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

The Butterfly Effect
Icod de los Vinos doesn’t exactly boast a multitude of attractions to keep tourists in the town for any length of time. The famous Millennium Drago Tree attracts tourists but mainly in a whistle stop tour manner. Then there’s El Mariposario, the Butterfly Garden, dedicated to the conservation and breeding of butterflies and a wondrous place to wander around. You’d think that local politicians would be pleased to have two unique Tenerife tourist attractions next to each other. But no; this is Tenerife where dragging out local political feuds is more important than doing what is best for your town. For sixteen years the council have been trying to close El Mariposario for reasons that are murky at best. What is clear to most people is that the continued presence of El Mariposario in Icod is good for the town. Clear to most people but not Icod’s politicians it seems who, in the past, have stooped to posting a police presence outside El Mariposario in what seemed an incredible bid to deter visitors. The time is long overdue for the petty bickering to stop and for the council to work with the Butterfly Gardens, not against it. The local elections are coming up in May. Lets hope the people of Icod use the opportunity to get rid of the problem that is really harming their town.

A Hot Spring for Tenerife
Great news for anyone planning a holiday on Tenerife in the next few months. Weather forecasters are predicting that April, May and June are going to be hotter than average this year. After the unusually cold spell a couple of weeks ago it’s easy to forget that the first half of the winter was unseasonably warm. And even with the occasional cool spell (that’s cool for here not Northern Europe) between January and March, temperatures were slightly above average overall even though some places in the Canary Islands did experience more rain than normal – Fuerteventura, Lanzarote and the south of Tenerife, hence the novelty of a green landscape this year.

The New Tenerife Parador
The work to renovate Tenerife’s Parador at the base of Mount Teide is finally coming to an end. The renovation has included modernising the air conditioning and electrical systems, sprucing up public areas and rooms and improving sports facilities. All should be completed within the next few weeks even though the Parador’s website is still showing 1st March as the completion date (what’s a few weeks between friends?). Despite the work, which seems to have been going on forever, visitor numbers to the Parador increased in 2010 with American, French, Italian and Japanese visitors showing the highest increases. What, no British increase despite the millions of us that flock to Tenerife each year?

The End of the Circus
At various times of the year it’s still possible to find what residents from other countries may view as old-fashioned circuses (.i.e. ones that still have wild animals as part of their acts) set up in car parks and recreational grounds around Tenerife. But not for much longer in the municipality of Granadilla de Abona in the south of Tenerife. The deputy mayor Antonio Cabrera has put forward a proposal to ban all circuses that include performing wild animals because of the potential for cruelty towards the animals in terms of training methods and housing conditions. Personally I’d also include in the ban circuses that still had clown acts …because of the potential for cruelty to the audience.

Garachico’s New Port
It looks like the opening of Garachico’s new port will be delayed for some months (no surprise with that piece of news). The port itself should be ready by the first quarter of 2012 but then there’s the little matter of port buildings etc. So it should be around the end of 2012 before the port is fully operational. Garachico’s mayor also announced there were plans for a spa, pool and sports complex as well as a new luxury hotel nearby. What is it with Tenerife and the desire for luxury hotels? Garachico already has a couple of the best boutique hotels on the island; let’s hope the politicians don’t achieve what the lava in 1706 failed to do…spoil one of Tenerife’s most picturesque towns.

And finally the TIT (This Is Tenerife) of the week award goes to…the Santa Cruz Tourist Bus

The new open-topped tourist bus service launched last week was supposed to take visitors to Santa  Cruz on a tour of the best of the city’s attractions. However, the service got off to a start that, even by Tenerife standards, should go down in history as the stuff of pure slaptstick genius.
We’re not going to tell you the details, instead we’ll leave you the pleasure of reading Colin Kirby’s hilarious account of one of the maiden voyages of the Santa Cruz tourist bus that started out, as Colin says, in Cliff Richards Summer Holiday fashion and ended up like a Tenerife remake of Speed. Read it and weep..with laughter.

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

There’s Only One Way to Mount Teide
To say it hasn’t been the best week for weather on Tenerife is a bit of an understatement. With wind, rain, cloud and snow and temperatures dropping to as low as 17C on the coast – during the day – winter finally arrived in one all-inclusive wet and dreary package. Internal flights were cancelled and roads were closed, but there has been one big plus; Mount Teide now has a fresh coat of snow and looks stunning. With Wednesday, 2nd February being a public holiday on Tenerife it’s almost guaranteed that hundreds, if not thousands, of Tinerfeños will flock to Teide National Park for some fun in the snow; causing absolute chaos. To counter the Cabildo are implementing Operativo Nevadas (Operation Snow); a plan to alleviate the congestion by creating one-way systems through the park. As we understand it this means that the only way to get to the mountain from the north is via the La Esperanza road and the only way to leave is via the La Orotava road. Visitors from the south have it a bit easier they can come and go as normal but only as far as the cable car as the road between the cable car and El Portillo will be completely closed. Will it alleviate the chaos? We know where our money lies and we’re not making the journey to find out whether we’re right or wrong.

A New Name for the Tenerife Auditorium
For once Tenerife’s opposing political parties were in unanimous agreement; to change the name of the Tenerife Auditorium to the Auditorium Adán Martín Menis. Adán Martín, the ex- president of the Canary Islands who died last October, championed the construction of the visionary structure and the decision to honour his memory by changing the name of Tenerife’s most iconic building is an indication of how much he was liked and respected.

Poor Show at the Tenerife Sales
With the traditional post Navidad sales period continuing on Tenerife for another month, retailers have recorded a 10-15% drop in sales compared to 2010. Despite the usual mad start to the sales, the crowds of bargain hunters soon tailed off leaving shops with lots of unsold stock. Clearly Spain’s economic crisis plays a big part in this, but it might help if some retailers got hold of a dictionary to remind themselves of the definition of ‘rebajas’. Example: Computer on sale in PC City just before the sales – €299. Once the sales start the same computer on offer at – €350. Go figure that one out.

Tourism is Good for Tenerife’s Environment
It might seem an extreme claim, but consider the findings of Marcelino José del Arco, a professor of Biology at La Laguna University, and it doesn’t seem quite so fanciful.
Over the last forty years as agricultural related occupations on the islands were replaced by tourism related jobs, many farm terraces were abandoned. His research has revealed that nature has grasped the opportunity presented by the abandonment of agricultural lands and the laurisilva forests in woodland areas like the Anaga Mountains on Tenerife and Garajonay in La Gomera are spreading outwards. The same has occurred in nearly all of the Canary Islands and now new areas of these ancient forests are coming to maturity. You could argue that the environment has benefited, in an indirect way, from the growth of tourism. How’s that for irony?

And finally the TIT (This Is Tenerife) of the week award goes to Guia de Isora Ayuntamiento for not heeding the words of Joni Mitchell

In truth you’ve got to feel a bit sorry for Guia de Isora’s council. On one side there’s the municipality of Santiago del Teide with it’s tourist hot spot trio of Los Gigantes, Puerto Santiago and Playa de la Arena. On the other there’s Adeje whose Costa Adeje resorts cater for everything from upmarket visitors to budget travellers. In between there’s Guia de Isora with its non-touristy coastal resorts, Alcalá and Playa San Juan, that boast just two luxury hotels between them. Guia de Isora clearly feels it’s not receiving its fair share of the spoils and plans to do something about it by swapping the banana plantations for roads, a port, a train and more hotels.
But here’s the thing; at the moment Alcalá and Playa San Juan are the two nicest towns along that coast and attract visitors precisely because of the fact that they are surrounded by banana plantations and have a charming authentic  Canarian community feel to them. Swap the bananas for concrete and they become no different from any other purpose built resort. Will it really benefit Tenerife to continue to pave paradise just to put up a parking lot?

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

It’s the dawn of a new year; a time to start afresh, eager and hungry to put into practice all the things we learned from our mistakes over the last year…or is it?

No Smoking Tenerife
The big story of the year so far is Spain’s new ‘no smoking’ law introduced on the 2nd January. The government showed some consideration by giving smokers New Year’s Day to enjoy a last puff in their favourite bars as they recovered from the previous night’s partying.
Despite enjoying a four year stay of execution after the last non-law was introduced in 2006, some people seemed completely shocked by the fact that it was actually happening and reacted as though Spain was the only place where non-smoking laws were being introduced…instead of being one of the last places amongst the main EU countries. Interestingly in one Tenerife bar, where there was a mix of Tinerfeños and British visitors, the visitors seemed to know more about the introduction of the law than the locals. Despite mutinous shouts of ‘loco’ and ‘prohibido prohibir’ (there’s a movement with that name whose goal is to overturn the law) it finally was lights out for Tenerife’s smokers.
The first ‘no smoking’ day didn’t pass without incident. There were over 300 denuncias issued against puffers who refused to comply and one man in the Basque country was arrested after threatening a nurse who asked him to extinguish his cigarette.

Who Nicked Baby Jesus?
One of the more bizarre robberies over the festive season was the theft of the little baby Jesus from the belén in Candelaria. The baby might have been worth €240 (really?), but it’s difficult to imagine there’s much of a market for stolen baby Jesus’s, especially now that the festive season is almost over. It’s more likely the theft was more of a prank, given that this is the second year in a row that he’s been stolen. Last year apparently the council tied Jesus down to try to keep him safe but without success. Clearly the shepherds weren’t watching over their flock that night.

Grave Robbers in Arico
An even more bizarre and macabre theft took place in Arico when mourners visiting the local cemetery to lay flowers on loved one’s graves found that seven graves had been opened and their inhabitants were missing. It’s not the first time that there’s been a spate of grave robbing in the municipality and the mayor insists that it’s definitely not the work of anyone local. Instead he claims that a satanic cult from the south of Tenerife are to blame and cited the regular appearance of dead chickens at the cemetery’s gates as evidence of the practice of black arts. None of the missing corpses were from recent times, most being from the 1920s and 30s. It sounds like an intriguing mystery that’s worthy of further investigation…but not by us scaredy cats at Tenerife Magazine.

The Most Glamorous Roundabout on Tenerife
Only in Tenerife could roundabouts be considered tourist attractions; a few years ago Puerto de la Cruz even held a firework display to celebrate the opening of one, but Los Cristianos has gone one better. Anyone who drives into Los Cristianos knows the roundabout at the entrance to the town only too well. Tackling it is not for the fainthearted; a good knowledge of local driving quirks is definitely required. But now the beast has beauty. The council has spent over half a million euros installing fountains, light displays, sculptures and a garden to welcome drivers into the town. It’s absolutely lovely and just what Tenerife’s drivers need at a busy intersection…another distraction.

The Last €2500 Baby
The last baby of 2010 born in the Canary Islands arrived on Tenerife at five minutes to midnight earning her parents the last €2500 ‘baby’ cheque from the government. The baby girl was a day overdue and her tired and relieved mother commented that it meant more just to get her out than to get the cheque.

And finally the TIT (This Is Tenerife) of the week award goes to The Spanish Postal Service
Whilst everyone was getting in a huff, but less of a puff, about the new smoking law, the Correos (Spanish Postal Service) quietly introduced changes that could have quite an impact on anyone who regularly sends mail to other European countries from Tenerife.
Postal charges normally increase from the 1st January each year and for 2011 the Correos issued a press release patting themselves on the back for only raising the price of a standard letter (up to 20g) to Europe by 1 cent from €0.64 to €0.65. The press notice also pointed out that Spain’s postal service was one of the most economic in Europe…really? Now for the truth.
What the press notice didn’t say was that they also moved the goalposts for calculating postal charges. From 1st January the cost of sending letters over 100g increased by an astounding 74%. So next time you write that long letter to an old friend, or send that special birthday card you might be in for a shock to discover that posting it could cost a whopping €6.
One of the most economic in Europe? The cost of sending the same letter from the UK to Tenerife is £1.98.
Either they’re stupid or the Correos think we are stupid. But then, whilst everyone has been getting their knickers in a twist about not been able to smoke, there’s not been a squeak about this little stunt. Not even from Spain’s national TV companies some of whom reported the Correos’ press release almost verbatim. Make of that what you will.

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.

The Botanical Gardens are Almost Ready to Re-open
Despite initial estimations that it would take a month to clear up the damage caused by the storm at the end of December, the director of the Jardín de Aclimatación de La Orotava, more commonly known as the Botanical Gardens in Puerto de la Cruz announced in a radio interview that the gardens may be open again for business some time this week.
Most of the clean up of the gardens has been completed a week and a half earlier than anticipated and all that is required is specialist assessment of the condition of some of the garden’s taller trees.
Tragically some rare specimens, including a rare fig tree and ancient Mediterranean olive trees, have been lost forever but most of the ground cover should recover in two to three months.
For all the damage, Tenerife’s most renowned gardens retain their enchanting and exotic, rainforest character and are still one of the north’s must sees.

Santa Cruz – It’s not that far
This week the president of the CIT (Centre for Intiatives and Tourism) Miguel Ángel González Suárez called for support in having Santa Cruz declared a ‘Tourist City’.
Despite the number of cruises that dock at the capital’s port every week, Santa Cruz has seen a reduction in the numbers of daily visitors in recent years. CIT’s president pointed a finger at wasted opportunities quoting limited shopping as one of the reasons that visitor numbers were down. The question of all day opening hours and Sunday shopping has long been a hotly debated topic.
However, there are already plenty of shops with familiar names that open all day, but visitors can now find many of them in southern shopping centres. Something that wasn’t the case not so long ago when southern residents had to travel north for a bit of decent shopping. People visiting Tenerife just for sunshine and shopping aren’t going to bother making the trip up the TF1.
Santa Cruz is a wonderful and vibrant city with many charming corners – this is what the politicians should be promoting. With its unique mix of sun, fun, history and culture it’s an ideal city break destination. Forget the bling and concentrate on promoting the real attractions of a European city with real character.

The Ups and Downs of Cycling on Tenerife
Turismo de Tenerife has commissioned a study into looking at the feasibility of developing mountain bike routes through some of Tenerife’s most spectacular scenery in the Anaga Mountains. The idea is to create a series of routes which are between nine and fifteen miles long that include cross country and descent trails. The belief is that these sort of bike routes will attract thousands of new tourists who practice mountain biking. Sounds like a decent enough idea, but what was interesting was that it was also suggested that it might be something suitable for families with children. Have you been to the Anagas? Tackling the Anaga’s undulating ravines isn’t quite the same as a gentle cycle along a canal tow path.

Magic Mushrooms
If you don’t know a psilocybin from a saprotrophic then a trip to Santa Úrsula should help clear up any confusion and avoid unwanted hallucinations as the council has set up a new free mushroom identification service in the town hall. From now until March a specialist will be on hand between 11am and 2pm Monday to Friday to advise people whether their wild mushrooms are more suitable for the frying pan or for any retro 70s party they might be planning.

Skating on Thin Ice
The ice rink in Santa Cruz was finally opened to the public a week later than scheduled…which in Tenerife makes it pretty much on time. It was reported that the initial reaction was cool and there were suggestions that a fear of falling may have deterred adults but numbers picked up as the more fearless younger Santa Cruceros hit the city by late afternoon. Organisers said that they believed numbers would continue to increase especially over the weekend when one Spanish paper reported that an ‘avalanche’ was predicted. Creating an ice rink in Plaza España is impressive enough, but throwing in an avalanche as well….

Tenerife’s Cathedral Set to Re-open…but not just yet
Great news for La Laguna’s poor old cathedral which has been closed to the public for nearly a decade. The Spanish Government has agreed to add 6 million euros to the renovation pot which has already eaten up 5 million euros. The additional money should mean that we’ll all get to see what the inside of the cathedral looks like sometime in 2013; a hundred years after its inauguration.

A Charge for Parking the Car
Here’s an interesting curio. At the moment there is only one public installation on Tenerife where you can recharge your electric car (don’t ask how many electric cars there actually are on Tenerife) and it is in a most unlikely spot. The underground car park at the Hotel Gran Melia Palacio de Isora has two points for recharging electric cars. It’s predicted that there will be an increase of leccy powered cars on Tenerife over the next few years – or should that be a surge?

And finally the TIT (This Is Tenerife) of the week award goes to Tenerife’s Timeshare Crooks
The reputation of timeshare companies took a dent last week in Tenerife as Spanish National Police arrested twenty five people in connection with operating ten fraudulent timeshare resale companies on the island. Most of those arrested were German as were most of the timeshare owners who had been duped out of their cash. The fraudulent companies were found to have details of over 100,000 potential timeshare owners on their books.

The names of the fraudulent companies are: Fortress International, Nowatis, American General Inc Financial Services, Tourlmus , Royal Lepage, Callaway & Brookfield Ltd, European Ltd, Real Estate Investment, Wintermann & Son Investments and Elascan Da

Scams like these only serve to tarnish Tenerife’s reputation and also that of reputable timeshare companies, so a big Christmas pantomime hiss and boo to the fraudsters and a loud cheer to the Spanish police for putting these twenty five villains exactly where they belong.

Tenerife set for a White Christmas
After storms and strikes, let’s put aside the week’s woes and try to dunk ourselves in some Christmas spirit. Christmas lights are being erected and turned on across Tenerife’s towns, nativity scenes are springing up in shops and town halls and Santa Cruz and La Laguna councils are planning hours upon hours of festive entertainment to help make life for residents and visitors that little bit more jolly. But the icing on the cake and a sight that made us mouth a silent ‘wow’ was the vision of Mount Teide covered in snow following the storm. With snow forecast for the summit of Spain’s highest mountain for most of this week it looks as though a white Christmas is on the cards for Tenerife.

After the Storm
Anyone who’s seen Santa Cruz or Puerto de la Cruz the morning after an all night carnival street party will already know that street cleaners on Tenerife can perform the impossible. There’s little or no evidence that a couple of hours previously carnival hot spots looked as though a bomb had hit them. Similarly new arrivals at Plaza del Charco in Puerto de la Cruz, one of the areas hit hardest by the recent storm, would have been amazed to learn that 24 hours earlier the area had looked like a war zone with fallen palms and wrecked cafeterias. Even as the wind was still howling, blocked roads were cleared and re-opened quickly and efficiently. The authorities and the Tinerfeño public in general should be applauded for the incredible job they made of clearing up nature’s mess with the minimum of fuss.

Baby Boom at Loro Parque
Who knows what they’re feeding the animals at Loro Parque, but the second half of 2010 has seen a veritable baby boom in one of Tenerife’s most popular tourist attractions. Sea lions and titi monkey Miko in August, sloths Luca and Chuca at the beginning of October followed by an orca just over a week later. Then it was jaguar cubs Pimbo and Yagi, and last week it was the birth of four meerkats, one of the most popular creatures on the planet thanks to those fascinating BBC documentaries. It’s clearly a credit to the breeding programme at the park that there’s been such a boom in births. However, if there are any new parents-to-be out there looking for inspiration for a name for baby, I’m not sure Loro Parque is the best place to look.

Cruising in Santa Cruz
In a week full of headlines about chaos at Spanish airports it’s worth remembering that air travel isn’t the only way to journey to Tenerife.
It’s estimated that by the end of 2010 more than 383  cruises will have sailed into Santa Cruz Port bringing more than 674,000 passengers; a 16% increase on 2009. Santa Cruz de Tenerife’s ports are the fourth most visited by cruises to Spain after Barcelona, the Balearics and Malaga. After days of lounging by the pools on their floating hotel, what’s the first thing that a lot of passengers want to know on arrival at Santa Cruz? Where’s the nearest beach?

And finally the TIT (This Is Tenerife) of the week award goes to Spain’s Air Traffic Controllers
The TIT award almost went to those people on Tenerife who, despite reports of devastation to the island’s agricultural sector, still insisted that the storm of the previous weekend didn’t warrant a red alert. Maybe not from whatever bubble they reside in.

But Spanish air traffic controllers were head and shoulders winners for making an epic error of misjudgement from their lofty ivory towers.
Popular holiday destinations were amongst the worst affected by the wildcat strike according to the president of the Spanish agencias de viaje (travel agents), AEDAVE with the Canary Islands and the Balearics being singled out. In Tenerife alone 239 flights were cancelled as a result of the strike.
Whether anyone believes the air traffic controllers had good reason to strike or not, picking one of the busiest holiday weekends of the year to stage their protest not only brought misery to hundreds of thousands of travellers but also put the boot in at time when Spain is in the midst of a crippling economic crisis.
In a country where unemployment levels are at 20%, public sympathy for air traffic controllers, who earn around €200,000 a year, is unsurprisingly thin on the ground.

As something resembling normality returns to Tenerife and the Canary Islands, reports of the intensity of the wind, rain, lightning and thunder that have spectacularly assaulted the island range from being not as bad as expected to being described as Delta 2.

Instead of our usual week’s round up of the news in Tenerife, Tenerife Magazine reports on the terrifying and destructive sequence of events over the last couple of days.

Tenerife on Red Alert
A red weather alert was put in place by the Spanish Meteorological Agency (AEMet) for Sunday, warning of the possibility of winds reaching 170kmh in Tenerife’s mountainous areas and 130kmh on the coasts. By Sunday afternoon, the Tenerife government announced they were activating the island’s emergency plan (Plan Insular de Emergencias).

As Sunday progressed with no real sign of any extreme weather conditions, it began to seem as though the island had escaped the worst – it turned out to be an almost clichéd calm before the storm.

Hurricane Force Winds Hit Tenerife
Shortly after midnight the storm referred to as Delta 2 by Spanish newspaper Diario de Avisos (a reference to tropical storm Delta which coincidentally caused havoc on 28th November 2005) unleashed its force.

Despite the storm arriving from a south easterly direction, the southern coast escaped the full force of the wind as did many other parts of the island; instead it focused its malevolent power on northern slopes, especially around Puerto de la Cruz and Los Realejos where winds raged throughout the night reaching terrifying speeds of 145kmh in Puerto de la Cruz (Delta’s winds reached 147kmh at the coast) and 190kmh at Izaña on Tenerife’s cumbre.

Aftermath of the Tenerife Storm
Initially newspapers reported that winds had been less fierce than anticipated, but as the day wore on a picture of what had occurred became much clearer.

• Seven electricity pylons were toppled by the wind leaving 31,000 people without electricity. Strong winds throughout Monday hampered repairs and as night approached 23,000 remained in the dark.
• Over 100 flights cancelled.
• Tenerife’s ports were shut and ferry services to the other islands suspended.
• Falling glass injured three people at the San Felipe hotel in Puerto de la Cruz, whilst kiosks set up for the San Andrés celebrations were destroyed and a floodlight at El Peñon football stadium fell across the road, luckily escaping injury to anyone.
• An estimated €60,000 of damage was caused at Leroy Merlin, and the La Villa Shopping Centre was closed due to damage sustained.
• Trees were uprooted around the La Orotava Valley with reports of fifty being down in Los Realejos alone.
• All roads to Mount Teide were closed and sections of the TF5 were also shut due to sign damage. One of the main roads into Puerto de la Cruz was blocked by a fallen tree.
• All the archipelago’s schools had been closed on Monday for safety reasons but were due to re-open today. However, at least three colleges and twelve schools in La Guancha, San Miguel de Abona, San Juan de la Rambla, Granadilla de Abona and Puerto de la Cruz remain closed after suffering damage.

Injuries have thankfully on the whole been minor. At present there is only one report of a serious injury caused by an iron door falling on a man in Los Realejos.

The Unpredictable Storm
During much of Monday the internet was full of varying accounts of the storm. Those on southern coasts told of rain but not much wind while in the hills there were reports of strong winds. Santa Cruz escaped much of the storm and Puerto experienced tropical storm type conditions similar to Delta’s.

José Miguel Ruano, Tenerife’s minister for Presidency, Justice and Security told press that there had been strange weather patterns during the storm with rain in some places, strong winds in others and even a significant increase in temperatures in parts due to a stream of tropical air linked to the storm.
This last part explained why in Puerto de la Cruz, during the height of the storm, it had also been unbearably hot even during the night.

By 3pm on Monday afternoon the red alert was reduced to orange. Although this meant that winds could reach 90kmh, it was a relief after 100kmh plus ones.

A Night of Thunder and Lightning
As a passing farewell, Mother Nature came up with a spectacular finale. Many residents across Tenerife found that sleep on Monday night wasn’t an option as the night skies seemed to be kept almost continually lit by never ending flashes of lightning accompanied by torrential downpours and booming thunderclaps that rattled window frames.
The Spanish Meteorological Office recorded an incredible 7,000 plus lightning strikes in one six hour period.
By Tuesday morning the storm finally abated leaving not much evidence it had ever visited in some places and devastating scars in others.

Not being classed as a tropical storm, nature’s assault on Tenerife hasn’t officially been allocated a name. However locals, recognising that this was a storm of Delta’s magnitude, have deservedly given it one; Andresito.

Thankfully Andresito has had enough of Tenerife and has moved on elsewhere. Let’s hope he doesn’t return for a long, long time.

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

A UNESCO Biosphere Reserve on Tenerife
By summer next year, if everything goes to plan, Tenerife could have its first UNESCO Biosphere Reserve. Next March a proposal will be sent to Madrid to award the Anaga Mountains this prestigious title. From there, as long as it’s given the green light, the application is forwarded to UNESCO HQ in Paris and sometime between April and May 2011 a decision should be reached. Opposition for the proposal comes from a surprising source, the people who actually live in the Anaga area. Some residents claim that a lot of promises were made to them about how they would be affected before it was made a rural park, many of which were allegedly broken. An example of why they feel their rights are being overlooked in favour of the environment is the recent closure of the pharmacy in Almáciga. Now the nearest pharmacy for anyone living in the Taganana area is at San Andrés over on the opposite coast.
Residents have concerns a UNESCO title would result in a further erosion of their rights.  The problem clearly isn’t about having a UNESCO title, which is something that residents should be able to be proud of, as is so often the case it is more about political mishandling.

Turning up the Heat in the Canary Islands
For anyone who believes that Tenerife has seen more rain and less heat in the last couple of years the assessment of climactic changes on the Canary Islands by scientists at the Izaña Observatory who have been monitoring weather patterns since 1984 might come as a surprise.
In the last forty years temperatures have risen by two degrees. There have been forty one heatwaves between 1947 and 2007 when temperatures touched 40C; twelve of these occurred between 2002 and 2007. Recently there have been many more nights when temperatures haven’t dropped below 20C. There’s also been a decrease in rainfall with the eastern islands experiencing the greatest reduction. The pattern of rainfall has changed so that there is more chance of short torrential downpours as experienced at the beginning of this year. It might all sound great for anyone seeking sun and hot weather, but the cost could be the possibility of desertification and the occasional tropical storm like Delta a few years ago.

Getting rid of Graffiti…with Graffiti
La Laguna council have taken an ‘off the wall’ approach to getting rid of unsightly graffiti from the walls of the municipal market. They’ve tasked talented local graffiti artists with covering up the ‘José ama a Raquel’ type of graffiti with more artistic looking wall paintings depicting the world of wine. It should make for a much more aesthetically pleasing backdrop when tucking into a bag of roasted chestnuts in Plaza del Cristo this month.

Theme for Carnaval 2011 in Puerto de la Cruz
The theme for next year’s carnaval in Puerto de la Cruz (27 Feb to 13 March) will be a tribute to tourism. It’ll be interesting to see how this is interpreted – it means for the street parties I’m either going to have to don a bikini (it is carnaval after all) or more comfortably and less disturbingly for onlookers, just dress like the sensibly attired visitors who stand at the fringes of the street parties watching furry animals, zombies, vampires, sexy nuns and nurses et al salsa the night away.

Did the Earth Move for You?
Actually no it didn’t despite an earthquake which reached 3.1 on the Richter scale in the sea north of the Canarian Archipelago last week. The tremor occurred between Gran Canaria and Fuerteventura and Lanzarote, but as it happened 59 kilometres below sea level, no-one actually felt it.

And finally the TIT (This Is Tenerife) of the week award goes to Tenerife’s Ministry of Education …again.
A few weeks ago parents were protesting in Alcalá about a lack of teachers at the local primary school, but the crisis in education and lack of teacher cover on Tenerife continues to worsen. More than 250 students at the Juan García Pérez primary school in San Isidro have been denied a proper education for weeks due to the continued absence of three teachers. A lack of substitute teachers has resulted in the children not receiving language and maths mentoring amongst other classes. The situation has compelled teachers at the school to send a letter to the authorities demanding action. Once again education cuts and mismanagement have been held responsible for the problems. With the apparent chaos in education in the archipelago it begins to make you wonder if some politicians are quite happy to see the emergence of an uneducated population.

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

Come on Baby, Don’t Light My Fire
The irony regarding the spate of heatwaves that have characterised what seems to be nearly every week this summer on Tenerife is that the unusually hot weather that visitors are lapping up is turning Tenerife into a tinderbox.
Hats off to the fire fighters and forestry workers who have battled fires throughout the week to prevent a replay of the devastating fires of 2007. Two of the worst occurred yesterday (Sunday 29th August) near Tacoronte and El Sauzal where some residents were advised to evacuate their homes as a precaution. The fires were brought under control at about 7pm after damaging 10 hectares of land in El Sauzal and 1500 square metres in Tacoronte.
Neither area receives many British visitors, but that probably won’t stop certain British tabloids if they get wind of the story from reporting that tourists had to flee Tenerife’s beaches to escape the fires .

Green Tenerife
All those people who think that Tenerife is just a hot, dry rock might be surprised to discover that up to 40% of the Santa Cruz de Tenerife region is carpeted by forests according to a study conducted by MARM (Ministerio de Medio Ambiente y Medio Rural y Marino).
The areas which have the most forest coverage in Spain include Barcelona and Girona with between 51 to 63% forest cover. The most arid spots with less than 16% are Almeria and Valladolid.
Santa Cruz de Tenerife falls in the middle…above neighbours Las Palmas de Gran Canaria which only has between 18 and 30% of its countryside covered by forests – that should give them something to pine about.

Good News and Bad for Los Gigantes Beach
The good news is that Juan Damián Gorrín, mayor of Santiago del Teide, announced last week that from October work should begin to make Los Guíos beach safe again for sunbathers. The bad news it will be at least five months before the first sunbathers will be able to lay out their towels. The worse news is that there isn’t enough money to make the whole beach safe from rock falls, so only half of the beach will be opened to the public after work has been completed. In this case life might well be a bitch, but for Los Gigantes, it isn’t a beach.

Something to Fume About
Members of El Club de Fumadores (Smokers’ Club) were out and about in Santa Cruz collecting signatures against proposed new smoking laws in Spain. A spokesperson for the organisation said that a ban on smoking in bars and restaurants would force smokers into the streets, which would subsequently create a lot more noise and disturb residents. Wait a minute? This is Tenerife with its year round temperate climate where most life takes place…on the streets. It wasn’t really a strong argument for a pavement café society. Members of the club handed out ear plugs to passers by, presumably to protect them from smokers bitchin’ noisily about having to sit outside. Much better if they purchased some very dark sunglasses – then as well as not being able to hear, they could also avoid seeing the writing on the wall.

Train of Thought
It wasn’t much of a story, but it set the alarm bells ringing. Environmental group Ecologistas en Acción submitted a report to Tribunal Superior de Justicia de Canarias (TSJC) about concerns over an agreement to allow the proposed southern train to pass through Montaña Guaza, a natural monument. It looks as though the TSJC took the right action and nullified the license to rape an important part of Tenerife’s countryside. The big concern is why on earth was it allowed to pass in the first place? We’ll ruin the scenery, but hey we’ll have a nice shiny new train to show for it. Boys and their toys…

And finally the TIT (This Is Tenerife) of the week award goes to… the owner of an abandoned monkey.

When a friend asks you to look after their pet monkey while they go traveling for a few weeks how can you refuse them? They’re cute, cuddly and probably a lot of fun. Unfortunately for a woman in Alcalá who found herself looking after a friend’s titi monkey, the owner failed to return from his travels. Subsequently she did what a lot of people on Tenerife do when they find themselves with unwanted pets, she released him into the wilds earning herself and the original owner the TIT of the week award; or in this case, titi of the week.