Of Big Swells and the End of Summer

It’s strangely quiet outside my window today.  A few kids are splashing about in the pool, but nowhere near the hooting and screaming of the past few weeks.  This morning in the silent supermarket there were still lettuce and tomatoes left on the shelves – granted a bit tired-looking, but for the last four to six weeks the shelves have been bare on a Monday morning after the weekend rush, (well, even on a Monday afternoon – it takes them a while to restock here).  It’s a sign the summer residents are gone or about to go, and life is on the cusp of change.

To an outsider it may seem as if everything is the same year round in El Médano, but if you live here the changes are obvious.  There will be parking again.  Once the annual fiesta is passed in another couple of weeks, the stage which occupies a corner of the main town square, will be dismantled and put into storage for another year.  Although there are always tourists, there will be fewer, and they will be mostly people here for a purpose. The spirit of El Médano, certainly for visitors and foreign residents, is very much sports-oriented. We come at the very least for the good dog-walking, and then, depending on your level of fitness, for windsurfing, kite surfing, running, cycling, swimming or power walking and more. Mix this with the folk from the old fishing community, throw in a few “hippies,” and you have the odd blend of people who rub together easily to give the town its quirky character.

In August, however, it turns into a family resort, as does just about any stretch of beach on the island with a few houses nearby.  When I strolled into the center with a friend to enjoy a glass of wine or two the other night, we were surprised to see the  climbing frames and equipment of the little playground in the square swarming with kids at midnight. Like so many indefatigable ants they were climbing, running and, of course, screaming to their hearts’ content. El Médano isn’t known for nightlife, more often than not, arriving home after dark, I’m surprised by how quiet it is, but not in August!

The other great precursor of the season in the south  that the landscape has turned to desert. Oh, the well-watered public areas of the resorts are lush and colorful as always, but the natural landscape is parched and thirsty, dying for some rain you might say.

From the approach to Montaña Roja it looks as if nothing could survive, vegetation is wilted if not skeletal.  It’s an easy walk up to the top, which is about 170 meters I think (from memory), and the views from up there are extensive along the coast, over the airport, and to the mountains beyond on a clear day.  Saturday, when I went with the photo group, it was clear-ish, and the views revealed a harsh landscape, seared by the summer sun, and apparently devoid of life, except some scrubland between the beach and the road.  Nothing much was growing other than the resilient tabaiba.

Wave beginning to build

From the times I lived near the beach in La Tejita I remember the big waves seeming to mark the end of the season too. From the hilltop on Saturday we watched for around an hour or so as the waves built and came crashing down onto the sands, the crests already being blown back out to sea by the strong winds, sometimes forming brief rainbows along the peaks of the wave.

La Tejita isn’t a surfer’s beach, although there are always waves as ocean meets the shore.  The waves break far too close  for surfing, but yesterday, when I went with Maria to take a closer look at the beach, there were a few bodyboarders out there catching a ride, and even a couple of hopeful surfers.  Not very long rides maybe, but definitely exciting. Waves rose, glittered like jeweled, turquoise glass, dragged sand from the shoreline and tossed it up in their foam, before creaming onto land.  They say that the waves come in sets of seven, every one bigger until they die away and you wait for the next set.

You can see from the color of the rock how the mountain got its name.  Anyone wonder why this, despite the barrenness at the moment, is my favorite beach in the south of Tenerife??

Looking for the Beauty in Life

There was a comment from a friend on a recent post to the effect that I live in an especially beautiful place, which is true, but I do believe that everywhere is beautiful in its own way.  Yeah, yeah I can hear you say, “What about the Gaza Strip, for instance”…….I should have chosen an example I know, but it’s the first that came to mind, and I don’t doubt that there is beauty there of some sort.  By the same token, there is plenty of ugliness here, too.  It’s just that spending life concentrating on ugliness is kind of, well, depressing.

Sometimes the beauty of a place is contained on the faces of the people who live there, sometimes it’s in the simplicity of its form, like deserts in Namibia or Sahara, or in the charm of old buildings or the elegance of new ones.  The photo above was taken when I was living in Adeje a few years ago.  It’s an abandoned banana plantation, all tumble-down breeze blocks, not nice at all, but convenient for dog walking.  I tried to lighten the picture so you can see the rubble, but I don’t know if it’s worked.  See how it’s transformed by the sunset, though?  The crumbling pillars which are so hideous in the daylight, look mysterious against the sun’s final glow.

The thing about taking your camera everywhere is that you begin to tune out the ugly and seek out the beautiful, which is to say that in the heightened state of awareness in which you find yourself, you begin to notice things you’d never noticed before, a dandelion, a cracked door…..

The door above almost certainly looks more interesting and romantic in this state than when it was freshly painted. You can weave all sorts of stories about what it guards, who lived there.

Obviously, flowers are beautiful, and can transform a drab room or a dry landscape with their colors and the sense of vitality they lend, but how about cacti?  Here, they grown like weeds, all over the place, they cling to hillsides where nothing else will grow in the parched summertime, and we drive past and ignore them, but stop, and take a look at how many shades of green they can be, the shapes and lines, their tenaciousness in proclaiming life where little else survives.  It might not be cacti where you live, but there will be something – a tiny flower shooting up between paving stones of a city street, or a denuded winter tree against a stormy sky.

Old things have a special beauty, some are more attractive with age than when they were young. If the house above wasn’t falling apart, then the creeper wouldn’t be adorning it, and if you think that looks attractive, did you notice the telephone wire running over the building, or the aerial on the roof behind. I’m not going to tell you that cables and aerials can be attractive, even I have to draw the line somewhere, but what the eye so often does is tune them out, and sees only the beauty behind.

Some tired and worn buildings need a helping hand, like the one above, in La Laguna, which is colorful and fun. It had to vie with listed buildings for its place in the public attention, so someone decided to help it along, likewise this ugly wall in Tegueste, below. It’s not a great work of art, even by graffiti standards, but it’s full of life and color, and has a touching message, beauty, remember, isn’t only physical. It’s also how something makes you feel inside.

There is sometimes beauty where you least expect it. Earlier this year, in possibly the worst day of calima I ever remember, I stopped by the roadside, dust so thick in the air I could taste it, and took this picture of La Tejita Beach. I have dozens of pictures of La Tejita, but this, unexpected one, is one of my favorites.

City streets can be so busy, it’s a hard time just not bumping into every third person you meet, but if you do stop, sometimes you notice the most surprising things. The shot below was very random. I’d been to a museum, where I’d not taken one photo for one reason or another, but when I came out, this was what I saw.

You might be drawn by the elegance of a street light, or a railing, or door.

A colorful display in a shop might strike you. OK, this is in a resort, but, let me tell you, not in an area where the word beauty springs readily to mind!

As with the what you can see in the world around you, learn to tune out the other crap as well, the people who wind you up and spoil your sense of well-being, the sounds which grate on your nerves. You might not be able to avoid the people or the sounds, but letting them get to you is allowing them way too much importance in your life. What’s important is the beauty wherever you find it.  Of course, if you’re passing through wherever you are, then it may just be a sign that it’s time to move on when all around you seems uninviting.

La Tejita Dawn Aug 23 08

La Tejita Dawn Aug 23 08

Originally uploaded by islandmommacanarias

The week has been notable for its weird weather, at least by standards here. Daytime intense heat, especially if you are trapped in a space without air con! But the sun has been veiled, rising as a pale shadow behind the calima which seems to have enveloped us forever now. It did provide photo ops, like the high tide which dumped this pool on the beach to bask in the reflection of the next day’s sunrise.

We made it every single morning of the last week.  Trixy is beginning to look trimmer, and maybe even I do too.  I definitely feel better, for the fresh air, exercise and sheer karma of this place.

Whether that was the reason the work week wasn’t so bad, or whether it was because the usual seasonal calm descended at last, I don’t know.  The summer has been notable for being busy thus far, but for most of the week we were fully staffed for the first time in weeks, owing to vacation, so I guess that had a bearing too.  Whatever, a week noted for lots of laughs.  A moment in time, remember.  This is slated to change soon.