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

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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

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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

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Saturday morning started with the local tourist Rep coming and giving us the ‘Welcome Meeting’ – I don’t think she was quite prepared for a meeting with an audience of 28 people – all of whom were in one party and knew each other ! Then we wandered off to explore Los Cristianos. We were just over half a mile from the sea, in an area of Hotels, in the town centre by the harbour there are shops and restaurants, and then there are beaches. How much of the beach is genuine and how much is imported sand protected by man made breakwaters I don’t know, I suspect a lot of the latter.

Playa De Las Vistas

We went for a paddle in the sea, the sand was too hot to walk barefoot on the dry parts, there are signs all along the promenade giving temperatures they said things like 31°C all week, which is 88°F. (At night they usually said 22°C, 72°F) It was 1:30ish now, and not having had any breakfast we were getting hungry, and hot, so we headed into the nearest bar for something to eat… Full English Breakfast seemed just the job. 2 Sausages, 2 Rashers of Bacon, 2 Eggs, a Hash Brown, Beans, Tomatoes, Mushrooms and 2 slices of Toast, all for €2.95… including a free half litre of lager. Okay it was only the local brew, Dorado, but it was not much different to San Miguel.

What is it with girls and shopping ? Someone needed to go to a chemist or something so we went into a shopping arcade and the handbag and shoe shop was like a magnet drawing Katherine in… It was about this time that the numbers in our group started to dwindle as people went off to do their own thing, some went back to sunbathe on the beach, Paul and Adam went off to book scuba diving sessions and other people just disappeared ! When Katherine emerged from the bag shop, (with a fake Gucci bag that soon was found to have a dodgy zip) we walked back along the promenade stopping for ice-cream and cocktails before heading back to the hotel… (Okay, the walk back was punctuated by nipping into bars to catch the ongoing football scores, as it was the Man City v Arsenal game live on Satellite, rather amazingly the score ended up 4-1 to the mighty City, much to my satisfaction and Gary’s dismay)

Katherine

In the evening we made a collective decision to go to Playa de las Americas, 28 of us, 7 taxi’s and we’re all there. However 3 decided to stay local and do there own thing and so the rest of us fought for taxi space leaving Paul left on his own… he decided apparently to walk the 3 miles, but met up with the three renegades and stayed with them, though whether they were entirely happy with his intrusion is another matter. The rest of us persuaded a restaurant to rearrange the tables so we had a table of 16 and one of 8 on the promenade overlooking the seashore… a nice place to have a nice meal, except that we were harrassed constantly by Africans (Senegalese and Gambian) trying to sell us fake watches and sunglasses, and Chinese tryng to sell us all sorts of crap. We were joking that we had the whole extended family of Chinese, as we had both male and female age ranging from late teens to pensioners… it got a little irritating after a while because as soon as you had got shut of one of them from one end of the table another arrived at the other end.

After just a day and a half in the sun Vicky had the X-Factor !

After the meal we went round to a bar… the chap outside promised the first of us two drinks for €5 as well as free champagne and shots of (watered down) schnapps. When he realised there were 24 of us he didn’t have enough room and so got the minimarket next door to take their display stands off the street and put more tables out there (I guess the businesses are owned by the same person !)
After a drink or two Katherine decided that she would start acting provocatively with Pete, which surprised his partner Marietta, but she soon joined in Pete thought he was in for a threesome ! and the three of them carried on that way for the rest of the week really.

Pete, with Katherine and Marietta… lucky guy !

Another bar, more drinks, and it was 3.30am. Several people had drifted off back to the Hotel by now and for some strange reason Katherine and Marietta were determined to go into the strip bar, so the two of them Pete and Mark and a couple of others went there leaving Jane, Gary and I to make our way back to the Hotel. I have to feel sorry for Jane here, a taxi back would have only been €2 each, but maybe we were a bit stereotypical – Gary being Jewish and me being a Yorkshireman (definition of a Yorkshireman – a Scotsman with his generosity removed) decided that we would walk the two and a half miles back along the seafront to Los Cristianos and then another 3/4 mile back up to the hotel.

We got in at about 5.00, just a couple of minutes after the others had got back in their taxi from the strip club. Mark apparently had fallen asleep in there, Pete had been dancing with the girls, and one of the others (no names but they know who they are) had spent the €20 for a private lap dance…

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

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