Wednesday 14 March 2018

The quality of tarmac

Last day. With clear skies we went back up to see the huge crater of Teide where we had first stood wide-eyed fifteen years ago. The natural landscape hasn't changed as far as we are concerned but the getting there, and the being there, have been smoothed out. The roads which were once rumbly and patchy (due no doubt to the extreme heat in summer) are now padded with a new style of tarmac, which is laid in a thick blanket several inches thick. It makes for a superb quiet ride but presents drivers with an alarming option all along - a drop for the outer wheels should you stray or be pushed off the top. This makes it impossible to pull off the road at random, and anyone wanting to stop must use the designated areas or lay-byes which are subsequently crowded and the immediate environs are despoiled, trodden, even have litter blowing about.  Paul told us, this new surface withstands the blistering heat of summer but fails in frost or rain. Win some, lose some.
We went north to Puerto de la Cruz for a late lunch - in a not very good place on the beach - a shame for our last meal out, but the black sand and the white breakers on the shining blue sea were gorgeous to behold. There is a Playa Jardin there, with stylish greenery in a park right behind the sea's edge - pleasant and cool. Had we ventured further along to the old port area we would have found few cafes but a sense of reality, instead of the pounding music, indifferent waiter service (wrong food brought), lack of love, which we had endured by the beach.
Back in the evening, to finish up the food we'd been accumulating in our s/c apartment - small amounts of toasted black bread, garlicky fried onions, some brought-home pulpo from the night before, gazpacho, avocado, some cheese, salad, fruit, a little feast as it happened. I had wanted to have our last meal at la Caleta but this store needed eating and it was all SO much nicer than the lunch. Tough mussels!!!!
Now here we are at la Caleta for our last coffee, overlooking the tiny rocky bay, with swimmers on the rocks. Our luggage is in the car, we'll be flying home in about 4 hours.

Tuesday 13 March 2018

Whales

Out in the bay, where the depth if the seabed changes from about 700m to about 1000 or 1200m, there live giant squid, which can reach 10-15m in length. The tentacles of some of these monsters are longer than a man is tall. These are the favourite food of whales, and so in the bay, about a mile out to sea, it is almost certain that you will find pods of these attractive mammals cruising around over their feasting grounds.  At night a big male will go down and harry the beasts up, and nearer the surface the females and the young will wait. In daylight, they coast around quite near the surface - one half of their brain asleep, the other keeping them swimming safely, and they can soak up some sun too.
In our touristy catamaran - (104 pasajeros, 6 tripulantes max) there were about 20 of us, so plenty of space to move around, seek sun or shade, lie down, look overboard. The whales we saw were short fin pilot whales, not so huge, but with beguiling hooked dorsal fins and a smooth easy shiny black movement in the water, occasionally breaching, mostly just drifting about, and quite unconcerned that we came so close.
Later, further up the coast we saw bottle nose dolphins hard at work making fish-balls of sardines, and dashing through them to feast, attracting the birds which dived into the mass. The tripulantes said all this was going on - what we actually saw were two or three flashes of muscular movement in the swirling water.
Above us rose the stupefying cliffs called los Gigantes - mostly black, stratified, laced with awe-inspiring vertical rock chimneys or columns of matter which had at some ancient date forced themselves up through 600m of pancaked solid rock, emerging as spiky needles at the summit... Or rather, revealed now as the other rocks have worn away. There are silent stories locked up in the patterns of the layers - some which appeared to achieve level smoothness and horizontality, with a perfectly flat upper surface - only to be buried (I imagine gleefully) by hundreds of subsequent jagged layers of a different kind of rock, which time and time and time again asserted its right to be bumpy and unlevel.
How did these cliffs form? Was it while the mountain was erupting? Did a whole massive section fall away like a slab of crumbling cake? The surface doesn't look sea-worn.
Back in dock, we walked up the hotel, stopping for an icecream and glass.of wine (half a pint!!!!), and we were chatted up by a six-and-a-half-year-old Essex girl called Sky, whose neighbours had brought her away for a week's holiday. She was clever, engaging and no doubt in five or six more years time will be running British Airways.
We met Paul for supper, talking about life on the island and some more of his anecdotes of life in the Royal Navy. I hope he writes his memoirs.  Today is our last day - we are deciding how to spend it. Will the mountain be draped in mists again as it has been most days? The mornings start so clear, deceptively.





Whales

Where the rock changes from about 700m depth to about 1000 or 1200m, there live giant squid, which can read 10-15m in length. The tentacles of some of these monsters are longer than a man is tall. These are the favourite food of whales, and so in the bay, about a mile out to sea, it is almost certain that you will find pods of these attractive mammals cruising around over their feasting grounds.  At night a big male will go down and harry the beasts up, and nearer the surface the females and the young will wait. In daylight, they coast around quite near the surface - one half of their brain asleep, the other keeping them swimming safely, and they can soak up some sun too.
In our touristy catamaran - (104 pasajeros, 6 tripulantes max) there were about 20 of us, so plenty of space to move around, seek sun or shade, lie down, look overboard. The whales we saw were short fin pilot whales, not so huge, but with beguiling hooked dorsal fins and a smooth easy shiny black movement in the water, occasionally breaching, mostly just drifting about, and quite unconcerned that we came so close.
Later, further up the coast we saw bottle nose dolphins hard at work making fish-balls of sardines, and dashing through them to feast, attracting the birds which dived into the mass. The tripulantes said all this was going on - what we actually saw were two or three flashes of muscular movement in the swirling water.
Above us rose the stupefying cliffs called los Gigantes - mostly black, stratified, laced with awe-inspiring vertical rock chimneys or columns of matter which had at some ancient date forced themselves up through 600m of pancaked solid rock, emerging as spiky needles at the summit... Or rather, revealed now as the other rocks have worn away. There are silent stories locked up in the patterns of the layers - some which appeared to achieve level smoothness and horizontality, with a perfectly flat upper surface - only to be buried (I imagine gleefully) by hundreds of subsequent jagged layers of a different kind of rock, which time and time and time again asserted its right to be bumpy and unlevel.
How did these cliffs form? Was it while the mountain was erupting? Did a whole massive section fall away like a slab of crumbling cake? The surface doesn't look seaworn.
Back in dock, we walked up the hotel, stopping for an icecream and glass.of wine (half a pint!!!!), and we were chatted up by a six-and-a-half-year-old Essex girl called Sky, whose neighbours had brought her away for a week's holiday. She was clever, engaging and no doubt in five or six more years time will be running British Airways.
We met Paul for supper, talking about life on the island and some more of his anecdotes of life in the Royal Navy. I hope he writes his memoirs.  Today is our last day - we are deciding how to spend it. Will the mountain be draped in mists again as it has been most days? The mornings start so clear, deceptively.





Whales

Where the rock changes from about 700m depth to about 1000 or 1200m, there live giant squid, which can read 10-15m in length. The tentacles of some of these monsters are longer than a man is tall. These are the favourite food of whales, and so in the bay, about a mile out to sea, it is almost certain that you will find pods of these attractive mammals cruising around over their feasting grounds.  At night a big male will go down and harry the beasts up, and nearer the surface the females and the young will wait. In daylight, they coast around quite near the surface - one half of their brain asleep, the other keeping them swimming safely, and they can soak up some sun too.
In our touristy catamaran - (104 pasajeros, 6 tripulantes max) there were about 20 of us, so plenty of space to move around, seek sun or shade, lie down, look overboard. The whales we saw were short fin pilot whales, not so huge, but with beguiling hooked dorsal fins and a smooth easy shiny black movement in the water, occasionally breaching, mostly just drifting about, and quite unconcerned that we came so close.
Later, further up the coast we saw bottle nose dolphins hard at work making fish-balls of sardines, and dashing through them to feast, attracting the birds which dived into the mass. The tripulantes said all this was going on - what we actually saw were two or three flashes of muscular movement in the swirling water.
Above us rose the stupefying cliffs called los Gigantes - mostly black, stratified, laced with awe-inspiring vertical rock chimneys or columns of matter which had at some ancient date forced themselves up through 600m of pancaked solid rock, emerging as spiky needles at the summit... Or rather, revealed now as the other rocks have worn away. There are silent stories locked up in the patterns of the layers - some which appeared to achieve level smoothness and horizontality, with a perfectly smooth and level upper surface - only to be buried (I imagine gleefully) by hundreds of subsequent jagged layers of a different kind of rock, which time and time and time again asserted its right to be bumpy and unlevel.
How did these cliffs form? Was it while the mountain was erupting? Did a whole massive section fall away like a slab of crumbling cake? The surface doesn't look seaworn.
Back in dock, we walked up the hotel, stopping for an icecream and glass.of wine (half a pint!!!!), and we were chatted up by a six-and-a-half-year-old Essex girl called Sky, whose neighbours had brought her away for a week's holiday. She was clever, engaging and no doubt in five or six more years time will be running British Airways.
We met Paul for supper, talking about life on the island and some more of his anecdotes of life in the Royal Navy. I hope he writes his memoirs.  Today is our last day - we are deciding how to spend it. Will the mountain be draped in mists again as it has been most days? The mornings start so clear, deceptively.






Whales

Where the rock changes from about 700m depth to about 1000 or 1200m, there live giant squid, which can read 10-15m in length. The tentacles of some of these monsters are longer than a man is tall. These are the favourite food of whales, and so in the bay, about a mile out to sea, it is almost certain that you will find pods of these attractive mammals cruising around over their feasting grounds.  At night a big male will go down and harry the beasts up, and nearer the surface the females and the young will wait. In daylight, they coast around quite near the surface - one half of their brain asleep, the other keeping them swimming safely, and they can soak up some sun too.
In our touristy catamaran - (104 pasajeros, 6 tripulantes max) there were about 20 of us, so plenty of space to move around, seek sun or shade, lie down, look overboard. The whales we saw were short fin pilot whales, not so huge, but with beguiling hooked dorsal fins and a smooth easy shiny black movement in the water, occasionally breaching, mostly just drifting about, and quite unconcerned that we came so close.
Later, further up the coast we saw bottle nose dolphins hard at work making fish-balls of sardines, and dashing through them to feast, attracting the birds which dived into the mass. The tripulantes said all this was going on - what we actually saw were two or three flashes of muscular movement in the swirling water.
Above us rose the stupefying cliffs called los Gigantes - mostly black, stratified, laced with awe-inspiring vertical rock chimneys or columns of matter which had at some ancient date forced themselves up through 600m of pancaked solid rock, emerging as spiky needles at the summit... Or rather, revealed now as the other rocks have worn away. There are silent stories locked up in the patterns of the layers - some which appeared to achieve level smoothness and horizontality, with a perfectly smooth and level upper surface - only to be buried (I imagine gleefully) by hundreds of subsequent jagged layers of a different kind of rock, which time and time and time again asserted its right to be bumpy and unlevel.
How did these cliffs form? Was it while the mountain was erupting? Did a whole massive section fall away like a slab of crumbling cake? The surface doesn't look seaworn.
Back in dock, we walked up the hotel, stopping for an icecream and glass.of wine (half a pint!!!!), and we were chatted up by a six-and-a-half-year-old Essex girl called Sky, whose neighbours had brought her away for a week's holiday. She was clever, engaging and no doubt in five or six more years time will be running British Airways.
We met Paul for supper, talking about life on the island and some more of his anecdotes of life in the Royal Navy. I hope he writes his memoirs.  Today is our last day - we are deciding how to spend it. Will the mountain be draped in mists again as it has been most days? The mornings start so clear, deceptively.






Whales

Where the rock changes from about 700m depth to about 1000 or 1200m, there live giant squid, which can read 10-15m in length. The tentacles of some of these monsters are longer than a man is tall. These are the favourite food of whales, and so in the bay, about a mile out to sea, it is almost certain that you will find pods of these attractive mammals cruising around over their feasting grounds.  At night a big male will go down and harry the beasts up, and nearer the surface the females and the young will wait. In daylight, they coast around quite near the surface - one half of their brain asleep, the other keeping them swimming safely, and they can soak up some sun too.
In our touristy catamaran - (104 pasajeros, 6 tripulantes max) there were about 20 of us, so plenty of space to move around, seek sun or shade, lie down, look overboard. The whales we saw were short fin pilot whales, not so huge, but with beguiling hooked dorsal fins and a smooth easy shiny black movement in the water, occasionally breaching, mostly just drifting about, and quite unconcerned that we came so close.
Later, further up the coast we saw bottle nose dolphins hard at work making fish-balls of sardines, and dashing through them to feast, attracting the birds which dived into the mass. The tripulantes said all this was going on - what we actually saw were two or three flashes of muscular movement in the swirling water.
Above us rose the stupefying cliffs called los Gigantes - mostly black, stratified, laced with awe-inspiring vertical rock chimneys or columns of matter which had at some ancient date forced themselves up through 600m of pancaked solid rock, emerging as spiky needles at the summit... Or rather, revealed now as the other rocks have worn away. There are silent stories locked up in the patterns of the layers - some which appeared to achieve level smoothness and horizontality, with a perfectly smooth and level upper surface - only to be buried (I imagine gleefully) by hundreds of subsequent jagged layers of a different kind of rock, which time and time and time again asserted its right to be bumpy and unlevel.
How did these cliffs form? Was it while the mountain was erupting? Did a whole massive section fall away like a slab of crumbling cake? The surface doesn't look seaworn.
Back in dock, we walked up the hotel, stopping for an icecream and glass.of wine (half a pint!!!!), and we were chatted up by a six-and-a-half-year-old Essex girl called Sky, whose neighbours had brought her away for a week's holiday. She was clever, engaging and no doubt in five or six more years time will be running British Airways.
We met Paul for supper, talking about life on the island and some more of his anecdotes of life in the Royal Navy. I hope he writes his memoirs.  Today is our last day - we are deciding how to spend it. Will the mountain be draped in mists again as it has been most days? The mornings start so clear, deceptively.






Whales

Where the rock changes from about 700m depth to about 1000 or 1200m, there live giant squid, which can read 10-15m in length. The tentacles of some of these monsters are longer than a man is tall. These are the favourite food of whales, and so in the bay, about a mile out to sea, it is almost certain that you will find pods of these attractive mammals cruising around over their feasting grounds.  At night a big male will go down and harry the beasts up, and nearer the surface the females and the young will wait. In daylight, they coast around quite near the surface - one half of their brain asleep, the other keeping them swimming safely, and they can soak up some sun too.
In our touristy catamaran - (104 pasajeros, 6 tripulantes max) there were about 20 of us, so plenty of space to move around, seek sun or shade, lie down, look overboard. The whales we saw were short fin pilot whales, not so huge, but with beguiling hooked dorsal fins and a smooth easy shiny black movement in the water, occasionally breaching, mostly just drifting about, and quite unconcerned that we came so close.
Later, further up the coast we saw bottle nose dolphins hard at work making fish-balls of sardines, and dashing through them to feast, attracting the birds which dived into the mass. The tripulantes said all this was going on - what we actually saw were two or three flashes of muscular movement in the swirling water.
Above us rose the stupefying cliffs called los Gigantes - mostly black, stratified, laced with awe-inspiring vertical rock chimneys or columns of matter which had at some ancient date forced themselves up through 600m of pancaked solid rock, emerging as spiky needles at the summit... Or rather, revealed now as the other rocks have worn away. There are silent stories locked up in the patterns of the layers - some which appeared to achieve level smoothness and horizontality, with a perfectly smooth and level upper surface - only to be buried (I imagine gleefully) by hundreds of subsequent jagged layers of a different kind of rock, which time and time and time again asserted its right to be bumpy and unlevel.
How did these cliffs form? Was it while the mountain was erupting? Did a whole massive section fall away like a slab of crumbling cake? The surface doesn't look seaworn.
Back in dock, we walked up the hotel, stopping for an icecream and glass.of wine (half a pint!!!!), and we were chatted up by a six-and-a-half-year-old Essex girl called Sky, whose neighbours had brought her away for a week's holiday. She was clever, engaging and no doubt in five or six more years time will be running British Airways.
We met Paul for supper, talking about life on the island and some more of his anecdotes of life in the Royal Navy. I hope he writes his memoirs.  Today is our last day - we are deciding how to spend it. Will the mountain be draped in mists again as it has been most days? The mornings start so clear, deceptively.






Monday 12 March 2018

Interiors, exteriors

We tried to go up into the heights yesterday but a chill fog built up as we drove up. It got darker, colder and mistier as we went. Stopping for a coffee in a small local caff along the way we scuttled inside to the warmth. Although it wasn't much past 10am, someone had just finished their breakfast of stewed goat. The walls were decorated with bits a pieces of an old donkey plough, and some stylish prints of what the peasants looked like in the 19th century. The men were ragged, and the women wearing variously arranged striped fabric evidently made in panels no more than two feet wide. The coffee - as everywhere - was delicious. We heard the other day that someone has opened a Starbucks on Tenerife - and you have to wonder why.  A too-big mug costs quite a few euros, whereas the delicious indigenous coffee in a small glass or cup is 1.50 at most, and probably only one euro. 
Further up we stopped and strolled around another village, wandered round a tat shop and chatted to a beefy British cyclist from Yorkshire. He said his wife liked reading books and sitting about so she spends her holidays by the pool 'down there' and he spends his holidays wearing Lycra and pushing up lto the top of Teide every day and then coasting back down again. The municipal building in the centro historico was a gem, with proud balcony out front and lovely wooden staircase within - not open to the public but the young man working inside let us wander round to look.   There are a lot of houses for sale, also shops, bars, even hotels.  At a garage a roar of motorbikes assembled, a gang of locals out for a jolly spree. They yelled at each other over the din of al their engines revving and snarling. They were having a very nice time.   It reminded me, Paul had told us, on the ferry to la Gomera, all the announcements are made in Spanish, then English, and then in the local whistling language which is how the Gomerans still communicate. This as much as anything else makes me long to get there, but for some reason or other it won't won't be on this trip. Boo hoo.
We are getting more familiar with the subtle changes of landscape in the various districts. We had wanted to get up to the eery moonscape of the crater, passing through the pine forests en route, but the weather changed our plans. Little villages and towns drew us in, and later we were enchanted with an area near Cruz de Tea where the relatively gentle slopes have been terraced for horticulture. You can see the old back-breaking narrow manual terraces made by slaves, all around the place, but here they have created small fields, and it is remarkable how one's mood changes  in this manicured district. It was like that at Tijoko Alto where we went to see the house for sale. 
We do like wandering into churches - all so different. The one at the top of Adeje has two naves and a stunning ceiling. Outside is a fine new plaza, and a beautiful new belfry like a watchful sculpture.  The one at Vilaflor has a stunning altar-wall of silver and gold, with attendant angels carrying candlelights, and a couple of the rather conical and almost comical madonnas which have evolved here.  On our first ever trip we visited the shrine of the so-called Black Madonna which was found by the first European priests to arrive in about 1490-something. The local people were worshipping a goddess who had come by sea, and she was re-instituted by the church as Mary Mother of God in a chapel on the beach. She survived there till the 1920s when the place burnt down.  No-one knows for sure but it's presumed she was a ships' figurehead which drifted in on the tide.  Her modern replacement at Candelaria is a very Spanish-looking stiff doll, draped in enormous Tudor skirts and with a massive onion-domed head-dress. The chapel at Adeje claims to have an exact and ancient replica of the original, but it's hard to know how exact it can be.    On the other hand, in the Adeje church, there is a modern statue of an altar-boy in a red and white surplice, holding a begging box and looking cute. The whole place is very beautiful and in the absence of any other place to put a small offering, we paid up and put money in his box. 
We came back down the mountain by a back road, another of those old agricultural lanes which (judging by their meandering) may once have been a goat track from the ancient days. We found our lunch at what turned out to be quite a big canteeny-resto, with about a hundred people eating, a uniformed team of waiters including ours who came from India, a blazing fire in the kitchen, a couple of strolling guitarists to entertain us, and goat stew on the menu. We refused a free liqueur at the end of the meal and were given a big bunch of bananas instead. 

Sunday 11 March 2018

Croissants

Croissants are a good test. As an exotic foreign food (for my generation anyway) I realise I load this delightful breakfast food with quite unrealistic expectations - about crispness, flakiness, taste, oiliness or butteriness, about the softness of the interior, the way it pulls apart into small edible sections, and so on.   Despite their modern widespread availability, their normalness, it is surprising how very few live up to these standards, even when they look as if they are going to. The appearance of the modern croissant is almost always the best thing about it. But the eating experience is almost universally horrible, disappointing.  The trouble is that every now and then, once in a while, you find one which is perfect, and so then you know, you know in an unforgettable way, that it is possible for croissantiers to achieve perfection but for some reason or other, they don't do it.
When we were in Paris in December, staying with our friend Nathalie in the her apartment at Sceaux, she suggested we patronise a particular boulanger in the high street, and there we found and bought and kept buying perfect croissants.  There are queues outside this shop at all times of day, I may say, so our judgement is clearly endorsed by the whole of that community. The perfect croissant exists.
Here in Tenerife, we have been shopping for daily needs in the small supermarket outside the hotel complex and their croissants are - well, adequate.  Yesterday we went to the Farmers' Market at Adeje, and bought some croissants there, and these too have proved to be - well, adequate.   The farmers market is in a modern building and crammed with people. The displays of radishes, cabbages, kohl rabi, papayas, lettuces of all kinds, saffron, carrots, beet roots, loquats were superb. Whole walls of evenly arranged produce, slathered with pride and benevolence - all organic, all local, were so tempting. At the coffee bar we bought an impressive black loaf whose top had been slashed before rising so that the white coating of flour had spread into an almost heraldic design shouting 'Buy me!', and the croissants. Which were ok.
We came home, found we could after all upgrade to an apartment with a view, moved all our stuff, and had lunch on our sunny terrace.
In the property paper we'd picked up at the market cafe, we found a house for sale at the 'quaint village' of Tijoco there is a house for sale with stupendous views and incorporating a second apartment while enjoying a garden with mature fruit trees..... So we went to see it. Tijoco Alto is quite high up, and has two roads leading to it. We went up the old one, through a marvellous botanical moorland of dragon trees, cactus, prickly pears, wild flowers and rocks, which gradually altered with ancient and renewed terracing, and tiny ancient farmsteads still surviving between modern villas.  The road twists and turns, curves around important outcrops or houses, seems a million miles away from the tourist nonsense by the coast.  Four bus routes get up there every day. We went on and on up into the blessed forest of Canary pines, and heard the birdsong.   Then we came back down, choosing the newer or improved road, and there was 'our' house, looking as if it had been transplanted from Surrey. It is very nice, and looks to be a good buy - the price is reduced to €299,000 and there are two agents involved. No space for a pool but all very charming and no doubt could be bought for less. There was no-one there.
We came down the smooth road, past installations of modern rather beautiful big villas - this is going to be a millionaire area I guess and so this house is on the right side of town.  Down and down we came, into cheerful Tijoco Bajo, over the motorway, into banana-plantation land, and eventually to the sea.   One false attempt to find a bar for a sunset drink made us bicker - really all the so-called PR people who stand on pavements to lure you into a particular establishment can be very irritating - taking a stroll is running a kind of polite gauntlet.  But we pressed on, to la Caleta, a nice little rocky inlet in the.coast, surrounded now almost entirely with restaurants. From our parking space we followed a British couple - he red faced and pleased, she fantastically elegant with very high heels and a tailored jacket. (We were in tousled shorts and jeans, and for a moment I thought we'd be shamed away if all the places required smart clothing. But it was ok).  And there in a cheapy tapas bar we had a simple supper as the wind died down and the stars came out. The fish was fine, simple. The loo had paper towels instead of a blower for hand-drying. Yippee.

Saturday 10 March 2018

Escaping trouble

After a slightly tense start to the day - with a visit from the timeshare team's man - a huge South African who came to answer any questions we might have (no doubt to make sure we stuck to our decision), but who arrived early, offered to take us out for a coffee having no idea what our plans were.... And then barged unasked into my request to reception for upgraded rooms... Ugh, I was still feeling rattled and badly slept, and as if these precious hours of sunlight and warmth were being stolen by them.    Anyway, we went through it, he was satisfied and - at last! - we could start our holiday.
The guy at reception said nothing doing till tomorrow - and in fact we will go and ask in a moment if they have anything.
To start with, and again looking to find some wifi to post my blogs (2 episodes at once you will have noticed).... we decided to explore los Cristianos, where we had never ventured. Oh dear! Traffic jams, tight turns, no parking spaces, horrendous in-your-face architecture, no no no not for us.  We managed to work our way round to the port area - much more our style, with some semblance of community and oldness.   And my goodness, all the people we saw there were old.  Much older than us.  It's international - some French, some German, but mostly British, and with that slightly depressing British grittiness about it all.  Now we understand a bit more about the country's policy of encouraging people to come and spend their money - what else are they going to live on? - the endless rows of beach-towel shops, and piles of cheap jewellery, and buckets and spades make more sense. If you come here, it is your duty to spend money. When Paul from the timeshare release company was driving us to his offices, he said to Andrew (man to man) in an apologetic tone 'And there's a Designer Outlet here now, just opened. Sorry..;..'    I understood that a bit better now. It's a very worn-out trope which says men will moan about their wives going out to spend money, with the powerful and barely concealed message that they are doing well enough to be able to afford to give the little lady the credit card.  It makes me really queasy.
We had a coffee and a delicious fresh orange juice, looked at the wide beach (greyish-gold sand), wandered round the harbour, and checked up on the ferries to nla Gomera. Quite expensive - €50 each for a round trip each.
Then we headed up to the hills - to Masca, which Paul had told us about. This tiny village in the north is not easily seen from land or sea, and was either hidden from pirate raids or was a pirate village (pirates being possibly a worse threat to life than the volcano, on a daily basis, for hundreds of years).  Following a big eruption of the volcano in about 1700, said Paul, the villagers believed they were the only survivors on the whole island and so they stayed put. They weren't connected up with the real world till 1903 when they were discovered by a Dutchman. We have not verified this bit of the story, btw.   But the village is only reached now by an astonishing road - 10 years old - of zigs and zags for a very long way and with spectacular views either side.  The ancient houses are mostly perched on a steep ridge at the bottom of a huge deep craggy valley and screened from the sea about a mile or so away by a single very sharp pointed crag.     There's a conservation park up there, for the mountain crows, and giant lizards which were once widespread but now only found in the top crags. Wreaths of mist swirl round the peaks.  Fascinating to look at it all.  We had vegetable stew at the cafe on the 'main' road, and then wild rabbit stew, and then home-made pasty filled with almonds and potatoes, deep-fried and sugared. Andrew had a cactus icecream.    We did some more meandering about, headed home, asked again about an upgrade, and had an early night. At last the holiday has begun.

Friday 9 March 2018

Getting out of it

We had come to Tenerife to see how to extricate ourselves from our timeshare and spent yesterday finding out. Through a combination of intelligent financial know how and backing from banks and the Canaries government who are keen to expand and support the tourist industry, this particular company have devised a way to put the new consumer protection laws into action and then expand that to encourage people to come back here in future.
I will not go into the the details until it happens, but they say that with 3 months our original investment will be restored. The management and contractual fees cannot be refunded unfortunately, nor can I easily claim back the money I thought I had been so clever as to buy on eBay, topping up my original purchase, but the greatest relief is that we will be freed of the requirement to pay the swingeing fees in perpetuity - which in effect meant til 2054.  
In addition because we are now registered here to make use of tax rebates for a period of time we can access cheaper travel of all kinds around the world. It was a tiring day, with a huge amount of information to take in, but we are happy bunnies. The man who led us through this wonderland was himself very interesting - an ex-Navy diver and bomb-disposal man, who - among many other adventures went to fight in the Falklands War, and who later worked in the fire brigade in England till he broke his back and had to retire. Moving to Tenerife (warm climate) on doctor's orders, he eventually recovered and was asked to join the Tenerife Bomberos, where he worked for many years.
His stories about the navy, aircraft carriers, royalty, fire-fighting, and life in Tenerife were fascinating, and his insights into the travel industry illuminating. Through him we met one of the company directors who manages this refunding scheme, and several of his colleagues in various offices in Adeje.    They employ 200 people, and he is one of a team of 7 people who each see 5 couples a week, to help them out of their timeshare hell.  We saw some of the files - it's impressive. And, during the whole day, we didn't have to pay anyone anything.  Once it's all gone through I will be very happy to pass on details of how to do this to anyone who is interested - though their appointment books are full till autumn, there is such a demand.
We eventually made our way home, I talked to the Tesco Mobile people who finally managed to get my data roaming to work, and then we drove along the coast to los Abrigos - an old haunt - to eat garlicky fish by the harbour, and at last feel we could begin to enjoy being here.  I can tell I am still a bit frazzled - not calm.  We can't change our quarters till at least tomorrow - our apartment here is very hemmed in by concrete with no views.  I am so so tempted to see if we can take the ferry to la Gomera.... Maybe use our new account facilities to get 30% off our travel costs and accommodation.  We'll see.  

Feeling ruffled -

Feeling ruffled
Not in a good space. A run of little troubles has left me aggravated and scratchy, and having written up this unusual state of affairs ready to upload to the blog I managed to wipe it all without having saved a copy.  So this is a second go.
We're in Tenerife to try to claim back money from our timeshare which started as a good idea but has become horrendously expensive and we don't use. Our flight with BA was fine, leaving dreich Kent to land in this balmy place, though unbeknownst to me a nasty row was blazing up within the artists group which I have spent days and days on - too much I guess. Anyway, after a magnificent launch and PV the night before we left, tempers and aggravation and insults and expansions all churned up, and left me angry and divided. I had come away having accomplished something good only to see it part-wrecked the minute I left.
Then for some reason my mobile data roaming is not working - this has meant six long calls back to Tesco whose minions cannot explain or sort it.  So I feel cut off - and of course maybe it's a good thing but I hate it. I am not on control, I suppose.
It might be ok if the apartment had wifi - but it doesn't. There is some signal in the pool-table area of this ghastly complex, but it's very weak and slow.
And the place - a valley which must for centuries have been a banana plantation is now a concrete wasps' nest, with hundreds of small concrete cave - now sadly out of date and worn out.  Our flat has a small terrace in front with a view of walls and concrete parapets. The place stinks of chemical cleaning products. The lights are dim. The security is zero - there is a safe which doesn't work. Access to the useful little courtyard at the back is blocked. The kitchen is very poorly equipped.... No salt and pepper, or washup liquid, or cafetière, or even a sharp knife.  No remote for the TV.
We knew, we did know, it was an old unit they offered us, but this is really grim.  During the night, the whole place - being a sharp steep valley - is an amphitheatre, so we had the revelries, the children crying, chairs scraping, doors banging, feel slip-slap-slopping along the echoing alleyways, the laughter, the perfectly normal noises of hundreds of holidaymakers - all clanging and clamouring round. I did not sleep well.  
We have special 'poor man' wrist bands - these allow us into the resto and the pool area, and indicate we are self-catering.  I wonder what on earth the management does with the left-over newly-bought bottles of washing up liquid, olive oil, butter, coffee, etc which people must buy.... Not all of them rely on the canteen.  There must be trolley-loads of it all every week.

Now, I know perfectly well this is a first-world problem (which doesn't help, to be honest). I know I am tired. I am nervous about the meeting we have to go to in a short while. But seeing la Gomera on the horizon - like some sort of Shangri-La - makes me want to pack up and go as soon as we can. If I had wifi I would be researching it.  To think that six short weeks ago we were on La Palma - in a non-luxury simple flat and having a really lovely time - it's just ghastly being in this prison camp.

Agh! I am so rarely upset and angry. I suppose it does good to write it down.  After we've seen this company who say they can return us our money, though I'm sure they are the original takers - then we can relax a bit. I will try to paint and write and we can explore.

Tuesday 6 March 2018

Getting used to it

Crazy - that it's becoming normal to whizz round the stratosphere at 38,000 feet for an hour or so. This time we're heading to Tenerife, purportedly to recoup our timeshare points. It seemed like such a good investment - lovely apartments and tourist complexes well maintained etc.  But the management fees went up and up, with no improvement in service or experience. Now some outfit or other says they can get us our investment back again... so we're taking another week of winter sun to find out.  In some ways I don't approve of this - but I'm taking my paints so with any luck I can come back with some good work. 
We opened the U Artists You! show in Faversham yesterday - great Private View - and then a lovely email from another artist saying my installation Portrait of the Artist had made it for her.... funny and moving.