We didn’t get up to see the first Gatwick flight or the Luton flight people off, well they left about 8.30am ! but as we had to be out of the room by 10.00 or so, we did eventually get up and get our stuff packed while the cleaners were knocking on our door trying to encourage us to leave. When we got down to the hotel lobby we found that Dave was back at the hospital as he was suffering from second degree burns from the sun (presumably mainly at the water park) and his shoulders had come up in blisters the size of fried eggs. We were a little worried that he might not be released in time for the flight home.

Paul H seems happy enough to be homeward bound

We saw the second Gatwick flight people off at 11.15 and then the group of us who were left went over to a cafe and had a final holiday full English Breakfast. It was all just hanging around the hotel until it was time to leave… when it clouded over and started raining it sort of put the final seal on the fact that the holiday was over. Dave turned up back at the hotel, looking a right mess with blisters and ointment and dressings all over his back. Fortunately we had our own medical personell (Venita) to change his dressings. He had a difficult struggle getting his shirt on as he couldn’t move his shoulders, but after much pain he managed it.

Lance, taking a dip

Then it was minibus back to the airport and hanging around in a long queue for checking in, then the flight was delayed so we were hanging around in queues in the duty free shops until eventually they called the flight.

Mark, resting by the pool

It was quite a bumpy flight back, turbulence after takeoff as we passed through the weather then just as they started serving the meal we did a rare thing, flew through the wake of another jet, this caused a lot of shaking and a lot of anxiety among some passengers (and some of the crew had never experienced it before). The film they showed was “X-Men Wolverine” but again I didn’t bother to watch it and tried to snooze all the way back cos my book was still not captivating. And again I didn’t bother eating or drinking on the plane. It can’t have been a pleasant trip for Dave as he had to sit rigid and not lean back on the seat. Venita encouraged him to go straight to A&E when he got back to let the NHS attend to his injuries.

We didn’t have to hang about long in Birmingham, the bags were on the carousel almost as soon as we got through passport control. Mark was disappointed that he hadn’t brought more (cheap) cigarettes back as there was no one on the customs desk at all. A taxi ride back to Coventry and I said my last goodbyes, got in my car and drove off.

Fortunately I didn’t have far to go ! I wasn’t driving home, but just driving to a friends house which I got to about 3,00, but what with talking about the holiday and one thing and another we didn’t get to sleep until 4:30 again.

And this is me, waiting in a restaurant earlier in the week

And that was the Plus Holiday 2009 to Tenerife.

Tenerife Holiday – click on a day to find out what happened

Friday 11th
Saturday 12th
Sunday 13th
Monday 14th
Tuesday 15th
Wednesday 16th
Thursday 17th
Friday 18th

We got up late on Thursday morning and  were just going to go out for some breakfast with Adam when he called up to say that Dave had collapsed inside the bathroom… fortunately he was not blocking the door !
The hotel first aid called for an ambulance and the paramedics came and eventually took him away to get examined, not too sure what happened, he says he went dizzy, sat down on the toilet then woke up on the floor, he’d hit his head on something and had a nasty cut over his eye, which needed a few stitches. The Paramedics didn’t seem to have a great bedside manner, but then I suppose they see a lot of collapsed Brits, all worse for drink, but Dave hadn’t drunk anything the night before and had had an early night after the exertions at the water park, so at least he couldn’t be complained at for that.

The Ambulance that came for Dave

We did eventually get breakfast then I wandered off down the town by myself as the others were going to sunbathe around the pool, I went for a last paddle in the sea, and burned my feet again on the hot sand before I got to the water, and I bought a banana flavoured ice cream that was the most fluorescent yellow colour, god knows what they put in to make it that colour, but I’m kind of glad there was no geiger counter around to put me off eating it ! After that I went back to the hotel and had a rest cos I was still tired from the previous day.

The Playa Maritimo

In the evening we were sort of planning a last hurrah down at Playa De Las Americas, there were some who were going out to see a flamenco and horse show, and we had the idea was that the rest of us would go and eat then come back to one of the bars by the hotel to do some Karaoke and then go to Las Americas later on when the others got back around 11:30. We ended up with 16 of us in the Chinese Buffet that we had been in on the first night, it didn’t take them long to cook up some more food to feed all of us, they weren’t expecting to have to seat that many people at once ! Eventually even Harry’s voracious appetite was satisfied (after the third large plateful)

Back at the Chequer Bar we sat outside and some Karaoke was performed, and eventually the Flamenco show people joined us, but rather than go to Las Americas we just stayed in the bar until they turned the lights off at 2:00am, no-one could be really bothered to go anywhere else and some people needed a reasonably early night as they had an early flight back in the morning. After the Chequer Bar stopped serving Katherine persuaded Gary and Steve to go to Las Americas with her, and they got a taxi over there, but by the time we had walked back over to the hotel they had returned, as Katherine had got there and then changed her mind so they had one quick drink and came back… at €6 each way in the taxi it was an expensive drink.

Mark and I went back and sat on our balcony for about another hour and a half chatting about how the holiday had gone, and what we could do next year, it was about 4.00am again before we got to bed.

Rhianna, reading her book in the sun

Tenerife Holiday – click on a day to find out what happened

Friday 11th
Saturday 12th
Sunday 13th
Monday 14th
Tuesday 15th
Wednesday 16th
Thursday 17th
Friday 18th

Wednesday was the daytime highlight of the week, the Siam Water Park. The Siam Park is the biggest and brightest water park on Tenerife and has some of the biggest and best slides in Europe.
After the late night previous we were still a bit groggy as we caught the free bus from outside the neighbouring hotel to take us the 10 minute ride to Siam Park. €28 Euro’s to get in is a lot of money I suppose, but it was worth every penny – or cent !

The Giant… ride on an inflatable, tunnel down into a funnel whereupon you spiral round until you get caught by the water jets that send you down the exit tunnel forwards or backwards whichever way you happen to end up !. There are two twin rides, one you spiral clockwise, one anti clockwise. I went down three times on my own and once in a two person float with Manoj

The Giant

The Tower of Power – or Kamikaze… The longest, steepest water slide in Europe… down the big slide, through a tunnel inside the aquarium and into the exit pool… it’s a long climb up, but really not a very thrilling ride as you are in a lot of water so theres a lot of spray, you can’t see anything and it’s over very quick. I guess the first time we were all pumped up and it was okay, but we went on again later in the day and we all found that it actually hurt, cos we knew what to expect so there wasn’t the adrenalin rush and you could feel the bounce off every joint on the slide… it’s a good centrepiece attraction for the park but actually quite a dull ride

Kamikaze – The Tower of Power

Mekong Rapids… ride on a 4 man inflatable down what’s basically a toboggan track… not particularly exciting and was not worth the queueing which was the longest of the day so we only did it once

The Volcano – 4 man inflatable in what is basically an upscaled version of The Giant… but in the dark. the first tunnel is pitch black, but there is some lighting inside the funnel as you spin round. We went down three times, not a bad ride, but not as good as…

The Dragon… again a 4 man inflatable ride down a tunnel into a cone where you oscillate up and down the sides of the cone until you get to the exit tunnel which sends you out into the pool… the thing is that if you get it right you go so far up the sides of the cone that you reach the height where you drop a bit rather than slide back down. We went on it 6 or 7 times with different combinations of 3 and 4 people to see which was best, it turned out to us that the best ride was when there was as much weight as possible… so Pete, Dave, Mark and myself went down a couple of times to experience the maximum thrill. The weight limit on the ride was 365kG… now I weigh about 97kg, and Pete and Dave are bigger than me, Mark is quite a bit smaller, but I bet we were over the limit. With that much weight you are still oscillating up the sides of the exit tunnel and we entered the pool perpendicular to the water, which confused Pete as he was at the bottom and so was pulled out of the inflatable by the drag from the water and didn’t understand how he had gotten out of the float.

The Dragon, guarding its cone

The Jungle Snakes… 4 intertwined slides that you go down on individual (or dual) inflatables, one is mostly open, one of the others is half open and two are almost totally dark as the others go over the top of it… four tunnels, four rides.

The Jungle Snakes

Naga Racer… a straight slide with 6 lanes, slide on a mat to see who gets to the bottom first… thing is it depends on an even flow of water down each lane which there isn’t. So a larger person on a drier lane has a long way to walk at the bottom ! We only went down twice.

The Naga Racer

Lazy River… the gentle ride that floats you right around the park, takes an age to get round, though there is a short slide in the middle to add to the excitements and a tunnel through the aquarium, underneath the tunnel that the Kamikaze goes through, but all you can see is a pulse of water as somebody shoots through above you.

The Aquarium, with the Lazy River in a tube under the Kamikaze tube

Siam Beach Wave Palace… An artificial beach with the largest wave machine in Europe… at the front you try and bodysurf the waves, in the middle you stand and let the waves (and body surfers) crash over you, and in the shallows you can sit and let the wave pick you up and carry you further back… there are about 15 waves and then 30-40 minutes break before the next batch.

And that’s it… apart from a few details… firstly, you aren’t alowed any loose items, so I went down most of the rides with my sunglasses tucked in my baseball cap which was shoved down my shorts… I wasn’t going to not wear a hat when I could cos we were there from 10:45 to 6:00pm wearing just our swimming shorts, the park has only been open since Sept 2008 so although there are palm and banana trees growing for shade they haven’t grown enough to keep you out of the sun and no sun block is going to survive the amount of water that gets blasted on you.
Also, for the men, well, all the girls are in bikinis…

Wednesday night suffered the same problem as Tuesday, Mark watching the football meant no-one was there to tell people what to do, so we wandered down into town and split up into smaller groups, like the previous evening Alpa, Chris, Gavin and I went off by ourselves, this time to a Spanish restaurant, after a pleasant meal we went for a walk among the posher hotels and shops and spent a quarter of an hour watching the dancing fountains doing their music and light show before going back to the hotel, to find that some of the others were just finishing their karaoke session at one of the bars by the
hotel, so we had another cocktail there and went to bed… after spending all day out in the sun climbing steps to the top of slides I was knackered… 1:00am bedtime was the earliest all week. Mark and some others had gone to Linekers bar in Playa De Las Americas, he arrived back about 3:30, decidedly worse for wear !

Paul T, relaxing by the hotel pool

Tenerife Holiday – click on a day to find out what happened

Friday 11th
Saturday 12th
Sunday 13th
Monday 14th
Tuesday 15th
Wednesday 16th
Thursday 17th
Friday 18th

Tuesday morning and loads of the group were getting up to go on an Island tour. I seem to remember the bus left at 8:30 or some ridiculous time like that.  Having been to Tenerife before and hired a car while I was there I had been to most of  the places that the tour went to, so I didn’t bother going… instead I went back to sleep when Mark had left !

Eventually I did get up and went to find a local geocache. Why are all the geocaches there on top of hills ? So I walked to the Eastern end of town and climbed the cliffs (well, there is a path, but it’s not a very good path) until I got to the top overlooking the town, and there was the cache. Then I walked back down into town, along the seafront and up the volcanic cone that sits overlooking the town centre. The other cache was up at the top of that one.

The view from the top of the cliff

The view from on top of the volcanic cone

It’s a real volcanic cone with a crater in the middle, I don’t know how may hundreds or thousands of years it has been since there was last any eruptions from this one, but the south west part of Tenerife is full of these cones. (They are actually due an eruption on Tenerife, historically the eruptions somewhere on the island have been in 1909, 1798, 1705, 1492, 1430, 1393, 1341 etc, so on average every hundred years… and it’s been a hundred years since 1909…) After locating the cache I saw what appeared to be a short cut to get back towards the hotel and was walking down that way only to be met by Chris who was walking up the hill. All in all I walked I guess about 5 miles up and down hills in the hot sun, I went back to the hotel and had a snooze !

Another view from the cone, out hotel is indicated

There was consternation in the evening, as everyone had got used to the idea of Mark being in charge and organising everyone and taking them to where they would eat… however Mark was going to watch the Football in the bar over the road, grab a burger while watching the match, and then go to Playa De Las Americas after the game had finished. Alpa was missing her usual food, so we went to an Indian Restaurant, just Alpa, Gavin, Chris and myself. €10 for a reasonable meal with a free bottle of wine – and as Chris and I don’t drink wine Alpa and Gavin did well.

After we had eaten we somehow decided to walk along the seafront to Playa de las Americas, which should have taken 45 minutes or so, it actually took nearer an hour as Alpa kept getting distracted by shops – though all she bought was an ice-cream. Alpa was concerned that we would not be able to find the others, however as we came round the corner of Anthony’s Bar from the sea front the others were just arriving from the other direction, couldn’t have timed it better if we’d tried.

Rhianna, Mark, Nicole, Rob, Gavin, Dave, Manoj, Laura and Paul H at Anthony’s bar

Anthony’s bar is right next to Club Extas, and this had some fascination for Steve who went a chatted to the blonde whowas enticing people into the club, then she escorted him over the road to the cash machine and then back into the club. He reappeared twenty or so minutes later, we didn’t ask what had gone on ! Eventually some people went home, some went on to another bar and three chaps were left at Anhony’s Bar… when we had all gone they went into the Girlie Bar… we didn’t get an answer from them what had gone on either ! !

Steve

The rest of us wandered up the street to China White’s which was heaving with people drinking, dancing and having a good time… the only thing was that we spent just over an hour there and I saw all the people in the bar and there is no doubt in my mind that I was the oldest person in there (well it was 3:00am) only the oldest by 10 days cos Jane is less than 2 weeks younger than me, but still, being the oldest swinger in town is a slightly strange feeling (though I wasn’t altogether sober, which may have led to some of the strange feeling)
Taxi’s back to the hotel about 4:15am

Gary getting an eyeful of Vicky’s charms

Tenerife Holiday – click on a day to find out what happened

Friday 11th
Saturday 12th
Sunday 13th
Monday 14th
Tuesday 15th
Wednesday 16th
Thursday 17th
Friday 18th

Another late morning start to the day… well we were on Holiday !
11:30 ish Mark and I went out to a local place and had the full English breakfast with beer, (well I had diet coke, but Mark had beer) for €2.95.

A number of the group had gone out for a full days cruise, so when we met Paul H and some of the others around the pool when we got back to the hotel we decided to join them for a shorter cruise, just a couple of hours. We had the front of the boat to ourselves, with another party occupying the rear.

Laura and Manoj, enjoying the sea breeze

Now I’ve been to Tenerife before and gone out on a whale & dolphin spotting trip that ended in us distantly seeing just one vague black shape in the water, not so this time, after cruising out for 30 minutes we were surrounded by Pilot whales, must have been about 20 in 3 pods. We were getting right alongside them no more than 6 or 7 feet away, they didn’t seem bothered by the boat at all.

Pilot Whales

In the evening we all met up again and walked down to the town centre, to a restaurant next to the one the others had eaten in the previous night, we were out in the middle of the street, plagued again by Africans and Chinese tat sellers.

At one point some Policemen gathered nearby, they were obviously looking for someone as there were four on foot and two in a car, but whoever it was they failed to find them as they soon returned to near where we were.
I’m not entirely sure what happened then, but katherine kept turning round to look at them and one of them was obviously getting irritated by something and was staring back at her, then he came over and started demanding her passport and her details and where she was staying. Katherine was a little scared by this which presumably was the cops intention, presumably he was frustrated by not finding the person they had been looking for and didn’t like the way Katherine was looking at him so decided to hassle the tourist.

The restaurant we were in had a coloured musician who played his keyboard and sang while we were eating, later on he was joined by a couple of ladies from his family who came along with a bongo drum and sang some songs not exactly in familiar style to our ears, but the Spanish holiday makers and locals seemed to appreciate them. The singers didn’t speak a right lot of English but we managed to understand that they were originally from Cuba.

Katherine, Steve, Rob, Nicole, Ben, Lance, Gavin, Pete, Gary and Rhianna waiting for service

We wandered back towards the hotel and came across a place called ‘Harrys Bar’, as we had Harry with us, the oldest of our party at 62 (Katherine was the youngest at 23) we had to call in for a drink, this was a sophisticated cocktail bar with locals in, not tourists, so we sat outside ! I had a Tenerife Kiss cocktail, Banana Liquer, White Rum, Tequila, Grenadine and Orange Juice (I think) It was the nicest drink I had all week.
We went back to the hotel about 2:30 ish

Nicole enjoying the sunshine

Tenerife Holiday – click on a day to find out what happened

Friday 11th
Saturday 12th
Sunday 13th
Monday 14th
Tuesday 15th
Wednesday 16th
Thursday 17th
Friday 18th

Sunday was a quiet day, we didn’t do a right lot in the morning, after we got up we sat on the hotel balcony and watched the world go by. Mark and I had a good spot in the hotel, in the corner, a couple of floors above the doorway out to the swimming pool, so we could see everyone elses balconies, and see and shout down to everyone who came in and out of the pool area. Whereas the others had to go down to the pool / bar to meet and talk to each other to arrange what was happening, we could do it all from the comfort of our own balcony.

Our room, in the centre, just above the tree with the white flowers

Harry, just out of the pool

We eventually decided to go and get something to eat, and wandered over to a bar over the road from the Hotel and had brunch… and watched the Grand Prix. Mark was a little disappointed cos he watned to watch the football really, and to do that he would have to go inside the bar and watch it on a different TV, but the other few of us were quite happy sitting in the sun and watching the Motor Racing. After that we went back to the hotel and sat around the pool chatting.

In the evening we all met again to go out for a meal, we were joined by a 29th member of the party, Alpa, who had made her own way to Tenerife and was staying in another hotel, but spent the rest of the week with us. Walking out to find a restaurant this time we managed to get past the first one and ended up down in the town centre. A group of 5 of us then split off and went for a €7.50 all you can eat chinese buffet.

Alpa – why would she buy a drink when there were so many free ones to be had ?

After stuffing ourselves full of Chinese we went back to where the others were, they were just getting served their main courses, so we went back to one of the bars opposite the hotel and had a drink. Adam decided that he was going to treat us all to a cocktail… one he calles a ‘Rocktail’, he wouldn’t tell us the ingredients, but eventually we found out it was Cherry Sours, Jagermeister, Morgans Spiced Rum and Orange Juice… in a half litre glass. The other Katherine not being a fan of Cherries left hers after a couple of sips.
We were the only people in the bar and so invited the barmaid to come and talk to us, she had a strong Cardiff Welsh accent, but came from Walsall originally. Somehow her and Ian and Adam got to drinking Jagermeister depth charges, a shot glass of Jagermeister dropped into a glass of Red Bull and the whole lot knocked back in one. I was invited to join in, but having appropriated the second ‘Rocktail’ that the other Katherine didn’t want I was sorted enough for drinks.

The other Katherine is not a night bird, so around midnight went back to bed, we thought about walking her home to make sure she got there safely, but from where we were we could see the hotel door and the walkway around to her room, so we stayed and watched her safely back from there… the only bit we couldn’t see was her journey up in the lift. Ian and Adam continued their drinking games, JD and Cokes and more Jagermeister, while I finished the second cocktail. Venita went to bed, we watched her safely back to her room as well. We saw the others walking back to the hotel in dribs and drabs and eventually at 2.00am the bar shut, Adam settled up for the whole bar bill, (€53… which reminds me I still owe him a drink or two ! !) and we went to bed. Mark arrived in at about 3:30 with tales of the others night, involving witnessing a fight, a big arguement between Steve and Gary and Katherine getting drunk and knocking over a table with lots of peoples drinks on.

Marietta, enjoying the sun loungers on the beach

Tenerife Holiday – click on a day to find out what happened

Friday 11th
Saturday 12th
Sunday 13th
Monday 14th
Tuesday 15th
Wednesday 16th
Thursday 17th
Friday 18th