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Tenerife, the best Carnaval in the World

Those of us who live in Tenerife already knew this, of course, but the Santa Cruz Carnaval received outside confirmation of its excellence this week from the US Spanish language celebrity news and gossip magazine Fama, report ABC.

The magazine called our Carnaval "the most spectacular and safe" of all those celebrated and because it has become an important springboard for artists to launch their careers in Spain. The magazine awarded the prize to the councillor responsible for the Tenerife Carnaval, Bruno Piqué, at an event celebrated at the Betsy Ross Hotel on Ocean Drive on Miami's famous South Beach.

Happy 40th Birthday Playa de las Américas

Playa de las Américas aerial view Wouter Hagens [CC BY-SA 4.0]

For some, Playa de las Américas, is the concrete carbuncle stuck on the bottom of Tenerife. For others, it's just a good place to have a holiday with sun, sand, sea and everything else beginning with an "S". It's got sophisticated with 5 Star hotels and, should mature now that the resort is celebrating its 40th Birthday.

Diario de Avisos tell us that the urbanization of Playa de las Américas was born in 1966, fruit of a partnership between the late Rafael Puig, his son Santiago and, Antonio Domínguez. In 1965, Luis Díaz de Losada, on Domínguez' orders, got in touch with Rafael Puig, a Catalán industrialist, with the object of seeking financing for the creation of a tourist centre on land that Domínguez owned.

At first, recalled Santiago Puig, in an interview in 1986, "it seemed like a crazy idea". Only 20 years before, Playa de las Américas was virgin territory, without beaches, nor banana plantations, nor palms. Roads, water and electricity were non-existent. Why did they decide to go ahead and invest, despite this? The very same reason that the resort keeps on attracting holidaymakers - the marvellous climate. So, on June 21st, 1966, Playa de las Américas S.A. was formed.

The article also explains how the area, initially planned to cover 5,000,000 square meters, with a capacity for 50,000 hotel beds, was developed in stages.

The first and second phases, in the municipality of Adeje, started from where the hotel Gran Tinerfe is today and ran to the Barranco de Troya in the centre of the resort. The third phase, in Arona, ran from Las Veronicas to the Hotel Europe, then on to Los Cristianos, finally, to extend from the motorway to Chayofa.

Plans were passed in 1971, but later 1,000,000 square meters were declassified. The idea was to build a Garden City in that last area, which, says Santiago Puig, "is an ideal area for it and very necessary in the present day."

In 1966 Adeje's annual budget was just 500,000 pesetas (3,000 Euros / £2,000 roughly), while the budget in Arona was 1,500,000 pesetas. Forty years later, thanks to tourism, the combined annual budget of these two councils is estimated to be around 24,000 million pesetas (144,000,000 euros / £96,000,000).

Tenerife Land of Eternal Christmas

Sunbathing SantaDesert Island ChristmasScuba Diving SantaTropical Santa
Santa's Having a Whale of a TimeSurfing SantaWaterski SantaCamel Rodeo Santa
With a wide range of products in each design, click the pics (above) to see the full selections.