Pinolere is one of the biggest and most enchanting craft fairs on Tenerife and is located on the slopes of a hill so steep that just getting from the car to the pavement requires steely thighs and a supply of oxygen.
On the first weekend of September over 230 craftspeople from Tenerife, the other Canary Islands and mainland Spain laid out their wares on stalls and in the shade of the thatched huts that for the rest of the year are part of the Pinolere Ethnological Museum in the highlands of La Orotava.
Under blue skies and with views to die for as a backdrop over 30,000 people turned up to get in some early Christmas shopping.
This is shopping with a difference. Stalls are spread over a series of levels but with vistas like Pinolere’s it can be difficult to take your eyes off the scenery to check out the goodies on sale.
Crafts range from the traditional, such as these wicker baskets…
…to those that you might as well sellotape straight on to your stomach.
And then there are the more contemporary works like these cheeky designs.
Or Canarian classics – hand rolled cigars from La Palma; as good as Cuban cigars…so the people from La Palma will tell you.
As well as hundreds of delightfully unique crafts on sale, the fair has art & craft making exhibitions, live music, rabbits and birds to coo over, demonstrations of traditional life in the hills , these wonderful huts and loads of secret corners to explore…and all for a €2.50 entrance fee.
If you missed Pinolere this year, don’t fret there are other craft fairs and markets around Tenerife, just not in such a spectacular location. Keep an eye on our ‘Happenings’ page for news of a fair in October featuring crafts from South America, Africa and the Canary Islands.
You’ve got to love the sense of humour exhibited by Garachico’s residents. They live in the unluckiest town in Tenerife; a place that’s been the victim of plagues, pests, floods and most famously the wrath of the volcanic gods who sent rivers of lava through their streets, destroying the harbour.
With this history of natural disaster on their shoulders and the knowledge that they’re in the most vulnerable place on Tenerife should Mount Teide decide to throw a fit, how do you think they celebrate their biggest fiesta?
The answer is they set fire to the beach and launch flaming balls from the cliff top in the direction of the town. It’s a brilliant two-fingered response to nature’s fickle ways.
Garachico’s Fiestas Lustrales take place once every five years and on the night of Sunday 1st August, around 30,000 people packed the streets and the harbour area of the normally sleepy town. They were there to witness one of the most bizarre and spectacular events in Tenerife’s fiesta calendar, the Fuegos del Risco, a re-enactment of the eruption that filled the town’s harbour with lava just over three hundred years ago.
At somewhere between 10 and 11pm Santísimo Cristo de la Misericordia was paraded through the streets, the town was plunged into darkness and the beach set alight. Impressive enough in itself, but the real show was only just beginning.
Heads turned skywards as flames spread down the cliff behind the beach following the same path as the lava in 1706. After a few moments a fireball was launched from a vantage point high up the cliff face. It tumbled down the slope, bouncing its way earthwards urged on by screams of encouragement from the crowd. The excited buzz changed to groans of disappointment when the fireball became lodged in a crevice halfway down. The disappointment didn’t last long, within seconds another fireball appeared and another and soon a whole stream of flaming balls were careening their way towards Garachico, burning a fiery trail down the hillside.
Some didn’t quite make it and some ended their journey in a ravine at the base of the cliffs whilst a couple of stray fireballs bounced into an unfortunately situated lone tree, setting it alight. The most determined fireballs refused to be stopped by something as puny as gravity. Racing down the cliff face, they hit the ground at speed, bounced, clearing walls and natural obstacles and just kept on going toward the beach before finally coming to rest dangerously close to a fire engine in position to prevent the Fuegos del Risco becoming too realistic.
As Garachico’s hillside burned, an explosive firework display in time to a booming operatic soundtrack added to the epic spectacle (sadly the music didn’t include Great Balls of Fire). It felt like being at the centre of a volcanic eruption, but one scored by Wagner.
That’s Tenerife for you. You think you’ve seen the most outrageous fiesta there is, but then the Tinerfeños come up with something that tops it. Fire-balling the town is going to be a hard one to beat.
“In the silence I can hear their breaking hearts…”
Robert Cray, one of the greatest guitar players on the planet, closed his eyes, and let his fingers do their magic on his Fender Stratocaster. His eyes were tightly shut and his lips silently mouthed along with the electrifying and heartfelt lament despatched from the guitar in his hands. The sound cleaved a path through the still night and sent a delicious tingle down my spine.
This was my nirvana; a hot sultry evening beneath shocking red and perfectly named flamboyant trees listening to blues so cool they could have created their own dry ice effects.
You can keep your big stadiums and the likes of Elton John, Rod Stewart and Simply Red. Listening to a musician such as Robert Cray hypnotise an intimate audience underneath the tower of the Iglesia de la Concepción in Santa Cruz is the real deal as far as I’m concerned. If there was only one music festival I could attend in Tenerife during the year it would Santa Blues.
Santa Blues is held each June in one of the most picturesque urban spots on Tenerife, the Noria district in Santa Cruz. ‘La Noria’ is an enchanting mix of cobbled streets bordered by old townhouses and chic bars and restaurants buzzing with the capital’s beautiful people. It’s fitting that one of the trendiest nocturnal scenes on Tenerife should be the venue for something as cool as a blues festival.
Yet Santa Blues doesn’t attract the crowds that it should. The area around the festival might be buzzing, trying to grab a beer in one of the bars near the plaza where the festival is held requires patience and no little skill in the art of attracting the barman’s attention. But the crowd which congregates to watch the musicians perform usually consists only of a few hundred people.
The low attendance seems crazy considering the calibre of artists who have played at the festival (Ike Turner, Robert Cray, Buddy Guy) especially considering that the whole damn shebang is free. However, in a way I’m glad. I like the small and intimate atmosphere; it feels more in the spirit of what a blues session should be. It might not be a dark, hot and smoky blues club in downtown Chicago, but close your eyes and it might as well be.
Although I enjoy being seduced by the blues, I’m no aficionado and therefore not familiar with any of the names headlining Santa Blues 2010 (Larry McCray, Sandra Hall & Kenny Neal). But then I hadn’t heard Irish up and coming band, The Deans or The Vargas Blues Band before last year’s festival and both blew me away with a barrage of R’n'B guitar riffs and soulful energy.
So I’ll be there again this year soaking up the blues but, given my poor ‘grabbing the barman’s attention’ skills, probably not the beer.
Santa Blues Factfile: The Festival runs from 24th to 26th June, starting at 9pm each night. See Tenerife Magazine’s ‘Happenings’ for more details.
Title: Tenerife Ladies Golf Open Location: Buenavista Golf Link out: Click here Description: Last years event at Golf Costa Adeje was wonderful, this should be at least as good. Prize money of 275.000 euros up for grabs and the best women players on the European Tour. Start Date: 2010-07-01 End Date: 2010-07-04
For additional information about The Tenerife Ladies Open 2010 visit:
