Mueca: The Funny Faces Festival in Puerto de la Cruz: Reliving My Past for the Third Time!

When I stop, occasionally, to wonder at what fuels travel addiction the answer I usually come up with is something like “variety” or “stimulation,” the antithesis of “same old, same old.” Despite my fascination with Tenerife, I sometimes drift into a rut, and then, knowing that the cure, travel, is momentarily unavailable, I mutter and curse to myself and Trixy (who is very tolerant of my mutterings).

I was at such an impasse earlier this week. Of course it was my own fault.  I doubt that there is anywhere in the world with Tenerife’s diversification of scenery and culture packed into less than 800 square miles. Yet, yes, it is possible to tire of breathtaking sunsets, fiestas and blue skies. And, yes, I know I’m a spoiled b*tch, but I was overdue for something novel and new, and everything on offer seemed too expensive!

You know how it is when you feel that way, I was looking forward to seeing the Mueca Festival in Puerto de la Cruz, but not expecting too much. I had the blahs.

El Teide, island guardian, seen from the pretty church square in Puerto de la Cruz

There is no English word for Mueca. It means “pulling faces” or “funny faces.” It’s a street arts/performance festival, which, of course, includes clowns, but I suspect a nuance to the word which I haven’t caught, because it turned out to be so much more than clowns and face paint.

Maria and I set off early, but not at the crack of dawn. The drive was pleasant, the conversation excellent, and there was, as ever, that little inward sigh when we switched autopistas, and the roadsides were green. The drive between, say, Los Cristianos and Santa Cruz is without doubt the un-prettiest scenery on the island, and we were heading north, away from it.

A Living statue

We were a trifle early, artists and performers were still setting up. This is not an island for early risers. We consoled ourselves with coffee and cake in a café which felt more like Vienna than Tenerife, (What is it about the South which reduces interiors to plastic or over-the-top?) and then we wandered back, and the atmosphere began to filter through the clutter in my head. People were strolling not aimlessly, but not purposefully either, bent on seeing and enjoying.

The streets and plazas of the town center had been designated specific areas, so that there was “the dance street,” “the music street,” “the magic street” and so on. We let ourselves drift with the tide of people. It was busy, but not crowded, so that moving around, changing direction, skirting small children wasn’t difficult. We snapped silly pictures of each other with a “work of art,” and met up with Maria’s son and family.

It was all so much nicer than I’d expected, but also more or less what I’d expected…..that was until we discovered the clowns. By that time we’d pretty much stopped trying to figure out exactly where each event was, and we stumbled across them by accident. Hard to imagine that, when they were in what was probably the largest stage area, down by the harbor. We managed to sneak into second row seats and decided that if it got too warm we would just sneak out again.

I need to explain something here. When I was a kid I went to the circus at least once every year. My hometown, Blackpool, on England’s north-west coast has a permanent circus ring, which nestles under the four, arched legs of its famous Tower, a structure inspired by the Eiffel Tower, which opened in 1894. Unlike the Eiffel Tower, Blackpool Tower’s legs are encased in a building, which also housed, at that time, an aquarium, a small zoo and a rather magnificent ballroom. But the circus ring was at its core, and my annual visit was the high point of my summer. One day I’ll write something about it, today that’s just  background.

Clowns Sandalio and Margarito doing their opening sketch

When my older son was two, the ex and I took him to the circus for the first time.  As we settled into our seats, I was drawn back to childhood, as my spirit absorbed the familiar, forgotten smells and sounds. I was captivated again, a kid again, singing with and shouting to the clowns, just the way we’d always done. I was so immersed that I wasn’t even aware of it, until my partner remarked afterwards that I’d behaved like a child myself. So that was my second bite of the cherry.

Saturday was my third. The clowns emerged from an improvised backdrop, which the wind constantly tried to rip free, and within a couple of minutes I was time traveling again. Sandalio and Margarito gave a classic clown performance, so that, even though it was updated, I knew seconds before each movement or glance what was going to happen next.The red-nosed loveable clown who always gets it wrong; the apparent demise of a clown who has to be revived by his partner; the dragging members of the audience onto the stage to aid and abet their silliness – it was all there.  I remembered how each clown has his own face, his own name and way of dressing came back, and I remembered that I’d even once dreamed of running away to join a traveling circus …… was that what inspired my wanderlust, I wonder?

By the end of a very happy hour every muscle in my body felt relaxed and happy, except perhaps for my cheeks, which ached from laughing so much. Beers, tapas, more cake, iced coffees and we plunged back onto the lively streets. This time to catch a ska fusion band called Big Band Boom Fire, joyously singing, playing and strutting atop an articulated truck, to an adoring audience, surrounding the truck, and swaying to the beat. Then on to catch a balancing act, with an Angus Young lookalike performer – more laughter, more engagement with the willing audience.

Folk perched wherever they could to catch an act

At that point I had to leave, Maria was staying with her family for the night, and I had a faithful mouth to feed waiting patiently at home. I wish I’d stayed. I wish I’d stayed in Puerto de la Cruz for the entire weekend in fact. Sitting here now looking at the program I realize I saw only a small part of what was there.

I don’t remember a better atmosphere in a crowd, a time when nothing about the crowd irritated me (I’m an only child, I don’t do crowds that well!). With none of the religious overtones of a fiesta or the excesses or competition of Carnival this was only about enjoyment and laughter and spreading happiness. The only other place I can think of is Disney World and for the same reasons. Plus they both necessitate that childlike suspension of disbelief, which we scorn as adults. A journey back in time is just as good as a journey across the miles.  I adored it, returned home feeling as I’d been on vacation, so stimulating had it been.

Right now the wanderlust is back under control, for how long I have no idea, but I’m quite happy to be on this ever-surprising island.

The legend at the Heart of a Canarian Village: Vi la Flor de Chasna

Vilaflor is a village usually overlooked by tourists as their  buses hurtle past in search of the dramatic landscapes of the Teide National Park, and whilst I have no desire to rob the 2,000 or so inhabitants of the village of potential revenue, I breathe a sigh of relief as I type that. If the pueblo does cross the consciousness of the average visitor to Tenerife, it’s because it boasts the title of “Spain’s highest village.” That is disputed, and, hard to get into my skull, having stood on the slopes of the snow-clad Sierra Nevada. Even in chill mid-Winter the snow doesn’t come down this far.

Today I am in search of spring, yet again. You must excuse my excessive enthusiasm. You see I’ve never been too much of a fan of the season, and certainly have never seen it throw such an extravagant display on this island as it has done this year.

Driving up to Vilaflor I take the snaps you saw in the previous post; appropriately canary-yellow wild fennel, delicate, mauve poppies, and sunny California poppies.

Flor is Spanish for flower, and it’s understandable that you would think the village  is named for the glorious displays we’re seeing. Not so, and the story of its rebirth, if not its founding, is sad, and romantic, and to put it in modern terms, it’s a story of culture clash.

Tenerife was the last of the Canary Islands to fall to the Spanish conquistadors in 1496. The indigenous Guanche, described later by their conquerors as noble and brave, had fought fiercely, but in the end succumbed to the superior weaponry and equipment of their foes.

Although the dimensions of Tenerife couldn’t be more different from those of the Americas, the stories of what happened to the Guanche often have a ring of what happened to the natives of those continents. A people who lived in harmony with the earth, whose gods represented the universal order of things – the earth, sun, moon – were beaten, humiliated, enslaved, exhibited in the Spanish court and probably died of diseases brought by their captors. Some were converted to “Christianity” (ever the excuse for conquest and colonization), and absorbed into “civilized” society, leaving their inheritance to whither. Only in fairly recent times have historians begun to really try to piece together what information remains to form a more complete picture.

This then, is the background to our story, and into this scenario rides one Pedro Bracamonte, a captain in the conquering forces of Alonso Fernández de Lugo. Pedro is dispatched by his commander to explore the verdant hillsides around Chasna, a Guanche settlement. With the arrogance typical of tyrants, seeing a beautiful, young Guanche maiden, he holds her against her will for several days, before she is able to make her escape into the surrounding forest.

His arrogance, however, is his undoing. In those brief days he falls deeply in love with the girl. He pursues her desperately through territory which is her friend and his foe, with its deep valleys, caves and thickly wooded slopes, but he can find no trace. Within three months our conquering “hero” dies from a broken heart. With his last breath he indicates that at least he dies having seen the flower of Chasna – Vi la flor de Chasna.

As with many so-called “love stories” my first reaction is a long sigh, and then “serves him right” cuts in. As Guanche culture clashed with Castellano, so my modern perception of history clashes with this charming tale. Still, it’s a story, and stories make the world go around.

Today’s Vilaflor de Chasna truly is a contrast to “el cemento” on the tourist coast of Tenerife. It is sleepy (except for fiesta days!). It fairly twinkles with well-kept pride, its streets clean but not sterile. And despite the legend, its name seems apt, as flowers fill every nook, cranny and corner.  A lovely, 90-year-old lady I meet in the village square tells me that  the delightful juxtaposition of modern water feature with beds of wildflowers, the renovations of the carved-wood, Canarian balconies, and the general loveliness of the tiny town is all down to the mayor, who always has her vote “even though he’s a socialist”……..a true democrat! Perhaps it’s that sense of truly shared civic pride which is reflected in the atmosphere, and makes this place special. I certainly don’t know anywhere else quite like it on this island.

Today seems quite busy for a weekday. The little tourist information kiosk in the pretty and peaceful square has something of a queue – three groups of people, including me, and another dozen or so sip coffee outside the bar nearby. All dressed in walking gear, they are mainly German and Scandinavian, save for one middle-aged lady in a pretty red and white dress and a sun hat. I can’t help hoping that her husband is going to take a photo of her in one of the glorious fields of California poppies we passed, the colors would be so good.

 

When Flor de Chasna fled her captors there were no California poppies in the Canary Islands. They arrived, intentionally or not, on the trade ships which crossed the Atlantic with treasures from North America, but, these flowers which seem to capture the very sunshine – I like to think she would have liked them.

Springtime in Tenerife: Beyond Words

Someone (forget who) said to me recently, “Don’t you hate it when someone says, ‘There just aren’t words to describe something,’ and then proceeds to ramble on for page after page to try to do that which they just claimed to be impossible?”

With that foremost in my mind I will be brief, and let the photographs do the talking for me.  Truth is that I don’t have the time to conjure the words to tell you how utterly delightful this spring has been here, and I am still of the old-fashioned view that I want my blog to be a timeline, more or less in cronological order….so photos it is.

I’ve lived in the Canary Islands for almost 26 years, but I have never, ever seen a profusion of spring flowers like this year. Without any professional confirmation (I’m sure someone will put me right!) the feeling is that after two years with precious little rain, seeds have lain in the ground, waiting for the winter rains which finally came this year, and the spring sunshine. Hence three years’ worth of flowers in one go, tumbling down mountain sides, scrambling along roadsides, peeking from rocks and walls, or swaying in the breeze,  some in abundant tangles of color, others gracefully alone……it’s been a spring to remember, and one to share.

Enjoy:

 

 

 

and another take on the previous one

And a third take on that poppy

Had to include the dandelion ‘ cos it was lonely

 

The thing neither photo nor words can convey is the perfume, stepping out of the car the scent from this orchard of orange trees filled the air with sweetness

And the obligatory shot of a bee gathering pollen

 

ok this one’s a cheat – not flowers, but it was so pretty it was a shame not to share it!

 

 

These photos were taken in Valle de Arriba, Santiago del Teide, Teno, Esperanza, Escalona and Vilaflor. And, finally a very bad, wee video:

I Love the Smell of Dawn….

I love the smell of dawn on the Tenerife coast. The air bears scents you don’t smell during day nor during  night – a mixture of ozone, the scrub of the dunes, and a freshness, which melts under the warmth of the sun. The silence, as the first light seeps along the horizon, is vast and exquisite. It surrounds you as the landscape stands on tiptoe, waiting for the new day’ s first sounds, and you hope it be the cry of a bird, or the whispering of ocean to earth,  and not the ugly sounds of men.

It has to have been an awfully good drop of wine which has made me sleep in and not want to get down to the beach.

I am ridiculously happy with this photo, because it’s taken me 3 years to achieve it!  I knew that sooner or later the sun would be rising in line with this pathway down to Playa Cabezo. I’ve taken snaps here before, but never managed to get it quite so framed as this morning. I must have taken about a dozen, but this is also the only one where that wave is trickling in just that way.

Capture the Color Competition Entry

I’d read about TravelSupermarket’s Capture the Color travel photo competition, but I really felt to shy to send in anything, with some really prestigious travel photographers and bloggers entering,   I didn’t want to make a fool of myself! But, then, Elaine from RunawayBrit nominated me, and I thought, “Well, why not. Nothing ventured, nothing gained,” and it sounded like fun.

The idea is that there are five categories, each one being a color – red, blue, white, yellow and green, and each category has its own judge, and each category winner will receive an iPad3, and the overall winner will receive £2,000 to be spent on travel……not bad, eh?

Entries are due by the end of this month, and I was tempted to wait & see if I can do better, but then I’d probably just procrastinate until it was too late (who? me? oh, yeah!), so I’ve just spent a very pleasant few hours travelling a bit down memory lane via my photos. It’s been a jolly nice trip, so I should thank TravelSupermarket and RunawayBrit for that too. I have to write a little about each photo so you can come down memory lane with me.

Er …. I think that’s it, so here are my photos:

Red

In photos you usually see of surfers, the sea is incredibly blue, but Canary Island locals  go out early, before the tourists get out of bed. Before the day has warmed up, the sea can appear quite grey. My son, Guy, had just returned to the island after years of living in the US, and we walked down to the beach as dawn was breaking. It was a treat for me, not only because Guy was back home after his US adventures,  but also because back when my sons were in their teens the last thing they wanted was mom hanging around when they were surfing! Hence I didn’t actually have any photos of them on the water. There was little surf this day, as it turned out, but this was my favorite picture, taken with my little point & shoot too. Guy’s board was the only point of color at this time of day.

Blue

My friend, Cristina, was showing us around her family’s home in the hills just above Icod de los Vinos (one of my favorite parts of Tenerife), the house is set in the forest, surrounded by aromatic pine and rich chestnut trees. It was cool and tranquil, and so very different from the south of the island. We wandered around the land surrounding the house and came across this beautifully decrepit old door, just by the orchard. I’m a sucker for peeling paintwork, especially if it’s blue. The hydrangea were past their best too. It was October, but blue is kind of an everlasting color……

White

Coincidentally, my “white” pictures comes from that same stroll with my friends when we saw the blue door. I really didn’t think this wee butterfly would stay still long enough, but I got a two or three shots before he moved on. It wasn’t until after I saw in on screen that it struck me how very white he was. Although the Canary Island is often called “The Land of Eternal Spring”  seasons do exist here, especially in these woodlands of the north, where tourists rarely roam. It was late October, the chestnut trees were heavy with their spiky fruit, and there was the scent of woodsmoke in the air as neighboring houses lit fires and barbeques, and this fellow seemed almost like a ghost of the failing summer.

Green

It’s a common misconception among visitors to Tenerife, those who stray no further than their sun-lounger on a beach on the south coast, that the island has no greenery. They couldn’t be further from the truth, the peaks and slopes of the north (and the south higher up) are home to mainly pine forests, and the north east tip of the island is lush variegated forest. However, when I thought about green I thought about cacti, oddly, perhaps.  Cacti grow just about everywhere n the Canary Islands, so much so that we take them for granted, but often they are the only hint of color in a harsh landscape. I have loads of pictures of cacti, but this task made me realize that most are pre-digital and I need to get out there & take some more. However, here is one of my favorites.

Yellow

I racked my brains over yellow, because I couldn’t remember nor find a photograph which I thought of as “yellow.” Then I remembered going up to Granadilla de Abona at the beginning of May to see the traditional floral crosses made for the Day of the Holy Cross (El Día de la Cruz), and how there was a lonely sunflower in one of the small crosses by someone’s door. The Day of the Holy Cross celebrates the finding of the original cross by Helena, mother of Roman Emperor Constantine, and any town, village, island or city in the Latino world with the word cruz in its name celebrates the day. The main festivities in Tenerife are in capital city, Santa Cruz, but since the name of the entire province is Santa Cruz de Tenerife, communities all over the province display these beautiful floral tributes. Outside the churches they are huge and abundant, but private houses like this one often display them too.

Nominations

Now to nominate five other travel bloggers to participate in the competition if they want. The problem is now that this has been around for a few weeks, and I really don’t know who has or has not already been nominated, but here we go:

Katrina from Tourabsurd.com  ……. who should have no problem with the “green” part since she just arrived in Ireland! And I have to wonder (if she has time to do this!) if some of her colors might involve food – since there have been some mouth-watering photos on her blog in recent months!

Marianne from EastofMalaga who has some gorgeous photos of Andalucia on her blog which express a deep love of her adopted home.

Jack from BuzzTrips  because I LOVE his photos and because he must have some stunners for the “blue” category having been in Morocco not too long ago!

Barbara from HoleintheDonut  Barbara’s photos are breathtaking, recently returned from Nepal, they just pulse with local color, both real and metaphorical.

Mariana from TravelThirst   …..whose photos totally succeed in her desire to stimulate our senses! Beautiful, virtual travel :=)

It might well be that some, or all, of you guys have already been nominated, and apologies if so, or if this nomination catches you in a moment when you are too busy or traveling too fast to do it!

 

To Mess or Not to Mess? That is the Question…..Photographically Speaking.

I may have indigestion later…….. I just ate my hat…….. Ok, it was an imaginary hat, but there is imaginary indigestion, no? An imaginary hat as in the statement, “I think photos should be natural and not tampered with, and I’ll eat my hat if I ever do that!” You get it, no? In other words, I was a photography purist and I am converted.

I blame the Guanches. It was on a thundery-looking afternoon I went with RunawayBrit to see the pretty, little town of Candelaria. We’d been enveloped by chilling mists most of the day in the Teide National Park and descending the northern coast of the island,  I’d abandoned plans, and turned south, but when we reached Candelaria, the clouds had risen so that they hovered, thick and menacing above, but least we could see stuff! So we changed plans again, and stopped there.  My photos of those imposing statues of Guanche kings were disappointing when I came to look at them on the screen, though…..which is when I began to mess with them, and this was the result.

And in the time it takes to click a couple of times, there I was – hooked! In my defense I state that I always said that what I wanted my photos to do was convey a message, and the truth is that the camera doesn’t see what the eye sees, let alone what the heart sees. And for me Pelicar towering into the stormy sky was threatening the Spanish invaders, and preparing to fight to the death, and enhancing the photo conveyed that message. Or am I trying to justify my conversion?

I went out to capture the sunrise a couple of weeks later. Now, I know – I’m lucky to live somewhere where scenes like the one below are, well, quite common, really, which means that by my standards the photos weren’t that special, yet when I “messed” with one of them and put it on Facebook I got more comments than usual. Vindication? Well, no, because now I was feeling the guilt. Were my photos more  ”some tart with too much make-up” than “a natural beauty?” I wasn’t at all comfortable with the messing.

Still feeling the guilt, visiting Icod de los Vinos on a very dull day (dull as in overcast skies that is….which is not to say overcast in the UK sense, but that the sky was an utter white-out, and the sun hidden), I snapped the dragon tree because it was in full flower, a noteworthy event, I couldn’t wait for the possibility of a blue sky. More disappointing photos, but would they look ok if I messed with them? What do you think?

Hmmm. Maybe? I began choosing random photos from my files.

Am I a total convert? Well, probably, so much so that I’m making a whole, new page just for photographs, ones, that is, that a more than just snapshots to illustrate text.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m not totally happy with any of the above photos, and I know I’m still experimenting. Wishing I’d had the extra money for the third part of that photographic course I did a couple of years back, which dealt with this sort of thing – perhaps I would have had a different perspective a while back. I only use Picasa right now, there just isn’t money for anything I actually have to pay for, and I appreciate that with a more sophisticated program I would get better results, and I assume that if I was using something more advanced I would, yes, be a convert…….so excuse me while I go look for the imaginary Rennies.

Crossing the Caldera

Missing the full impact of the sunrise I described (or at least tried to) in my last post I would normally have sulked (at best), but on that day I was able to be delightfully zen about the missed opportunity. Why? Because I was on my way to crossing an item of my bucket list, and that was to walk the Siete Cañadas trail, a walk which takes you some 16 kilometers, across the breadth of the caldera in the Teide National Park, from the parador to El Portillo, the crossroads where the downward journey to the northern side of the island begins. Crossing the top of the island you might say.

Pilar taking a closer look a local wildlife.

I’ve been hearing for a long, long time about this walk, that it’s a  challenge on a hot day; that it’s a journey through time – from the volcanic eruptions of pre-history, through the legends of the Guanches (the aboriginal island inhabitants); through the remains of more recent pastoral and colonial history to present day status as a World Heritage Site; that it’s a dream for photographers, botanists, birdwatchers and geologists; and that the surreal landscapes of the area, at times majestic, at times ghostly, are even more dramatic  at these close quarters.

All of that was true, and more.

I’d walked a part of the trail twice in recent months, around an hour into the four-and-a-half of the whole each time  (once en route to my memorable night sleeping in a cave before we diverged as it joined another trail, and once as a short walk a couple of weeks back), so my imagination was already in overdrive when we set out on Saturday from the village of La Camella, just above Los Cristinos.

The early start was utterly worth it. We passed hardly any other cars on our ascent, let alone buses or motorbikes. That alone was dream-like, curving lazily around the bends, slowing down when we passed something interesting, and relaxing for the walk ahead. When we alighted at the parador, which nestles in the heart of the crater, there was the faintest chill in the air, just enough to don  a light windbreaker, but we had risen above the cloud cover and the crystal clear skies promised heat in the hours ahead.

Looking back at Guajara, the moon was still high in the morning sky.

The beginning of the walk, if you set off from the parador end,  is, arguably, the most impressive part,  with its truly weird and twisted rock formations, and this was the part I already knew. The photographer in me was glad I’d done it before, because at 8.45 the sun was only just rising over the mountainsides, leaving the tortured volcanic shapes in shade. The picture below is from a previous visit.

More and more, as I walk this island, I realize how  connected its history is to the landscape. It flows out of its peaks and woodlands, and it’s almost tangible.  This route, on which we were setting out, previously called camino chasnero, was at one time the quickest way of connecting  north to south. Last Saturday we probably didn’t meet more than a couple of dozen walkers in the five hours we rambled, but it may well have been much busier in the past than it is today, as farmers  from the north, with mules laden with chestnuts, pigs, and farm implements, traveled southward, and figs, potatoes and cochineal were hauled north, and this was the easy part, the plains of the caldera, there were mountainsides to climb first and then to descend after the crossing. The stories remind me of those of the “Wild West,” of the wagon trains which crossed North America around this same time in history.

Along the way traders would have met goatherds and their flocks; folk hoping that the mountain air would cure illnesses like asthma, bronchitis or tuberculosis, and in later years scientists and astronomers studying earth and sky. The central plain is littered with crumbling, one-or-two-room buildings, which are probably a mixture of goatherds’ shelters and the simple cottages used by the infirm. I knew from January’s bivvy how cold it can get at night, and these simple buildings seemed totally inadequate protection!

Abandoned shelter and an army skeletons marching down the mountainside, the remains of last year’s abundance of tajinaste rojo.

Even before the route was used by farm folk taming and colonizing the island,  evidence suggests that it was used by  the Guanches. The mountainsides which form the wall of the caldera, like so many places here, are pockmarked by caves of some dimension or other, and archaeologists have found  remains, including mummified bodies along the route, most famously in Cañada del Capricho. Mummies have been found in these surreal rocks in caves so high up that they could only be accessed by modern climbing methods. How they were placed there remains just one of the mysteries which died with the Guanches. Of course it’s hard to separate fact and fiction now.

The Guanche princess Guajara is said to have thrown herself to her death from the mountain which now bears her name, as I mentioned back in January, but there are other versions of that story too, and somewhere the aboriginal beliefs and real history intertwined and soon became lost under the rule of the Conquistadors.  Guanche folklore, or as much as has been gleaned from the remnants of the past, told of the fire god, Guayota, who kidnapped the sun-god and hauled him down to the depths of hell through the portal which was the mountain top, El Teide.  Magec, the sun-god, was rescued by the god of gods, Achamán, who then trapped Guayota inside the mountain. Thought about logically, all of that makes prefect sense as an interpretation of volcanic activity by a Stone-age people. El Teide (or Echedye as it was called by the Guanche) was both feared and sacred.  When you walk Siete Cañadas he watches you, brooding, waiting. You can’t ignore or escape it. Its colors seem to change with the light or the angle from which you view it, its lava flows speaking of times even before the eruptions the Guanches remember.

Teide seen from the end of the walk.

Before man walked here, the earth’s violence scattered these plains  with rocks, boulders, pumice and finer sand, which were wrenched from its bowels and vomited over the landscape. Sometimes, in a field of small, black rocks you find an enormous, red boulder, which doesn’t fit with the other types of rock you see around. Was it flung from some more distant eruption? Which one? How far did it soar into the air before it landed just here?

This walk is far better than any theme park, back-to-the-future-type ride.

About half way we stopped to eat, seeking shade from the sun in one of those crumbling shelters, with Teide hovering above, all-seeing. Up to that point we had seen little fauna, but as we rustled our wrappers and bags, tiny eyes appeared at seemingly every crevice in the stonework, and a few, braver lizards came out to inspect us. Bird life apart, the zone’s fauna is mostly invertebrates, and I’m far from knowledgeable about them. Spiders’ webs decorated the space, strung between plants, but there was little sign of anything more to my ignorant eye.

El Teide from our “dining room” in an abandoned shelter.

Birds were another matter, thanks to Pilar, I have new knowledge of the birds of the high mountains. Kestrels, of course, are everywhere on the island. They swoop over autopistas; you look down them as they hover in valleys, their reddish feathers gorgeous in the sunlight, as you drive or walk upwards; and they soar above you at this height, perching on high rocks to survey their territory, as they did this day. I’ve seen the odd buzzard sometimes, and at the beginning of this walk we disturbed a couple of really brightly colored blue tits, as we approached our first tajinaste of the day. However, the treat of the day, and I got excited by Pilar’s enthusiasm, was when we heard what sounded like a gaggle of mini chickens, making a fair old din. It stopped us in our tracks, and Pilar, in stealth mode, neared the tangle of plant life from which it came. As she tiptoed closer another sound which I would never have identified as a bird. It was deep and sudden, and not at all animal-like, clearly a warning, which reminded me for all the world of some tone for a mobile phone. I stayed back for fear of disturbing them more than necessary, but it turned out to be a great grey shrike nest. We had already spotted one a couple of miles back. Eventually momma bird flitted off in search of sustenance, and I got a nice view as she scooted from branch to branch, her head with its Zorro-type mask cocked to listen for possible dangers. She was far too quick for my camera, though. I’m thinking that a serious birdwatcher might have a great old time there right now.

Lone tajinaste

From time to time as we walked there was a whisper of the scent of broom on the air, but whether it was that last year’s display of flora was so utterly magnificent that everything was worn-out and recuperating,  or whether two years of scant rainfall have taken their toll,  I have no idea, but nothing was as abundant. In fact, flowerings were sparse, the odd tajinaste (Tenerife’s emblematic plant) braved it here and there, fragments of the broom bushes were ventured into blossom, and here and there other species popped up. The skeletal ghosts of tajinaste still stood erect as reminders of last year’s opulence, and tangles of dead and dying broom were all around. At the southern end of the trail rosalillo were beginning to flower, but it was too soon to say if they will extend to the vast carpets we saw last year. At the northern end they were barely sprouting.

The “find” of the day, almost at the end of our trail, was a tajinaste picante, the  delicate, blue flowers looking vulnerable in the heat compared to the hot pinks of its sister the tajinaste rojo, and here was something new for me.

Tajinaste Picante. The only one we saw.

After the walk we called into the Visitors’ Center across the road from its ending, where I learned that the plant I thought was the tajinaste azul is actually tajinaste picante, and the blue variety grows only on the island of Fuerteventura. Looking at photos on the internet now I can see the difference, with the tajinaste azul being much bushier and denser, more akin to the familiar tajinaste rojo. I know a couple of years back I described plants I’d seen as tajinaste azul, so my apologies to anyone who may still be reading. I can’t tell you how much of a thrill it is to learn new stuff, though, especially when it’s about flora and fauna which occur nowhere else on the planet. It makes me realize what an amazing place I live in, how much there is to learn, and how lucky I am to be here when I can’t be in motion!

And as we near the end of the trail, we spy El Mar de Nubes (the sea of clouds) hovering over the northern coast. An utterly different scene from the parched plains we’ve just traversed.

Notes: The National Park (one of the earliest created in Spain in 1954) entered the 21st century with the added honor of being a World Heritage Site, having received the award in 2007. In the citation it is described as being “well managed and resourced,” and I couldn’t see anything to make me disagree with that. We came across only one piece of obvious litter, and, sadly, of the sort we didn’t want to pick up and remove with bare hands. Note to the ladies – we all have “calls of nature” when hiking, but please, please carry a bag to take the paper you use away with you!! This was a very easy walk, with no sharp gradients. Last Saturday there was a very welcome breeze, but in summer it must be very hot, it’s very important you take sufficient water, sun screen and protection for your head. There is no shade at midday at all. It’s described, variously as four or four and a half hours. We took five because we stopped to look at flora and fauna, to take snaps and to eat, so if you intend to walk both there and back it’s a long walk. If you do one way, as we did, you need to note the bus times to return you from the end of your walk to your car or back home. They are infrequent, but comfy and air-conditioned :=)

All my pictures were shot in automatic mode, because that’s what I do when I’m hiking with friends who are not as nuts about photography as I am. They’re snaps. If any turn out to be “photographs” there is a lot of luck involved!

When I was in the parador some weeks back I picked up a great book in their gift shop, “Flora and Fauna del Parque Nacional del Teide” by Juan Manuel Martínez Carmona and Francisco Torrents Rodríguez, which I used to check information. I don’t know if there is an English translation, but it’s a good, little resource with loads of information set out in easy-to-read style, and with lovely sketches, although the few photos, describing walks at the end, are less good. I hesitated about buying it, given the state of my bank account, but I’m really glad that I did. I can see it’s going to be much-used.

In Celebration of El Día de Canarias

Today I should have been out celebrating and enjoying myself, quaffing some local wine and no doubt stuffing myself with traditional foods, whilst listening to Canarian musicians and learning more about “my” island. However, I wasn’t, instead I am lying on my couch, amusing myself by writing this to distract myself from the constant urge to empty the contents my stomach. All is not perfect, you see, in paradise. I seem to have food poisoning.

In lieu of joining the celebrations I thought I might do one of those boring posts which really belongs in a tour operator’s webpage,  but which will relieve both my  boredom and my self pity by reminding me how much I enjoy being here.

Traditional Tenerife: You would be surprised at just how many folk possess and wear with pride their traditional dress. There is said to be a different variation for every municipality on the island.

El Día de Canarias

The first parliament of the autonomous region, Canary Islands, sat on May 30th 1983, after a long wait. The creation of autonomous regions had first been undertaken by the government of the Second Republic in 1931, but by the time the Civil War broke out in 1936 nothing had been implemented in the political bickerings which preceded the Civil War  - and of course everything then went on hold during the war and the consequent iron grip which Franco had on the country.

With his death in 1976 many of the reforms and projects which had been abandoned or iced began to resurface, and the new (and current) Constitution, drawn up in 1978, provided for the establishment of autonomous regions and some decentralization of government, and so the Autonomous Parliament of the Canary Islands was born.

May 30th was declared a fiesta (bank holiday) in celebration of its birth, and the day is marked throughout the islands with displays of traditional crafts, sports, costumes, foods and music.

Historical Tenerife:  The original capital of the island, La Laguna. An UNESCO World Heritage Site and seat of the province’s university, it is both charming restoration and vibrant hub of the island’s creativity.

Tenerife

Tenerife, for anyone who is new to my blog, is just one of the seven main islands which make up the Canarian archipelago. It’s been my home base now for over 20 years. It has an image in some European circles of being merely a mass-tourist destination, but it is so much more, and if you need proof then just check some previous posts.

Since I can’t give you a first-hand report on the festivities to which I didn’t go, I offer you, in honor of this day, a photo essay of this island of Tenerife, showing its different faces, its variety and perhaps an understanding of why it fascinates me so much.

Musical Tenerife: Two things come to mind when you combine the words Tenerife and music – folk music and the salsa of Carnaval, but there is so much more for lovers of all kinds of music. This photo was taken at the annual Santa Blues Blues Fest in June. July sees a prestigious jazz festival, autumn an opera season and year round classical music lovers can listen to the Tenerife Symphony Orchestra.

Coastal Tenerife: tanning addicts swarm to the resorts, but there are also plenty of quieter, more natural beaches to be found.

Gourmet Tenerife: In recent years the standards and aspirations of restaurants and hotels have simply soared. You can now find cuisine from almost anywhere in the world, and quality equal to big city eateries. This sushi at Restaurant 88 in La Caleta, Costa Adeje.

Mountainous Tenerife: The island’s mountains actually come in all shapes and sizes from lushly forested ones on the north east tip to the surreal volcanic landscapes of the Teide National Park, home to Spain’s highest mountain, El Teide.

Wine Lovers’ Tenerife: Canarian wines were famous as far back as the 17th century, and were famously (for we English-speakers) mentioned by Shakespeare on more than one occasion. Tenerife boasts no less than 5 regions. Oh, and I throw in here cheese too, because the goats’ cheeses are the perfect accompaniment!

Hiking Tenerife: Volcanic badlands, lush forest, coastal trails a walker’s heaven, in other words.

Tourist Tenerife: This is, believe it or not, the only Tenerife which some people know. I am a beach addict, but this is my least favorite face of the island, which is not to rubbish it. It’s just that sharing a beach on this scale is not my thing, but clearly it is for thousands, and the municipalities of the south, mainly Arona and Adeje cater for mass tourism, leveling rocky stony beaches, building hotels (the more recent ones of very high standard) and generally attempting to cater for every whim of the sunseekers. Tenerife does not have the prettiest beaches in the world, but they are some of the sunniest.

Agricultural Tenerife: OK the photo is just a bit of a stretch, and may have been more appropriate under the “traditional” heading, but it’s just that I love oxen. These days they are, so far as I can make out, brought out only for fiestas and other traditional events, but were an important part of the island’s history at one time. There are none of the huge farms of the US prairies or even the big farms I’ve seen in Scotland here, but thanks to co-operatives bananas, tomatoes and the famous Canarian potatoes are still exported, though not to the extent they were in history. Did you know that London’s Canary Wharf was named for the islands? So great was the volume of exports to England alone at that time.

Shop-till-you-drop Tenerife: Neither the Via Veneto nor the Champs Élysées, nevertheless shop shopaholics can have a ball in the swisher parts of the southern resorts and in the island’s capital, Santa Cruz, these days.

Sporty Tenerife: Surfing, windsurfing, hiking, cycling, paragliding, sport fishing, running, golf, kite surfing, climbing, trail running, triathlons, tennis…….that’s just off the top of my head, the sports which immediately come to mind.

Delicious Tenerife: Fine dining apart, Tenerife has a wealth of simple and traditional dining too, with fresh ingredients sourced locally from mineral-rich farmland, the variety of the ocean and locally raised goat and pork. Go inland to find small bars and restaurants, or to the kiosks at the fiestas.

Cultural Tenerife: Santiago Calatrava’s magnificent auditorium in Santa Cruz is symbolic of the wealth of island’s Cultural (with a capital C you note) events. An icon of modern architecture it is home to the symphony orchestra and scene of ballet, opera, jazz, world music, modern dance and many other events. In addition the capital has the historic Teatro Guimerá and La Laguna is home to Teatro Leal. Then there are museums, art exhibitions, photo exhibits and other events galore. Granted, you may need to speak some Spanish for some of these, but a little can take you a long way.

Romantic Tenerife: They tell me we have the best sunsets (and I would add sunrises) in the world. Since I haven’t been everywhere yet I can’t confirm that, but, well, they are pretty amazing.

Quirky Tenerife: I suppose everywhere has its quirky side, but I would put money on it I could snap a photo every day of something out-of-the-ordinary here!

Floral Tenerife: This was the hardest photo to decide, so in the end I chose two. Bouganvillea, hibiscus, geraniums, marigolds and heaps of other domesticated flora decorate the towns, villages and cities of the island, but only in the mountains will you find the tajinaste, indigenous to the island and found in the wild no where else on earth.

The almond trees, on the other hand, were brought by the Conquisadors, their flowering marks the beginning of a new season in January, and the nuts are the base of many artisan sweets.

Travelers’ Tenerife: Finally Tenerife as gateway to the archipelago, the launching point by ferry or by local airline to the other islands in the chain.

A Sunrise Worth Getting Up Early For

I’m an early morning gal by instinct.  So long as I get just enough sleep I can get up at any hour without problem, but of late I’ve been keeping odd hours, what with moving and the festive season. That’s why, faced with the prospect of getting up at 6am yesterday, and having done everything right to assure a good night’s sleep, I didn’t – sleep that is.  The fear of not getting up in time gnawed at my brain, which then fooled my body into thinking it wasn’t comfortable, so that I tossed and turned all night.

Trixy and I trotted down to the end of the street in the darkness. She hates it. She’s a daytime gal too. I made strong coffee, and we were off to meet up with Maria at 7am at the autopista junction.  I even managed to get a lousy #walkingwithTrixy pic of the Christmas lights, still shining bright in the morning gloom.

We were headed for Poris de Abona, just beyond the beach about which I wrote last month.  When I was pottering about on that evening it struck me that a good sunrise from around there, complete with lighthouse, might be quite spectacular. Maria and I decided, oh, let me see, about five years ago that we would do a project to record all the island’s lighthouses, and this was the first time we’d actually set out to do it! It’s been one of those things life got in the way of, although don’t hold your breath waiting for the complete set of photos!  Still, it’s a start.

As we meandered through the sprawl which is Poris, the sky, which had been coal-black only minutes before, began to pale on the horizon, and light leaked along the line where sky meets ocean. As I inched “Fred” (my faithful, old car) over the bumpy terrain beyond the proper road, and to the foot of the lighthouse, the pale was already turning to crimson.  Photographing sunrises and sunsets is such a “time is of the essence” thing.  We abandoned the coffee, left Trix to guard the car and wandered off, clicking happily away.

There is a point to a sunrise, here at least, where the sky is pale blue, but the sun hasn’t actually shown its face. The spectacular part is before it actually rises.  In that space we moved a bit further up the coastline to capture the emerging sun. We could see the outline of its fore-glow seeping along the tip of the purple mass of the island of Gran Canaria.

We were a short distance apart but with the noise of the waves crashing onto the ragged coast I couldn’t make out what it was that Maria shouted, but I looked over to see her gesticulating excitedly and swinging her tripod around.  When I glanced behind me El Teide and the surrounding mountains were bathed in the reflection of a sun we hadn’t even seen yet.  It it any wonder that ancient peoples found something magical and godlike in those peaks?

You have only minutes, in the absence of cloud, to photograph a sunrise, before the sun is too bright, at least with the equipment we have, and with the wind rising I found myself unexpectedly nervous. My determination (I hesitate to use the world resolution because the failure rate on New Year’s Resolutions makes the phrase an oxymoron!) is to improve my photography this year, and I don’t think this attempt was that good, but for the record, here it is.

With the rising,  the mountains turned back to brown and green, and the horizon became too bright, but the early sunlight was reflected in the foam and spray as ocean crashed onto rock, and close to shore the sea took on a turquoise hue it would lose with the brightness.

One more turn around, to see the lighthouse clear in the early morning sunshine, for now it was sunshine and not sunrise, and it was time for that coffee, and one of the great things about rising early with the sun is that the day still stretched before us, new and full of possibilities.

A Tenerife Beach which isn’t in the Brochures

Hurtling up the autopista on a Sunday, take a peek over to where the sun glances off the creamy tips of the waves, contrasting with the misshapen rocks, spewed up from ancient volcanic eruptions.  In summer the bays and nooks of this coastline are filled with families enjoying the sunshine and the ocean. Local families these days rarely bother with the tourist beaches of  Playa de lasAmericas, and few with the beaches of Los Cristianos.  On these more remote shores you can barbeque, put up day tents, take your dog, get a little drunk – basically, do all the things which tourism has made socially unacceptable on the posh beaches.

I did a wee post for Tenerife.co.uk a month or so ago about this theme, and wanted to take some pictures of Playa Grande in Poris de Abona to go with it.  It wasn’t the busy Sunday scene I found, though, it was autumn and about an hour before sunset.

The beach was deserted, the little ice cream stand all locked up, and the only people around were a couple of hikers who passed by. It all looked much more seasonal than the island usually is.  Tenerife’s “sub-title” is “Island of Eternal Spring,” and certainly on the south and south-west coasts people sunbathe all year round, so to observe such apparent bleakness on a good-weather day (I’d been roasting in Santa Cruz) felt strange. I suppose coming from Blackpool the idea of seasons is firmly entrenched in my brain. I remember Blackpool better off-season than high-season, because we avoided the summer crowds like the plague.

Clouds were beginning to descend from the hillsides, making the leggy, white windmills of a nearby wind farm stand out in contrast to the gathering gloom, and I was losing light fast for the photo I wanted, and yet I didn’t want to leave. The calm was taking hold of my brain;  the slight chill, the persistence of the ocean trying to reach the shore, that lonesome sound of gulls circling and the sense of having the world to oneself.

Just along from the bay and the sand, the beach was littered with the cages which are used for fishing for pulpo, some of them twisted and rotting, and I wondered about why we are drawn to beaten-up, discarded objects and decaying mortar and peeling paintwork.  Is it curiosity about the stories they might tell, or is it pity of the unwanted or some sort of respect for history?

This pretty little beach, surround by gnarled and almost sinister rock formations, is only 20 minutes, tops, from the famous beaches, yet it’s a thousand miles away in experience. You won’t find amenities, no lifeguards, no loos, nor bars even, but a sense of peace, at least on this occasion, which you have to travel much further to find in other places.