It was so nice to see Los Gigantes and Puerto Santiago brimming with tourists, both have been eerily quiet on my previous visits. Semana Santa (Easter week) is not only a big religious time, but also a big family holiday when Spanish flock from the mainland to Tenerife, encouraged lately by cut price hotel deals. On the 473 bus journey from Los Cristianos, I noticed large numbers of camper vans parked up in Playa Paraiso and on Punta Blanca between Alcala and Playa de la Arena. Camping on the beaches is illegal, and although the police have cut it down in recent years, they will never stop it all.

Back in Los Gigantes, the afternoon sun punched its way through the clouds, luring a few more onto the small dark beach and bars and restaurants were doing a steady trade. I poked my nose in at La Laquillo, the large outdoor swimming pool complex, that became a regular haunt of mine during my 4 years living up in Puerto Santiago, and based at The Western Sun newspaper office just behind the church plaza.

With the pocket sized beach easily filled, La Laquillo is a popular alternative at 4.50 euros a day (adult) including a sunbed. They also have a nice restaurant and life guards on duty, so it’s a good choice for families. On the down side, I recall the water always being cold, but that was offset for me by the lovely young Canarian lady with stunning thighs, who usually let me in free to swim my laps.

Leaving “The Village” as Los Gigantes is known (always makes me think of The Prisoner) I decided to forsake cardiac hill, and take the scenic route via Crab Island. This is a lovely settlement that hugs the coast and features the rock pool, a popular venue for late night skinny dipping. The wonderful setting also encourages tourists to sit on the edge and pose for photos, even when the sea is alarmingly rough. It was calm for my visit, but I always think of my first front page story for The Western Sun, when a man was swept out of the pool by a freak wave and with the help of a heroic holiday maker, was lifted out by helicopter.

 Moving on up, I passed quite a line of people coming down from the viewing terrace above the rocks, the outlook was beautiful as always, although the waft of sewage from the nearby pipeline still tweaks the nostrils. Left with just half a hill to climb, I stopped off in Puerto Santiago to re-aquaint myself with one of my favourite bars before taking the main road above the sea. The even smaller Santiago beach had its fair share of visitors, but the sea air spurred me on and down through the tight hairpin corner, so expertly manouvered by coach and bus drivers, to the plaza. Well I couldn’t hop on my bus without having a meal at the excellent Plaza Restaurante. It was nice to see the same friendly staff there (they used to reserve me pole position in front of the TV for CD Tenerife away games) and the old men still engrossed in their endless games of chess. With a belly full of tuna, the hour long bus trip back to the south soon snoozed by.

As many still slumbered in their beds, or shovelled down belly buster breakfasts around the cafes and bars of Tenerife, future football stars were gathering at Tenerife Top Training in La Caleta for the week long, IFA Kastler Football Academy.

With tennis and padel tournaments also going on, there was plenty for me to focus on for the new T3 Blog site and a chance to meet some ex football players passing on skills to kids between 5 and 17.

Thomas Kastler used to play in the German Third Division, and Samantha Britton (above) is a former Arsenal and England player, who now works at the Britannia school here in Tenerife. I was surprised to find that the young players included a red hot 9 year old prospect from Finland and a 5 year old hopeful from the Czech Republic, hands off Sir Alex. The Academy have scouting links to several big European teams, Eric the Finnish whizz is off to Barcelona soon for a weeks trial.

Samantha was clearly enjoying herself and the young players were responding well, the 35 plus players each day have been all boys, even though the academy was open to all. The former Arsenal star is keen to help develop the standard of the many female teams in Tenerife.

I managed a few words with Bernd Kabau, one of the T3 tennis coaches, and admired the serving technique of his female pupil. Tenerife Top Training has the only 2 clay courts in Tenerife. Thankfully noone asked me to pick up a racquet to show my lack of skills, but I am slightly tempted to try Padel, very popular here, a mix between squash and tennis – although it might take a bit more than some Robinsons Barley Water to revive me after a game.

A great away point for CD Tenerife, especially a they played the last 18 minutes a man down after Bertran was sent off for a second yellow card. The 600 plus CDT faithfull that travelled to Rayo Vallecano can enjoy a few beers in Madrid knowing that Rayo will view it as 2 points dropped as they snap at the heels of the blanquiazul.

Tenerife looked the better and more positive team, with Kome in sparkling form in midfield and Luis Garcia flawless in goal. Cobeno in the home goal also looked unbeatable, though Tenerife tested him thoroughly. Kome unleashed 2 powerful early long range strikes, bith over the bar and in between Garcia made 2 fine saves, particularly when smothering the ball as Jofre raced through alone.

Pachon was the main threat for Rayo, controlling the ball with his chest before forcing Garcia to tip over, and then heading wide just before the half hour mark. Alfaro had a good chance but the home keeper dived to save low at the post, and Juanlu headed over the bar. Nino lost a one on one with the Rayo keepr, who pounced on the ball, and Kome caused panic in the home defence, floating a cross in that a defender struggled to head away.

The second half opened with Tenerife still on top, Martinez heading wide and Nino beating 2 defenders only to be stopped by the keeper. Coach Oltra was looking for the win and brought on forward Angel for midfielder Juanlu after 64 minutes but he had to change his plans when Bertran was unlucky to get a second booking, forcing him out of the game. It was probably a wise move to bring on Clavero as defensive cover, even if it meant losing the creative influence of Kome. Rayo briefly rallied, Albiol made a good break but found Garcia ready to confound him. Former Tenerife coach Pepe Mel couldn’t seem to fire his current side up to exploit their man advantage, Pachon showed more of his skill controlling the ball before going for goal, but Garcia showed great determination to claw the ball off the line and push it wide. At the final whistle, it was clear to see which set of fans were happier, as Tenerife supporters cheered their heroes off. Other results on Sunday took Xerez top on 57 points, and left CDT and Hercules tied on 56, followed by Zaragoza on 43 and Rayo on 53.

Next Sunday (April 12) is the first of 2 Noon kick offs at home due to Canal Plus coverage. The Levante game will be followed 2 weeks later (April 26) by the derby return against the Pios from Las Palmas (to be confirmed), you would be crazy to miss either.

Walking through a giant human colon, surrounded by statistics of untimely death. No,it’s not the new single from Morrisey, just part of another interesting trip to Santa Cruz, the always surprising capital of Tenerife.

More of those bodily functions later, but top of my agenda today,was the new exhibition of Still Life paintings from the Prado museum in Madrid.  The touring exhibition, El Bodegon Español en El Prado, is at the Espacio Cultural Caja Canarias (upstairs from the large Caja Canarias bank at Plaza de Patriotismo, just up and to the right of Plaza de España) and will stay until 31 May.

The FREE exhibition opens from 11 am to 1 pm and 5 pm to 9 pm Monday to Friday, and 11am to 2 pm and 5 pm to 8 pm on Saturdays. It was my first foray into the display area, bright, modern and spacious, it’s a good setting for the frequent culture shows that they put on. In this case, there are 60 offerings from leading Spanish painters of the 17th to 19th century. The Goya work, above, is Perros En Trailla y Utiles De Caza, from 1775.

Most of the paintings feature animals, and food, and are so rich and evocative of their subjects, thay made me quite hungry. This one above is Dolces y Frutos Secos Sobre Una Mesa, by Tomas Hiepes. In case you are wondering, these are not photos taken by me, the very serious looking security guards looked ready to swat me like an annoying fly when I asked if I could take photos, even without a flash.

Judging by the well thumbed and gratefully signed visitors book that has followed the paintings on their city by city tour, I was not the only one to be impressed by the work on offer. If you want a colourful souvenir, they are selling a 200 page glossy catalogue for 20 euros.

Leaving the building, I was intrigued by a bright orange concertina tube at the entrance to the Plaza de Principe de Asturias park. Silly me, it was a colon of course, the young ladies in attendance thrust some leaflets in my hand and propelled me towards the colon mouth. I soon discovered that it was a graphic way to alert people to the dangers of cancer of the colon. Here’s a couple of shocking facts for you, the Spanish death rate from colon cancer is 6 times that from AIDS and 3 times that from road deaths. Despite being the most common form of cancer, it has a 90 % cure rate if caught early. The display is only there for a few more days, so do yourself a favour and have a quick look at the website for the alliance to prevent colon cancer.

Not a bad old place Santa Cruz, culture and health education, all within one small area of the city. I look forward to more revelations on my next trip.

On my first tour of the nearly finished Tenerife Top Training centre in La Caleta, I had to cover my head. Returning a couple of weeks ago, I tried to put the blue plastic bag I was offered over my head, before the euro dropped and I realised it was one of 2 shoe covers, so I could go through to the swimming area to watch Dutch and German internationals in action.

The T3 centre looked impressive with the final touches added, you can see my interview with Dutch Olympian, Femke Heemskerk, in the latest free copy of The Paper.

Manchester City may have been and gone, but the 2 football pitches, one real, one artificial, are in constant use and during Semana Santa (Easter Week) they will be home to a youth football academy, at the same time as open tournaments are held for local tennis and padel players. Padel is a fast growing form of tennis, originating from Mexico and popular in Spain. It’s a doubles game, less reliant on strength, and played with an under hand serve and use of the walls-as in squash.

The 56,000 square metre centre is state of the art, and includes a water flume ( a high powered treadmill) and a gym with machines driven by air pressure rather than weights. There are already many more professional teams from various sports booked to come to Tenerife to use the centre, a much needed boost for tourism.

I shall be popping in over the Easter week to add new content and photos for the new T3 blog site, one of many Sorted Sites websites I copy write for. Hopefully the young athletic types won’t be too put off by an old blonde fogey snapping and scribbling as they push themselves to the limit. If I get too tired, I will have to adjourn to the sun drenched juice and snack bar, after all, at my age I have to pace myself.

It’s worth the hangover, CD Tenerife are sitting proudly on top of the Spanish Second Division after a comfortable (eventually) 2-0 home win over Cordoba yesterday, in front of 19,202 fans.

It was an uncertain start for Tenerife, without influential midfield players Juanlu, Ricardo and Kome, they struggled to find their shape and rythm, and lowly Cordoba took advantage, pressing forward on the break and exposing the home defence.

CDT had their chances, Alfaro was at his lively best and went close a couple of times, but former Tenerife goalie, Raul Navas was in good form. At the other end Luis Garcia showed his growing confidence with 2 decisive saves when Cordoba broke free.

Tenerife needed to be a lot better in the second half, and they were, fast out of the blocks they took the game to the visitors. It took just 4 minutes from the restart for Alfaro to open the scoring with a perfectly flighted free kick that gave the Cordoba keeper no chance.

There was better to come 6 minutes later as Alonso fed the ball to Alfaro, who took it wide and squeezed it in the goal from an acute angle. That really ignited the crowd, the Mexican wave swept around the stadium and the volume went up another notch. It was pretty much a stroll from that point, Cordoba were broken and Tenerife were able to play at their own pace and dictate the game.

The final whistle was greeted by scenes of celebration on and off the pitch, there is such an electric atmosphere among Tenerife fans these days, and no sign of a power cut. Next week at Rayo Vallecano, there will be upwards of 600 CDT fans, the rest of us can’t wait for the Noon kick off (shown live on Canal Plus) at home to Levante on April 12.

The lightning strike that robbed Tenerife of all power at 12.45 today had a dramatic and life changing effect on me, my freshly cooked lunchtime baguette had to be replaced by a sandwich, such are the hardships of living in Tenerife.

It must have been pretty scary stuff as the flash hit the main power station (above) at Las Caletillas, just below the TF 1 motorway, as it puffs its way uphill and into Santa Cruz. That was in the north, back here in the south, my personal crisis soon passed, as my sandwich replacement at Dolce Dolce on the Los Cristianos beachfront, set me up for an afternoon of swimming and lazing in the sun.

Of course it added some exitement to the general mid day conversations, and a few headaches for bar and cafe owners, no cooking, how to keep the beer cool and even thoughts of how to close up later using electric shutters. Some bigger, more modern complexes had back up generators, but I was surprised that the Los Cristianos cultural centre didn’t have their own supply.

Walking along the front, it was pretty well business as usual, nothing phases the Canarians, if darkness had descended with power still missing, it would have been a good excuse for a party, and the Brits could always revive that blitz spirit, with defiant sing songs. After a few hours, power was restored bit by bit, with little more harm than a few warmer beers and some runny ice cream. At the beach, the sea was calm and welcoming, and the sun bright and browning. As you can see from the pic below, worry is not high on the agenda in Tenerife.

Was Sir Winston Churchill misquoted, was he in fact referring to visiting the beaches of the Canary Islands? Well he could have been, it’s 50 years since the great leader popped out this way and stopped off at La Palma and Gran Canaria. Yesterday there was a commemoration ceremony in Las Palmas marking his visit to Pio land. So what’s the story morning glory? Pull up a sand bag and I will tell all, careless talk costs nothing these days.

Why on earth he wanted to see Gran Canaria (CD Tenerife weren’t playing there that day) I can’t imagine, so lets look at his stop off in La Palma. Winnie was on the yacht, Christina, named after the wife of its owner, Aristotle Onassis,also on board were dancer Margot Fontein (real name Peggy Hookham) with her hubby Robert Arias, Inspector Edmund Murray of Scotland Yard and his wife Clementine.

The story goes, that the yacht came into port and the Captain, Amaro Carillo Gonzalez Regalado, hired a local taxi driver to take them around, well Winnie was 84 years old by then. The group stayed at a stylish hotel, but taxi driver Nelson Pestano offered some good old fashioned Canarian hospitality, and invited them all to visit him at his house. When they left La Palma, a very grateful Sir Winston, still blessed with a sharp wit, presented the driver with a box of his favourite cigars, inscribed “from Churchill to Nelson”.

The whole story strikes a chord with me being an Oxford born boy, Churchill was born at Blenheim Palace, a few miles away in Woodstock. I remember being dragged around the palace on a school trip, and somewhere at my parents, I still have a Churchill crown (5 shillings) from 1965.

Â

Â

Have you heard about CD Tenerife and their drive for promotion to the Spanish Primera division? If not, where have you been, hiding in a cave? The island is in a frenzy of excitement, and around 400 fans made the trip to Salamanca in the north of Spain to see the latest 2-1 win on Saturday.

What a bunch of scamps CDT are, they teased their fans by going 1-0 down after 13 minutes, defender Luna failed to make a telling tackle and then Miku, with his back to goal, turned and shot past an unsighted Luis Garcia in the CDT goal, 4 Tenerife players gave him acres of room. These days Tenerife can shrug off such setbacks, and after 32 minutes, Nino blasted home a slightly fortunate penalty.

Tenerife got better as the game went on, and their constant probing paid off with Alfaro crossing from the right, in the 67th minute, for Nino to head past the home keeper. There was no way back after that for the team coached by former Tenerife manager David Amaral, and their misery was completed when Bustos was sent off after 76 minutes for a second yellow card.

Tenerife in top position? well they would have got away with it, if it hadn’t been for those pesky Pios at Las Palmas surrendering a 2-1 lead over Xerez in the final minutes to lose 3-2. Well at least with that goal surge, Xerez couldn’t be subjected to chants of “Score in a brothel, you couldn’t score in a brothel” Their club President resigned in the week after he and his chauffeur were caught in his car, after the chauffeur fired a gun at a local house of ill repute. Hercules also staged a recovery. on Sunday morning, losing 2-1 at Elche they scored late to pick up a point.

Anyway, hopefully a 23,000 sell out next Sunday in Santa Cruz as CD Tenerife host Cordoba in a 5pm kick off. If you are lucky, you may still be able to travel up with the Armada Sur, this is one party that will run till the end of season in June.

As the frogs gave way to the cockerels (see previous post) it was time to move on from Vallehermoso and head down the western side of La Gomera for the home leg. Making a decently early start, we began the uphill climb to the edge of the Garajonay National Park. Steep and twisting was just the start, we soon discovered that JCB’s were busy on the top stretches of the TF 711, clearing rock falls and trying to do some widening where possible. Passing was near impossible at these points, so mobile phones and Stop/ Go signs filtered cars through in single file (a traffic jam in La Gomera is 3 cars) as diggers pulled in to the side. This left us on very narrow, debris strewn single mud tracks, seperated from sheer drops of 1,000 metres plus, by makeshift fances of plastic tape lattice work. Forgive me if I haven’t got any nice pics of the sheer drops, but I didn’t fancy clinging on to a tree root by my teeth while peering into the cloudy swirl below. Finally dropping,on the lead into Garajonay, rocks started to rise above us rather than plummet below, a very welcome sight.

Having seen postcards of a huge reservoir, with a public walkway across, we headed for the heart of the National Park and La Laguna Grande. The Laurel forest closed in around the road, with green moss clinging to the branches and dripping moist droplets around us as shafts of sunlight burst in through chinks in the leafy umbrella, adding steam to the mix. Taking a rough track down to La Laguna Grande, we found a large recreation and picnic area with an information office just beyond. A brief walk down one of the marked paths led to a green valley opening up below, but it seemed that the resevoir was a 6 km walk away, and time was against us.

Back to the car and we headed up into the hills again before the eventual drop into Playa de Santiago. The road twisted and turned again as goats stared down at us from the steep plains. Stopping at another road side mirador (viewpoint) we could see that it wasn’t just the goats that were agile round here. A narrow stony path led down to a small farm, perched delicately in a terrace with a sheer drop either side, even coming up to the road level to collect from the post box looked like something off The Krypton Factor.

The sun burst through again as we cruised into Playa de Santiago on the south coast, a mix of shingle beach and port. A nice collection of bars scattered around a small plaza, drew us in for a snack as we watched the world, well a very British and German slice of it, go by. A lot of the pleasure boats go out from Playa de Santiago, and up on the hill Tecina Golf, is the only golf course on the island. Dominoes was the main sporting action down at beach level, taxi drivers passing the time squatting around a small table and arguing as if it was a World title event.

Closing the circle, we took the final leg on to San Sebastian, just along the coast, but 34 kms taking the TF 713 inland and uphill before heading down again. After we took a quick look at Playa de la Cueva, hidden just to the east of the ferry terminal, I headed up the Mirador de la Hila, accessed via a side street behind the Plaza de la Americas, for a good overall panoramic view of the port and Playa de la San Sebastian.

With some time to spare before the 5pm ferry back to Los Cristianos, we had a little wander, I was pleased to see that the Pension Victor (pensions are cheap, basic accomodation) in Calle Real was still sporting its CD Tenerife mural from 4 years earlier. The Parque de la Torre, just off the sea front, was well worth investigating, created in September 1992 to mark 500 years since Christopher Colombus set sail from La Gomera to America, it has a small outdoor theatre space. The old tower, that gives the park its name, stands proud and the ground floor contains ancient maps and charts of the island.

The Fred Olsen ferry hooter called us to order for a smooth return, 4 years ago I caught the last ferry out before Tropical Storm Delta blew in. La Gomera has much more to offer, and I will certainly return, maybe in December when the next Atlantic Rowing Race leaves for Antigua.

Â

Â

Â

Â

Â