Tenerife Magazine’s round up of some of the most interesting news stories of the week in Tenerife.

The Bells, the Bells, they Deafen Me
Some townsfolk in Granadilla de Abona are up in arms about the decision of the local priest to stop a centuries-old tradition of ringing the bells of the Iglesia de San Antonio de Padua every fifteen minutes throughout the night. You’d think they’d be delighted by that decision. But no, they’re incensed by it. In fact you could go as far as saying the peasants are revolting. They say that the bells ringing out throughout the night are emblematic of the town’s past.
However, look a little deeper and there might be shades of Royston Vasey going on here.

Exhibit A: Complaints against the priest seem to focus on the fact that ‘he’s only been there a year’ – not local, an outsider then?

Exhibit B: Another complaint is that the bells have been stopped to appease tourists staying at the rural hotel opposite the church – more outsiders causing problems.

The rural hotel only has a small number of rooms, so it seems highly unlikely that it would have the influence to stop the nocturnal bell ringing. Furthermore, the priest insists that there are plenty of other townspeople who wanted a cease to the bells between midnight and 8am.
In many ways it’s a quirky, rural town feud but in another it’s a microcosmic example of a trait that can sometimes raise its head on not only Tenerife, but other small islands.

Puerto de la Cruz – Open to Traffic at Last
There seems to be a belief amongst road planners in some places on Tenerife that a town doesn’t look its best unless half its roads are dug up. In Puerto de la Cruz, not only has one of the main routes into town, Carretera Botánico, been dug up for a year, so has the main access to Plaza Charco along Calle Zamora. The good news is that both roads are now finished…almost. Despite the Cabildo announcing that Carretera Botánico’s revamp was completed within the project’s time limits, manhole covers jutted out a good few inches above the road surface (now rectified) and the pedestrian crossings haven’t all been replaced, causing dangerous confusion amongst drivers and pedestrians. Calle Zamora, although looking a sight for sore eyes, now only requires a bureaucrat to rubber stamp it before it can reopen to traffic (that can take up to 15 days). Unfortunately, that’s not much consolation for the businesses that closed down along it during its lengthy closure. Councillors in Puerto are scratching their heads because tourist figures are dropping. Maybe now visitors can actually get into town those figures might start to increase.

Sightseeing in Santa Cruz
Cruise passengers visiting Tenerife’s capital, Santa Cruz, will be able to access a great new service at the end of February or early March. Five state of the art tourist buses will be at the port to meet them and take them on an historical and cultural tour of the city’s highlights. It’s planned that there will be 14 stops along the way for passengers to be able to pick and choose what sights they want to explore in a bit more depth before catching the next ‘tourist’ bus that comes along. Information on the buses will be provided in various languages. Sounds like a good initiative to encourage visitors to spend a bit more time in a wonderful city.

Arona – an Excellent Place for Bathing
On a hot, sunny day the shimmering waters lapping Playa de las Américas, Los Cristianos, Las Galletas and Palm Mar’s beaches look deliciously inviting, but not only do they look good, tests by the island’s Medio Ambiente (environmental dept) have confirmed that the quality of the water on Arona’s coastline is excellent as well. It’s reassuring to know that you’re not going to encounter any…err…unexpected obstacles during your swim.

The Big Cheese
Congratulations to La Quesería Artesanal Montesdeoca, a small, family run cheese making business in Adeje. They picked up the bronze medal in the semi-cured smoked goats’ cheese category at the World Cheese Awards 2010 held in Birmingham at the end of November. The family of cheese makers, originally from La Palma, were the only winners from the Santa Cruz de Tenerife province at the prestigious event. We’ll definitely be seeking them out to try some of their award winning cheese. Some local press reports omitted to mention that the ‘other’ Canarian province won a number of gold, silver and bronze awards but shhh, we don’t mention that here. Incidentally the best in the world award went to the Cornish Cheese Company’s Cornish Blue.

And finally the TIT (This Is Tenerife) of the week award goes to a cable wiring company in Isla Baja
This week we’ve got a TIT that demonstrates Tenerife’s quirky and inconsistent nature perfectly. At the end of November, thieves stole 600 metres of cabling connecting streetlights on the TF-42 in Los Silos.
600 metres of wire gone in one night from a main road and nobody saw a thing? Well I suppose you could say that was because the road was plunged into darkness. But here’s the TIT bit. It took the company that was contracted to replace the stolen cable three weeks to do so.
Thieves took the lot down in one night in the darkness and the so called professionals needed three weeks to get the replacement cables back up and lights working again.
They should make it a priority to catch these cable thieves… and offer them jobs.

Tenerife Magazine’s round up of some of the most interesting news stories of the week in Tenerife.

Humboldt’s View
It’s been eleven years in the making but the controversial mirador (viewpoint) dedicated to German explorer Alexander von Humboldt overlooking the La Orotava Valley finally opened its doors to the public last Friday. The grand opening was more of a whisper than a shout, possibly because it wasn’t actually finished yet and workers were still adding the finishing touches – like tables and chairs on the open air terrace – but by all accounts Humboldt’s Mirador is looking good.

There’s a Carnaval in Tenerife?
Representatives of Tenerife’s Murga Federation were given a bit of a reality check at the VI Congreso Gaditano del Carnaval in Cadiz. The conference included more than 300 representatives from countries around the world who stage carnavals including Argentina, Uruguay and Germany. Tenerife’s representatives were surprised to observe that when carnaval in Santa Cruz was mentioned it was only in passing as just like any other carnival celebration.
“We say here that carnaval in Tenerife is the best in Europe next to Venice and the second best in the world after Rio de Janeiro, and we are fooling ourselves.” One representative lamented after discovering that none of the other carnival countries seemed aware of this claim.
There’s no doubting that carnaval on Tenerife is one of the best in the world, but the Santa Cruz Murga’s experience highlighted an important lesson. Tenerife continually needs to look outside of the island to understand what is happening elsewhere and how the island is viewed by non-Canarios to ultimately learn how best to promote its many attractive qualities.

Los Silos at the Forefront of the Digital Age
It’s interesting to note that one of Tenerife’s most quaint little towns, Los Silos is trying to lead the way in making the town hall’s website more useful for its citizens. Whilst Ayuntamientos (local councils) who really should know better (Puerto de la Cruz) let their websites languish with tumbleweed blowing through their out of date web pages, Los Silos has just introduced a virtual market on theirs. Admittedly there aren’t many items on it yet – virtual shoppers can pick up a Yamaha motorcycle, a couple of TVs, a Carrefour recycled shopping bag, a World Cup album and some iron coat hangers. All that’s missing is a cuddly toy (for non- British readers that’s a dated reference to a UK TV programme). Los Silos’ young Ayuntamiento should be applauded for trying new innovations when so many remain counting sand grains from below the surface.

Nowhere to get Naked in Santa Cruz
Another beach has fallen foul of the fear of falling rocks syndrome, this time it’s naturists’ favourite Las Gaviotas near Playa de la Teresitas. The access road to the beach was closed during one of the recent weather alerts for high winds but has still not been re-opened. Enquiries from local naturists as to why the beach was closed were met with no adequate response from the relevant council department in Santa Cruz. In fact no-one in authority seemed to be too sure of who was responsible. However, apart from the left hand not knowing what the right hand was doing, the most pressing question is why would anyone want to expose everything to the elements during the wind and rain that some parts of Tenerife experienced last week?

A Tragic Tale
This is one of those tragic stories that makes you wonder just how much animals can sense about what’s going on. A farmer in Tejina was killed by a normally placid bull that he had raised since it was young. The bull turned on his owner and gored him in the stomach when he tried to load it into a truck…whose destination was the slaughterhouse.

And finally the TIT (This Is Tenerife) of the week award goes to a true Scrooge of an official in Santa Maria del Mar.
There are petty bureaucrats and then there are petty bureaucrats. Belénes (traditional nativity scenes) are as much a part of Christmas on Tenerife as turrón and Feliz Navidad playing endlessly in every supermarket.  They bring a smile to people’s faces and offend no-one…unless you happen to have a sensitive nature and get upset by El Caganer, or are a jobsworth in Santa Maria del Mar.
A local man has erected a belén in a public garden for the last twenty years without any problem. But this year a local official issued a denuncia against it on the grounds that the belén builder didn’t have the required permit and that it represented a potential danger to the public. Result – no belén for the residents of that particular area of the town.
What a load of old tosh. The official’s superiors should be looking into why this mean spirited jobsworth has enough time to waste on such petty matters instead of dealing with issues that are actually important. With any luck the ghost of ‘Christmas yet to come’ will visit Tenerife’s Scrooge and show them that unless they change the error of their ways they’ll be replaced with someone who actually possesses a modicum of common sense.

BAH! HUMBUG!

Tenerife Magazine’s round up of some of the most interesting news stories of the week in Tenerife

Feeling Hot, Hot, Hot
The big news of the week was the heat wave which pushed temperatures above the 40C mark across much of the island. As the hot calima winds turned Tenerife into a tinderbox, the Cabildo issued advice prohibiting any kind of fire in the hills and we kept an eye on the skies, listening for the ominous sound of helicopter blades – usually a sign of a fire somewhere at this time of year. And so it proved to be the case with thirteen fires reported in the space of one 12 hour period. Six were in La Laguna, three in Arona, two in Granadilla de Abona and one each in San Miguel de Abona and Santa Cruz. Thankfully the island’s fire services were able to extinguish them all. As residents worried about forest fires, tourists revelled in the hot temperatures. Every coin has two sides.

No Partying Here – This is a Tourist Resort
Some members of the council in Costa Adeje want to impose fines on those involved in the practice of enjoying a botellón in the resort. A botellón is a practice carried out throughout Spain which basically involves youths meeting in open air spaces to socialise and drink. It’s a cheap way of having a party without paying inflated bar prices. Botellóns can be messy affairs and areas where they take place look like a tip afterwards…but it is part of the culture. However, not a part of the culture that some politicians want tourists exposed to. There’s a certain irony that in an area designed for drinking, being merry and having a good time, there’s a chance that rules will be imposed to stop young locals doing exactly that, albeit in their own way.

Watching the Detectives
It doesn’t instill a lot of confidence in the sleuthing abilities of Tenerife’s boys in blue when you learn that the council in Güímar hired a private detective agency to do a bit of detecting instead of using its own police force. The situation became even more bizarre when it was revealed that the private dicks had been hired to spy on the Güímar police. In a ‘you couldn’t make it up if you tried’ scenario, the private eyes followed eight officers who had a reputation of pulling sickies on fiesta days. One officer allegedly suffering from a bad shoulder was seen carrying heavy blocks whilst another with an arm in a splint was spotted cleaning a car using the injured arm. Not so much a case of the long arm of the law as the wrong arm of the law.

If You Go Down to the Woods Today…
You might just meet a procession and we’re not talking about pilgrims returning from their annual jaunt to pay homage to the Virgen de la Candelaria.
Part of the pine forest in the upper La Orotava Valley around the stone rock rose has become temporary home to a quite serious little pest called the pine processionary caterpillar, so named because groups of them travel around the forest in a line. This little fellow is quite a nasty piece of work. They can decimate pine trees, leading to a higher risk of fires due to the increased level of pine needles they leave on forest floors. The authorities have advised that the pine processionary caterpillar is a seasonal visitor and the threat they pose to the forest should disappear when they do. If anyone stumbles across any of these caterpillars, don’t touch as they are dangerous. In fact run in the opposite direction as their hairs, which can be released into the air, are toxic and can cause painful rashes and itching which lasts for up to three weeks.

For Whom the Bells Don’t Toll
One of the nicest churches on Tenerife, the Iglesia de Nuestra Señora de La Luz in Los Silos was at the centre of a row which had the townspeople up in arms.
There has been a long tradition of the church’s bells sounding throughout the night for generations, but that was in danger when a resident who lives right behind the church complained about the noise and demanded that the bell ringing was stopped.
Initially the bell ringing ceased during the hours of darkness, but an impassioned outcry by the townsfolk soon had them ringing proudly again. We say well done to the people of Los Silos for standing up for your town’s traditions. The man who tried to silence the bells turned out to be a Spanish mainlander who had been living on the outskirts of the town before recently moving to a house behind the church. It never goes down well when a newcomer moves into a town and then tries to force people to change their traditions just to suit, but for a Godo to try it on Tenerife…

And finally the TIT (This Is Tenerife) of the week award goes to… the Humboldt Mirador in La Orotava

This beauty spot which wooed explorers, scientists and adventurers is a white elephant of classic proportions. It was reported last week that after four years of waiting, the Humboldt Mirador would finally open at the end of September…maybe.

The four year waiting is nothing unusual; it’s the story behind it that earns it the TIT award.

Construction of the Humboldt Mirador began in 1999 and in theory it was completed in 2005. However, bureaucratic shenanigans have delayed its opening for so long that the building fell into disrepair and required renovating…even though it had never been opened or used. So far the mirador-that-never-was will have cost around 2 million euros. It is so Tenerife – brilliant, but also criminally wasteful.

We suspect there’s a mysterious hippy community lurking around the north of Tenerife that spends most of its time lying naked on some beach sporting rainbow bandanas and getting their consciousness expanded by herbal inducements, man. They only appear in public when a really ‘sound’ fiesta comes along.

Well this month Los Silos staged the ‘Boreal Festival of the Whale’ and out came the beautiful people in their droves; all dreadlocks, patchouli oil and multi-coloured harem pants.
Pastel flags fluttered in the breeze above stalls selling kitsch bags made from recycled plastic, natural un-dyed clothing, juggling paraphernalia and beads – naturally.
There were infectiously rhythmic Batucada bands accompanied by a sort of Chinese Dragon whale, jugglers, a dreadlocked hippy on a uni-cycle and paragliders floating lazily above the whale skeleton on the cliff top.
All in all it was a gentle, earth-friendly affair that oozed love and peace.

The odd thing about it was the lack of live music which had been scheduled to appear at intervals throughout the afternoon and into the early hours. By the time Tenerife Magazine left just after 9pm all we’d seen was two bands taking an eternity to go through their sound checks and no actual live performance.
We suspect the sound engineers had experienced just a little too much consciousness expansion.

Dropping down the coast to the rock of Garachico, the scene couldn’t have contrasted more sharply.
The gentle tinkling of Tibetan Bells was replaced by the guttural roar of 1000cc motorbike engines; floaty pastel shaded cotton was replaced by black leather and studs, and a large stage bereft of musicians was replaced by a small one bouncing with screeching punk and rock guitars.

The Moto Rock festival was a fusion of biking and rock and filled the harbour with sexy, dangerous looking beasties and their bikes. In-between bands, the Kings of Leon and Kasabian blasted from the speakers urging performers waiting in the dressing tent to ever greater fantasies of rock stardom.
What the fest lacked in numbers it made up for in heart as one lead guitarist, clearly enthralled by his one-night rock stand, smashed his guitar to pieces at the final chords of the set.

Long live rock n roll indeed.