Sante Cruz de Tenerife

Dear reader,  I promised you a picture blog on Santa Cruz of Tenerife. I'll start by saying think mini-Venezuela and you won't be far wrong.  This town is pinned to the volcanic ground by a port for cruise ships and an oil rig at one end, and an oil refinery at the other.  The middle contains a mini-New Orleans with some Renaissance along with the addition of a Spanish influence.

Join me as we walk around.

The town at one time would have had an ugly waste mountain.  This rubbish mountain has been developed into an attractive  Palmetum that is now naturally (not introduced )  a habitat  for wildlife. 

A lesson in Pokemon

I have been educated on Pokemon Go.  Apparently pink stuff floating around is a lure.  It means someone playing has put up a 'thingy' on the web to lure a pokemon to appear.  What happens in reality is people appear.

This is a spot with a lure on the map on the Pokemon screen

This is the spot in reality.  People huddled in the one spot waiting for the pokemon to appear.

Mr Him and I found a lure outside Cineworld after our education.   Bubbles appeared floating around Mr Him's head, which was the intial give away that we had walked into a lure.  A group of adults and teens huddled was the other clue.  

Mr Him was astounded at the 4D nature as he swiped away bubbles that landed on him.  His brain started whirring and his mouth verbalised all sorts of possibilities,  beer lures, money lures, beer lures again, and oh, beer lures.  I didn't tell him that I had seen  a child walking past blowing bubbles from a bottle.  Mr Him is taking a fast course in app designing as I type.  It's keeping him occupied. 

Short Haul on BA

Do you remember the excitement of the lunch box?  That anticipation of finding out what wonderous taste delight mum has packed.  A gastronomic parcel to unwrap.  It only happened for me as child on day trips which made it more thrilling.  No one packs me a lunch box now, which makes it so much more exciting when I get one.  We flew BA and they still do the food trays, even short haul, and free drinks.  You can be sure to get quality eats and drinks on Britain's flagship airline, the vanguard of UK cuisine. 

The afternoon tea snack box

 Jacob's crackers, of course, 

and oh, Lily O'Brien chocolate mousse.

Look at the thickness. Pure hedonistic delight, and Mr Him gave me his. He doesn't like chocolate.  Perfect!

Other than eat we read our e-readers, my e-readers.  I persuaded Mr Him to read Seveneves.  He started it on the flight on my Ipad whilst I continued on my kindle.  I am 67% through. It is an epic and so far I am loving it.  Very engineering and physics orientated if you like that sort of thing, plus human nature and politics.  

You can see we had our complimentary wine and beer too.  Yes, complimentary, on BA. 

In other news, one suitcase was given back sans wheel.  We need to trace a replacement from Samsonite.

Tenerife -the Wrap Up

We're heading home today full of bittersweet feelings.   I'm thinking of what I'll miss from Tenerife and what I have missed from home as I pack (5kg more than we arrived with. Mr Him's silk shirts are heavy! )  Reflecting on this,  not the 5kg, it's the things I came into contact with regularly that I will miss,  be it a view or routine experience .  On the other hand it's physical things I have missed from home.

I'll miss:

The sound of the ocean

The view of volcanos over breakfast from our balcony

The undulating and magnificent ocean path to the next village

Canarian potatoes

Swimming every day



I'm looking forward to seeing:

My family

My menagerie  (dogs,  cats,  hens ). Miss 21 sent me these pics yesterday to'get me in the mood of home'.

My car! !  Darn Mr Him and his walks

Washing machine  (we've been hand washing)

The clothes I left behind


Meanwhile on my style blog I've updated my holiday dressing diary here holiday-dressing-diary-part-2.

How much changes in 2 weeks

I'm reading a book about the Earth being destroyed and some members of civilisation moving to an expanded International Space Station.  It's set in current times.  As I read it on holiday I can feel the story.  It's the sense of displacement and dissociation of those on the ISS  as they are detached from the events going on below that I feel.  The book is called Seveneves if you are interested.

Here in Tenerife I feel a detachment from the amount of change at home that's happened over Pokémon, until I have a drink that is.

  A text from Miss 21

it's so surreal at the moment... everyone's literally following their phones like a treasure map. we arrive at pokestops and there's already crowds of people there! mostly adults! . I've made friends with all of the neighbours.

A Facebook post from our local council 

Calling all Pokémon Go players.

We've noticed that lots of our great parks and open spaces have been chosen to be Pokéstops and we're just wondering exactly how many Pokéstops we have across the whole District.

We've found that Victoria Park and Beech Hurst Gardens in xxx and St John's Park in xxxxx are all great places to catch Pokémon but if you've found some of our other parks, playgrounds and buildings that are also Pokéstops or gyms then please let us know by posting your pictures below.

We'd particularly like to hear about the more remote Pokéstops we may have on the outskirts of town or out in the villages.

Let us know what you've found!

FB post from Miss 21

Meanwhile,  here in Tenerife I'm missing my family,  my home,  my country and my car!

Herding Goats

Dear reader,  yesterday I awoke to a horror story.  I found Mr Him wandering around in the dark blithering on about unleashing his goat.  Now this is not turning into one of 'those ' blogs.  Instead my first thought was he was sleep walking,  then I decided he was having a bad dream,  I moved on to the thought that I was having a bad dream. Finally I got pretty angry that I was being called a goat and what had I done to deserve this planned separation.  I decided to go back to sleep.

Mr Him awoke me and now with a cup of tea inside him and one proffered to me. He started talking of goats again. 'It's time we got in touch with our inner mountain goats', he said.

 This ridiculous notion had led him to wake  us up in the dark with a plan  to catch an early bus to a mountain of his choosing to walk up before it got hot. This latter being the most sensible part of his  plan.

You may remember that he had this notion last year and herded me up Red Mountain.  Yesterday I was herded at 45 degrees, literally, up Yellow Mountain.

Two legged goat 

Previously herded up Red Mountain in the distance 

Many views to capture 

  I found us the route down and it wasn't on our rears.  It was a gentle meander around the circumference.

Why we couldn't have gone up that way I don't know!  Oh, yes, that would be too easy for Mr Him's feisty inner goat!   I'm hiding all maps that mention colored mountains from this point on and drugging all inner animals Mr Him may have lurking.

As a reward I insisted on my inner goat  having a pizza for lunch at a little gin bar I know. 

The One with Homework

You haven't heard from me for a bit.  It's because Mr Him has had me walking,  again. We have walked Santa Cruz ( that is so interesting with so many pics I need to blog on it at home as Internet and mobile phone combo awful ).  We have walked Los Gigantes  and today we walked to fresh sardines,  at my insistance.  In Maderia sardines are on every menu (almost ).  Here I've seen them once, today, and I ate them.

These were caught this morning 

Mr Him had a good English breakfast for his lunch;  it's what adventurous Brits do on holiday.

Now, homework for you.  In the Canaries I have been eating Canarian potatoes.  These are with skins and salted. Your homework is to Google  (you've proven yourselves adept  at that with the Charmander)  how to cook these potatoes and post a link in your comment.  I sooo want to make these at home,  and you will too.

On my boring blog I've continued my series on vacation packing and in flight duty free (for the ladies .)

Charmander

Dear reader,  following the wrecking of the crockey yesterday Mr Him disappeared.  I eventually persuaded myself to arise from a balcony sunbed to find him.

There he was diagonally spread across our bed, nose pointed to the ceiling.  'Ah bless,' I thought.  'That was a good €3 spent.' ( 3 beers ).

Meanwhile at home Miss 21 has found a Charmander in our garden and no doubt captured it.  I'm in fear of a stream of people now passing  through our property with their phones to capture this charmander.

Perhaps we can sell lemonade.

Going on Holiday Tomorrow

Yesterday we went to Siam Park. Today Mr Him is wrecking the apartment.

Siam Park is a water park with a best in the world award.  We spent a good few hours sashaying down water roller coasters on rubber dinghies. No pictures.

As we had to pass through Los Cristianos on our way back we visited the previously discovered gin bar.  This time they poured me a quadruple. That and a beer for Mr Him was under  €5.

Our real intention for the visit was lunch, but with a side order of gin, forget salad.  A freshly made on the spot pizza was  just €3.50.  We had noted the pizzas the day before and promised ourselves a return visit, despite the gins.

Today, Mr Him has broken crockery in the apartment.  I've told him they don't throw the dishes here but wash them instead but he thought it worth a try.  It wasn't.  He's confessed to reception.

I've also visited a little boutique.  I found this place last year and the owner was selling everything for  €10 each as she was going on holiday the next day.  I bought a Sandwich dress then.

Today she's selling everything for  €15 as she's off on holiday again tomorrow.  What a surprise! I siddled up to another customer and told her that she was off on holiday when I was in a year ago.  The customer told me that she was 2 years ago too when she was in there last.

Still the stock is good brand end of lines, probably her own holiday clothes given how many vacations she takes! I bought a dress for  €15. I'll be prepared for  €20 next year calculating her rate of inflation.

In Hunt for mighty Western Union

Mr Him is a man of taste.  He likes to buy his silk shirts from a little shop in Tenerife that he discovered last year  of value for money.  Last year he found a shop that did good quality mens shirts in silk and cotton for a reasonable price.  Having worn them over the last year he decided to buy another and one for his son.  We presented our card and it refused to work.  We went to a cashpoint  and again it didn't work,  we went to the supermarket where we'd been shopping over the last few days,  and the card refused to work.  I rang cash passport and to enable Mr Him's silk shirt spree they sent funds to Western Union for us.  (A new card is being couriered ).

We had to find Western Union. Mr Him's navigation skills came to the fore and I suppressed them immediately and asked receception.

I got us on a bus,  I had us walking, do you spot a pattern here, I got us into a taxi and there was the Corrier,  the post office.  Our emergency Mr Him silk shirt funds plus enough for a few days was handed to us.

Then we found a gin bar, and I found a 47% proof gin poured as a double.  Mr Him found us a bus back.

Over on the flip side I'm doing some vacation clothes type stuff for those interested.  Go to my Mutton_Style blog.

A long walk to mighty Loft

Dear reader, I had a grand idea today.  I saw a leaflet for shopping and along with Guess and Tommy Hillfiger was a mention of Loft.  Now I see a lot of American bloggers mentioning Loft so hatched a plan for Mr Him to journey with me to Playas de Las Americas where he could also get a T shirt from Hard Rock and I could find mighty Loft.

Mr Him made plans. He got us on a bus, he got us off a bus, he got us on a connecting bus and he got us lost.  The clue to the depths of our lostness hit us when the bus driver said 'finished, finished.' He turned off the engine and shooed us off.

We walked down to the sea and headed left.  It could only be a 10 minute walk.  How wrong we were.  6 hours later and hot we arrived at Hard Rock.

Blue sea 

Seaside plantery

We stopped for Seaside drinkery. Mine is a fresh papaya juice.  Unsweetened.  So refreshing 

Sea pattern in the sand.

we must be at our destination now!  No.

We entered a town and Mr Him got distracted for an hour as he thought he'd won a prize from a timeshare salesman.  Again how wrong he was! 

We needed lunch after I had stood up and walked out of sales pitch without prize. 

And I needed alcohol. Aperol would do nicely. 

On we went and found a tourist kiosk to ask the whereabouts of Hard Rock.  The guide gave us a map and his parting words were good luck as he sent us walking further along the coast.  

Mr Him strides out 

We admired the smooth dark volcanic sand as we travelled. 

On we went. 

Eventually we found Hard Rock and I had a long cold Mojito. 

Mr Him bought his T shirt, I askedfor directions to mighty Loft,  which was on a map near Tenerife Pearl.  I was advised to get a taxi.  We did. 

We arrived at mighty Loft. 

It was a coffee shop!