Things to do in Tenerife when it rains

“When it what?!” I hear you cry…well yes, it can and does sometimes rain in Tenerife. Hugely inconvenient for anyone on holiday here at the time, but essential to agriculture, mains water supplies, health and sanitation, in fact the on-going survival of the island.

Of course, here in the ‘north’ we’re perfectly okay with rain; we see it as the ingredient that provides us with our beautiful tropical vegetation and consider the few occasions when we get whole days or even a whole week of rain as a small price to pay for our surroundings.

It’s said that Tenerife has one bad month of weather a year and it’s just a question of waiting to see which month that will be. But this year, it’s proving to be a November/December crossover and is teetering on the edge of being more than a month.

Given the appalling summer that Britain has just experienced and the continued downturn in the value of the pound, this unusual spell of ‘poor’ weather has led to an unfortunate set of circumstances. Many hundreds of Brits are finding themselves with two weeks in one of Tenerife’s southern resorts with no sun and a great deal of time on their hands. Naturally, the tendency is therefore to spend more time in bars, cafes and restaurants parting with more of their significantly reduced euros than they would normally do, and has in turn led to many people complaining that there’s nothing to do in Tenerife without the sun and that it’s far more expensive than it used to be.

Well, here’s a simple and cost-effective solution to the whole question of what to do in Tenerife when it rains…

Get out of your resort and explore.
 
There are endless possibilities of places to see and things to do that will cost you a fraction of what you’ll spend by killing time in resort bars.

Other than the cost of getting there, exploring Tenerife’s fascinating landscape and historic towns doesn’t have to cost a céntimo if you don’t want it to. But by leaving your resort, you’re automatically increasing the value of your euro anyway, so lunch, a cold beer, a coffee, soft drinks, ice cream all cost considerably less around the island.

There are some excellent museums on Tenerife. Not the sort that house exhibits gathering dust that will threaten a revolt from your offspring the moment the front door looms into sight, these are positive fun houses! Like the Museum of Science and the Cosmos in La Laguna which has hundreds of wonderful scientific puzzles to play with including lifting a Mini with just one hand, getting lost in the mirror maze and casting shadows on a wall that stay there after you’ve moved.

Then there’s the Museum of Man & Nature in Santa Cruz with its morbid collection of Guanche mummies, or the Military Museum in Santa Cruz in a working barracks which has a scale reproduction of Nelson’s unsuccessful attack on Santa Cruz amongst its arsenal of military paraphernalia.

And if you go on a Sunday, every museum has free entrance.

To make things really easy for you, the brand new ‘Going Native in Tenerife’ guide gives you a comprehensive insight into 38 different towns and villages across Tenerife and tells you the best bits to see and the best places to eat. Along with local food, best-buys and a guide to the island’s many colourful fiestas, ‘Going Native in Tenerife’ will tempt you to get out and discover some of the beautiful places that exist on Tenerife.

Make your holiday go further; see the island and save money while you’re doing it, then come back and tell me there’s nothing to do on Tenerife when it rains!

Protected spaces in Tenerife

Protected spaces in Tenerife

A fascinating image - especially to those who still think that Tenerife is just a "resort" (the British press mainly) - is this diagram, showing the different kinds of protected spaces in Tenerife. Now, I will add the qualifier "in theory", but lets not get into a lengthy argument on how effective those protections are.

For the most part, these are areas where you won't find much in the way of building, beyond already existing villages and, hopefully be unlikely to do so for the foreseeable future, while the flora, fauna and landscape come first.

The diagram shows the various designations, which I'll translate for those of you who are interested, from the Teide National Park, which is surrounded by an even larger Natural Park area, inside which is Mount Teide, itself declared a Natural Monument (you can see many other, smaller Natural Monuments).

Beyond that, there are various other areas of Protected Landscape, Integral Natural Reserves and Special Natural Reserves, the two Rural Parks, plus a myriad of other small sites of scientific interest dotted around the island.

Much more variety than you might have imagined, I think.

Literal place names in Tenerife

Map of Tenerife prior to the Spanish conquest

Many of Tenerife's place names (such as those shown on this map) date back to the time of the Guanches, before the Spanish conquest. Names like Adeje, Güímar, Tacoronte (a toponym of Guanche origin, believed to be derived from "Tagoror," meaning "place where the Council of Elders meets") and Tegueste are still used for town names today. Others, like Taoro or Daute, are still in use, however, the literal meanings of these are not always apparent.

Guanche language being extinct, there aren't that many Spanish-Guanche dictionaries, much less any meaningful Guanche-English vocabulary.

We know that Tenerife bears the name that was used for the island by the inhabitants of the neighbouring island of La Palma; “Tene” signifying “mountain” and “ife” meaning white (the “r” was added by the Spanish). The natives of Tenerife itself called the island Chenech, Chinech or Achinech."

There's still much debate over the naming of the islas canarias (Canary Islands) themselves, but, it occurred to me when I spotted an item pointing to an Atlas of True Names that there's much more fun to be had translating the literal meanings of some of the Spanish place names on the island:

Starting with The Christians (Los Cristianos), which is probably most familiar with visitors, so named because, missionaries had visited the area and converted the locals, before the rest of the island.

The Giants (Los Gigantes), as we've said before, get's its name from the giant 300-600 metres cliffs after which the town has been named.

Roque de Garachico

Tradition says Garachico is part Guanche from "igara" meaning island and part Spanish, "chico" meaning small, thus Small Island, referring to the Roque de Garachico, the rocky outcrop just offshore.

Many place names start with Saint "San", usually referring to the one chosen, for some (often obscure) reason or another, to look after the area. Find out when that saint's day is and you'll also have a clue as to when there might be fiestas to attend.

Some names sound positively exotic or hopelessly romantic in Spanish, where their literal meanings in English sound rather banal or positively trite.

Playa De La Arena means "Beach of the sand" or Sandy Beach. A bit obvious but at least it does have sand, albeit black, unlike the Las Arenas (The Sands) beach at Buenavista del Norte, which consists almost exclusively of rocks!

Buenavista de Norte itself sounds so pretty in Spanish, whereas the English equivalent "good view of the north" - 'coz it had a nice, fertile, look about it to the incoming colonizers - just doesn't evoke the same feeling somehow.

The Silos (Los Silos)' uninspired name first appears in 1509, when agricultural activity required the construction of grain silos to store cereals there.

While, The Tank (El Tanque) takes its name from the irrigation tank or reservoir, the remains of which can still be found in Tanque Bajo.

Several places were named in direct reference to the events of the Spanish conquest. The Royalists (Los Realejos), recalls the faction camped in the low area of the town during those events. The Victory (La Victoria) refers to the one won by the Spanish there in 1494, while The Slaughter (La Matanza) refers to the terrible defeat the Spanish suffered in the first battle. (Like most history, of course, it was written and the names were given, by the eventual winners!)

Holy Cross (Santa Cruz) is so named, because that is where conquistador, Alonso Fernández de Lugo planted a cross (the very one is still kept in the church, Iglesia de La Concepción) in the name of the Catholic Monarchs.

Port of the Cross (Puerto de la Cruz) was formerly known as "Crossport" and the main square there is the Plaza del Charco, a very picturesque sounding name that translated literally, becomes the rather dull, Puddle Place.

Less obvious - though potentially even more entertaining to the puzzled, casual onlooker - are the reasons (which we cannot explain) for naming The Silent Coast (Costa del Silencio), when it has the noisy airport so close.

... nor The Biscuits (Las Galletas) or The Overcoats (Los Abrigos).

Armed with these examples and a little mischievous curiosity, you can now go forth around Tenerife's towns and villages, streets and plazas and wonder how they came to be called what they are and, what they mean literally.

A few more literal place names: The Lagoon (La Laguna), Candlemas (Candelaria), Passion Fruit (Granadilla), Willow Tree (El Sauzal), The Rosary (El Rosario), The Sand Dune (El Médano), Village of Flowers (Vilaflor).

Mount Teide world's biggest sea shadow

Teide Shadow

This article on the island (and its Carnaval) in the Guardian, says Mount Teide, "casts the world's biggest sea shadow." And this is confirmed at Volcano Teide, who tell us that, "... the shadow of Teide is the largest shadow in the world projected onto the sea." That's a pretty big claim to fame.

A Tale of Two Tenerife Women

On the right, above the archway, is the small opening from where, it is said,
Sister Ursula, enclosed in the convent, watched church services for the rest of her life.

Sister Ursula's Forbidden Lover

The first story relates to something in the church attached to the Convento de las Catalinas, opposite the Plaza del Adelantado, on the Calle Nava y Grimon in La Laguna. To the right of the main altar, above an archway, is a small opening or window that allows a person enclosed in the room behind to attend mass. Tradition links this opening to an event that occurred in the year 1651, when Jerónimo de Grimón y Rojas, the son of the owners of the house now known as the Palacio de Nava (Nava Palace), the grey stone building next door to the Santa Catalina Convent, ran away with his lover, Sor Úrsula de San Pedro (Sister Ursula of Saint Peter), a nun from the said convent.

The couple had tried to leave the island in an English ship anchored in the bay of Santa Cruz, for which she was disguised as a page, but just before sailing, they were discovered by the forces of the law. Sister Ursula was sent back to the convent and the unfortunate Jerónimo was accused of abduction of a nun and condemned to death. The sentence was carried out in the spring of that year and Sister Ursula was obliged to witness the execution, which took place in the Plaza del Adelantado, from the Ajimez (tower) of the convent.

The head of her lover was stuck on a spike and put on display in the Plaza del Adelantado as a chastisement to the public, for several days. From then, enclosed in the religious order for life, Sister Ursula's only contact with the world outside the cloisters of the convent was to witness church services via that small window above the arch, beside the altar.

The story of Catalina Lercaro

The other tale has become a well-known La Laguna legend. Catalina Lercaro was the daughter of one of the most powerful families in Tenerife: the family of Lercaro-Justiniani of Genoese origin, whose palace in La Laguna, the Casa Lercaro, is now the Museo de Historia y Antropología de Tenerife (Museum of History and Anthropology of Tenerife)

In the rear patio of the palace, one can still see the curbstone of an old well - the well is now non-existent or has been filled in - down which the young girl is said to have thrown herself, rather than have to consummate the marriage that her father arranged for her with a much older man, who it appears was a slave trader. Legend also says that she was interred in this same patio, because, having committed suicide, she was not entitled to a sacred burial. Further, there are many who claim that the ghost of the disgraced Catalina still walks abroad in the old mansion in which she lived and died.

These two stories give us a very clear image of the situation of women in Spanish and Canarian society from the 16th to 18th Centuries, when the only thing girls were prepared for was a marriage (that was usually little more than a "business contract"), passed from the guardianship of father to husband. Women in that era were expected to be obedient, chaste, retiring, shameful and modest, as well as quiet and to be locked away inside homes, always dependent upon a man. Yet marriage was still preferable to spinsterhood, which was seen as the failure of the woman, the only solution to which was that they should profess their "calling" and join a convent, forever, which very few ever escaped.

Tenerife Fire, One Year On

My good friend José Mesa has once again been out taking photos along the route of of the forest fire that burned across 18,800 hectares (46454.8 acres) of Tenerife last year. In addition to photos one year on (the set is still under construction), but he's also stitched together numerous "before" and "after" versions of shots taken at identical places, showing the situation in August 2007, shortly after the fire and again in August 2008. View them as a slideshow. It's quite heartening to see how nature is fighting back.

Photo: 042 agosto07 agosto08, originally uploaded by Mataparda.

They're taking the p*$$ aren't they?

Weird mushrooms in Santa Cruz

Seen on a stall in Santa Cruz' Nuestra Señora de África Market (wonderful place really). Not Shiitake, but SHIT TAKE - two words. Best mangled translation ever.