto, an internet café run by a gay French couple with full unrestricted access, delicious Spanish coffees and good chatter.

Again, the dreams of settling in the sunny climes of Gran Canaria seem to have been dashed by the economic downturn – the shop is up for rent too. Dino's little patio Tapas bar is still running though.

The tsunamis of misfortune

Whilst sometimes the business model might be responsible for the failure of many businesses, one sometimes has to take account of circumstances where the entrepreneurs might have done everything right but were overrun by extenuating circumstances well beyond their control.

Many other restaurants and services had become ghosts of what they had once been, premises gutted and For Rent signs hanging on the doors or glass panes that would not be like rich pickings for anyone who thinks there is an advantage to be had.

The desperate situation leaves me scared of entering any shop to purchase a camera, having once branded the traders carteristas (pick-pockets) in the good times, there is no telling how worse the experience might have become.

With sloppy Brits forgive the Spanish

As I got to the Yumbo Centre, I saw a big sign for The British Center and I made for the place to ascertain its authenticity. Well, it could not have been authentic by any stretch of the imagination if Centre were spelt in the American variant of English.

Then, it was not where it was supposed to be, it just was not there, maybe no one could pay to bring the big sign down. Whereas I had eaten pork pies in my mind long before I got there, a mirage it was like an oasis to the thirsty in the desert.

Fund Grube, the pseudo-luxury shopping chain of Gran Canaria could be forgiven for having signs reading, “We are on sale” when what I think they meant “We have a sale on”. If the Brits could not get their signs right I suppose you can forgive the Spanish for getting their contexts wrong.

Hotel life: Forks at the ready

Not half a bun fight

He needs a napkin, he had just been hit in the face with a toffee bun and it’s all over his nose. It did not take long as a family arrived and all one would hear from the raucous voice of the alpha male was that it cost a lot of money.

We know, but we do not stay as guests in this hotel to scream about cost, the situation is understated and the appearance is sophisticated, when one needs to speak, a modicum of decorum is not out of place.

However, speaking with ones mouth full is just beyond the pale, we endured it throughout dinner but that just opened our eyes to other misdemeanours that had been overlooked all the while.

Sword fights on a plate

The use of cutlery is as revealing as you would get it from not knowing how to use the placements from the entree to the plat principal to usages that were the cross between fencing and a sword fight with Robin Hood.

Metal to plate like a black smith working on a anvil, the deafening cacophony was arranged like a symphony for the deranged, but when sound comes from the armour on the clattering white horses galloping on the red hills of the buccal cavity, have your smelling salts handy.

I would give it no more airing but being present and having presence are attributes of breeding and nurture that the ability to afford cannot bestow on the present.

A brick house indeed

Full-bodied, that was not the wine but she who should not keep you abreast of events lest you be smothered – if she had a profession, she probably would be a soprano, she had the volume in all the senses of that word in opera to make her presence felt on stage and in your hearing.

Alas, that might not be the case for her couturier accentuated what should not have been accentuated and eliminated what should have been made the more prominent.

If your chairs have arms, your elbows should really not be on the table, not that they should ever be there except in arm wrestling, I need some air or maybe one is just being earnestly facetious.

Voyage to the land of the friendly volcano

Tenerife Classica

Yesterday, I went on my third tour to the Canarian island of Tenerife but I wanted to do something different.

In my previous visits, I had gone to Loro Parque, known for its parrots, penguins, dolphins, seals, orca whales and orchids, I had done the general tour and the behind-the-scenes tour, but I felt there was more to Tenerife than that attraction.

A day trip to Tenerife from Gran Canaria is as easy and as difficult as it might seem but it could easily be a 20-hour day from when you are picked up from the hotel in the morning until when you are dropped off at night.

This tour was called Tenerife Classica and supposedly was to take you on a tour of Tenerife and up the Mount Teide which peaks at 3,717 metres above sea level.

Earlier or worse

The hotel had prepared an early breakfast for my wakeup call at 05:45 hrs and the bus pickup at 06:30, there were a few more pickups around our area of the island till we got to a rendezvous point at San Agustin where other tourists joined us and we had the first change of guides.

For the trip, I did not think the bus was that comfortable, I had the feeling it was going to be the main vehicle throughout the whole journey as was the arrangement for the Loro Parque tours I had been on before.

At Las Palmas we picked another guide who saw us to the port at Agaete where we boarded the catamaran ferry to Santa Cruz de Tenerife which takes 70 minutes.

Sea me or see food again

Honestly, I would make the worst deck hand, I have no sea legs, I dosed up on mints, closed my eyes and listened to classical music as the vessel rock to a rhythm that kept my stomach in churn of butterflies and moths for hours after.

How I had the constitution not to see my breakfast or last night’s dinner escapes me, but I was so glad that it was over when we finally arrived, I think many others fared a lot less than I did, my sympathies went to them – it was the roughest of all the journeys I had made to Tenerife ever.

Amen to the tour guide

We boarded another more comfortable tour bus and had another tour guide, we were changing guides like the changing of the guard, only we were not royalty.

We were told Tenerife was the largest of the Canarian Islands and as he switched between German, English, French and Spanish the musicality of his diatribes are nigh on a Latin mass without the incense.

In fact, each language was delivered with the rapidity and intonation of Spanish, he was well into the third language before I realized he had finished the first – no pauses whatsoever between the languages.

The Spanish have invaded

German is typically the first foreign language on Gran Canaria and Tenerife because the German are always invading these islands, it does not appear anyone is complaining, but the way the tour guide went on about the Spanish conquerors of the 14^th Century, you’ll be forgiven for thinking it happened yesterday.

Somehow, I have the feeling that Canarians still carry a sense of loss of pride and independence because of that and it have seeped down through the generations as a angst ridden association with mainland Spain which is some 2,000 kms up North.

In all we heard that Santa Cruz de Tenerife was the capital and Tenerife was the largest island, with the highest mountain, it became the refrain to the canticles of the tour narrative.

Mounting expectations

And so we made for Mount Teide, in fact, I thought we were going to climb it after a point, but the first realisation was that the mountain we used to see our drive-bys towards Loro Parque was not in the back yard, it was a good 54 kilometers into the hinterland land through forests to a moonscape terrain that fills you with bewilderment.

The first stop for coffee and conveniences was in the large humidifier, I correct myself, we were in the clouds which had a constant wetness as if it was continuous rain, no dehumidifier could survive an hour sucking the moisture out of the air, we were at just about 1,000 metres up and we all thought that was how it would be until we go to the top of the mountain.

About 200 metres above that we are in the pine and eucalyptus forests where we learnt that eucalyptus trees grow so far and that is why the bark gets naturally stripped off and they are a menace because they suck up so much water from the soil.

Unending sunshine

Soon we were in the glow of the sunshine, see Mt Teide from afar in its glory but without the winter snow cap, to one end we could also see the Izaña Astrophysical Observatory – Tenerife above the clouds boasts over 300 days of clear skies and sunshine – between Tenerife and La Palma they have the most concentration of observatories.

We never got to summit Mt Teide, it does have a cable car that can take you to the top but I suppose that comes as part of a tour for guests holidaying on the island itself, but we heard enough about Father Teide waiting to regale us, succour us and give us the pleasure of its beauty, to have gone to the summit would have belittled its mystique and been an anticlimax

Geology 101

But there was a moonscape around the mountain with lava flows stopped and recorded in time – my geology knowledge was updated as I realised that lava might flow like liquid and present a deceptively smooth looking surface, no could be further from the truth when it all solidifies, it is lots of rocks and big ones at that.

The Canarian islands are extrusions from volcanic activity that have occurred over millions of years and there are been more recent volcanic erupts, we were told the black looking lava flows were young at just under a thousand years and we could not for certain say the volcanoes were extinct – we were at that point introduced to the friendly volcanoes that have not erupted and disrupted lives for centuries.

I could not say I know the difference between calderas or craters, they all belong to the same kind of volcanic landscape but we go to the highest point we would at the cathedral and that was a view to behold – it was breathtaking as it was wonderful.

And the rest of the day

It leaves one amazed that people could visit the islands and be stuck between the beach, the hotel and the bar that shows familiar stuff one is used to at home when the beach is hardly the best expression of the beauty of the island.

I have gotten my dose of the sun already and would have to apply some suntan lotion to my bald head, it has so seriously been sunburnt I look like a character off Star Trek and I am moulting – Bah!

By the time we were back through the clouds to the South of the Tenerife where we were let loose in the tourist shops for 75 minutes, the day was far gone.

A stop over at the cartel restaurant offering Canarian fayre and cheap plonk was good enough, I swore off the plonk and did end up scoffing so much ice cream in one day, I’ll have to do purgatory.

The journey back was better, the sea was calmer and my stomach did not churn at all, I was dropped off at my hotel at 21:27 hrs and the dinner left in my room did not once appeal to me.

Pictures will be published in earnest.