If you were to ask me if Tinerfeños (people from Tenerife) were friendly people to live amongst, I’d answer “Yes” without any hesitation. I’d probably tell you that you could walk anywhere in the hills, visit any little village, turn up at the smallest fiesta and in each case you’d encounter wonderfully smiling, welcoming people…and then I’d pause and add a “but…”

For anyone who’s on holiday, or even those who have retired to the island (especially if they’re living in a complex where someone else has the ‘job’ of dealing with the authorities and the utilities companies), the likelihood is that the Canarios they encounter will fit into the smiley, happy people category.

90% of the time you get this...well maybe usually with a few more teeth

When you’re trying to run a business, the picture can change. Partly this is because efficiency is essential if you’re trying to be professional in your business and Tenerife and its people may have many sparkling qualities but efficiency isn’t at the top of the list – careless mistakes are made…a lot.

A friend was left without internet access because an engineer forgot to switch it back on after working on a neighbour’s line. We were left without water for a weekend because the water company ‘forgot’ to turn the water back on after working on the pipes.
I could go on and on and on. A certain lack of care and attention to detail is endemic – just watch the till assistants at the supermarket try to scan bar codes.

When mistakes are made by others that affect your professionalism, it’s natural to want to demand to know ‘why’. However, on Tenerife some people don’t react well to this.
If you keep quiet and put up, you’ll continue to deal with happy friendly people, but if you don’t…

When we first moved to the island and were renting a house, the electricity was accidentally cut off. When we asked the agent we rented the house through (a Canario) to immediately contact the electricity company and insist they turn it on he smiled sheepishly and replied:
“I have to be careful. If I upset them, they won’t turn it on for days.”

The longer you live here, the more you realise that although small family businesses (bars, restaurants) are usually very friendly to deal with, customer service in big corporations can be sadly lacking – but this is as much a Spanish problem, than just a Canarian one.

Similarly business dealings can be incredibly frustrating. Andy and I were used to regularly dealing with people at the top of their tree in the UK. Nine times out of ten these people had no airs and graces and were approachable and open to suggestion. They were confident, successful people who, let’s be blunt, didn’t have to behave like arrogant arses to let you know that they had power and authority.

Here it can be different. For a start, generally speaking there is no delegation as such in businesses, so decisions can usually only be made by the top dog. This isn’t very good business practice for a number of reasons. It doesn’t encourage ownership or innovation amongst workers and worse, it slows the decision making process to a snail’s pace.

A friend commented recently about how rude Canarios could be, but he was talking purely in a business sense. Some businessmen appear disinterested and even aggressive when faced with someone talking to them about how they can improve their business. I’ve experienced this myself, but I don’t think that they are being deliberately objectionable – I think they just don’t know any better. Businessmen I initially thought to be rude and arrogant turned out to be completely the opposite.

My theory is that many haven’t conducted business outside of the island much and therefore don’t know how business is conducted in the big wide world – so they’re almost acting the role as they think it should be played. Additionally when they’re faced with someone telling them about something they know very little about, arrogance and disinterest can be a cover for ignorance. Finally the biggest problem of all – if that advice comes from a non-Tinerfeño source, then it is to be treated with the utmost suspicion and usually immediately discarded.

The idea of actively seeking out ‘best practice’ is a business concept which has still to be adopted here.

Tenerife suffers from a massive inferiority complex (I’m Scottish and come from a small island – therefore can spot a mass inferiority complex at a hundred paces) and this unfortunately can mean that instead of being 100% friendly, it’s only 90%.

Thankfully from the point of view of tourism, the 90% are the ones that most visitors come into contact with.

Although I was supposed to be interviewing the cream of Britain’s travel writers during their stay on Tenerife for the British Guild of Travel Writer’s AGM, one question that a few of them asked of me was ‘why did you move to Tenerife?’

The answer is partly that we wanted to experience life in a different culture, especially in a place with a warm climate.

After six years of living, laughing and occasionally screaming with frustration, I can honestly say that we’ve experienced more of a ‘different culture’ than we ever could have imagined.

One aspect of this is something as simple as the television.  We endured Spanish TV for the last 6 years and I can’t lie to you, sometimes it makes me want to cry…and that’s not because of hard-hitting dramas (I wish).

People in the UK might moan about the ‘dumbing down’ of British TV, but it’s got a hell of a mine shaft to fall down before it plunges to the depths of Spanish TV.

To give you an idea, the Spanish Big Brother has dominated the airwaves of a number of channels for the last couple of months and shows last for hours during primetime TV each night. This is a generalisation for sure, but it’s an observation that I’ve noticed about Spanish writing as well – they don’t know how to edit. A show that would last an hour in the UK lasts 3 or 4 hours here. So Spanish BB features endless footage of the contestants doing absolutely nothing…and then is followed by another show with a group of nobody’s sitting around discussing the BB contestants doing nothing.

The Spanish mock the Canarios as being backward, but having watched Spanish TV for six years, it’s a pot and kettle scenario.

The other night we were hypnotised by an appalling talent show, again lasting about 3 hours, which featured amongst other oddities, a 70 year old midget female acrobat and a performing dog (not in the same act unfortunately). I mean Sunday Night at the London Palladium would still look cutting edge TV compared to this.

Just before Christmas we finally cracked and bought a TDT box so that we could watch some imported shows in their original language. This has been a revelation, but after the initial honeymoon period where everything was shiny and new, it revealed another issue with Spanish TV.

Having been hooked into various TV shows, we’ve tuned in again the following week to find that some shows have mysteriously disappeared. There is an online programming schedule, but that doesn’t match the programming info on the TDT box.

It took us a while to figure out that there is no pattern to Spanish TV – not for imported shows anyway. So a programme may be aired on a Wednesday night at 10pm for a few weeks, then without warning it shifts to midday and then moves to a different day altogether.

This happened with a show we got completely hooked on. At first it was on at around 11pm on a Tuesday night, then because of BB it was moved back to 1am and last night, as it reached its ultimate episode, it disappeared completely.

We were gutted. I’ve no idea if we’ve missed the programme, or whether it’s going to turn up at some other time. But it begs the question, what is up with Spanish TV programmers? Are they stupid, lazy, or just couldn’t give a hoot about their viewers?

The saddest thing of all is the actual programme which had us on the brink of writing an ‘outraged of Puerto de la Cruz’ letter.

It was American Princess – this is what six years of Spanish TV has reduced us to.

Yesterday we had quite persistent rain in Puerto de la Cruz. I mention this because it shows the contrary nature of the weather on Tenerife.

A lot of people out there will be aware that the island has been battered by a pretty serious storm this week. The irony is that whilst we read reports and watched TV footage of ravines being turned into raging torrents; houses being flooded; cars being swept away; roads strewn with debris and beaches in some of the southern resorts being partly washed away, in Puerto de la Cruz we had a few showers and there was hardly a breath of wind. On this occasion Mount Teide protected the northern coast from the worst of the weather – most of the rain was dumped on the south, west and east sides of the island.

Then the weather forecasters announced the storm had moved away yesterday… and it started to chuck it down here. It served me right. When someone I was due to meet on Wednesday in Puerto sent a text on Tuesday to say that they didn’t think they’d make the journey because of the atrocious weather, I smugly replied ‘but it’s lovely and sunny over this side’.

Those of us who know the island well and know its history understand that, although it is almost the most perfect climate all over the island, Tenerife does experience the occasional extreme of weather and has done throughout its documented history.

The world’s inclement weather doesn’t stop at Tenerife’s coastline and say ‘Oh that’s Tenerife – its perfect weather there don’t you know, we can’t spoil that’.

However, some people act as though that this is the case. Blizzards and below freezing temperatures have created a mini ice age over much of Europe this winter, but some think that the world’s weather has no impact on Tenerife’s. I’ve noticed people on some travel forums saying things like ‘rain – I thought Tenerife was supposed to have a perfect climate.’ As though they’d been lied to.

I understand that people coming on holiday have concerns about weather, especially the British who seem to suffer more than most when it comes to crap weather at home, but if Tenerife had unbroken sunshine for 365 days the whole place would be a desert. Some of it is. As it happens it doesn’t rain much – anywhere on the island – but it does rain, especially in November and February. Remember that when people referred to Tenerife as having a perfect climate, they weren’t originally meaning for lying on a beach for two weeks (although it is a hard place to beat for that as well), they were talking about living – and that includes the farmers.

The other curious thing I noticed on Tripadvisor was how some people reacted to being told about the storm and weather warnings. On two occasions detailed posts about what were happening were almost completely ignored, the next posters asking ‘so can anyone tell me what’s the weather like now?’

What this really meant was ‘I don’t want to hear this; I want someone to tell me that it’s going to be sunny.’

One person even went as far as to search weather forecasts until they found one which had clearly got it all wrong by forecasting that it was going to be sunny when ‘serious’ forecasts were warning ‘batten down the hatches’. The fact that it was wrong mattered less than the fact that it showed exactly what they wanted to see.

Like I said, I understand visitors’ concerns. When I’m going to a place where I’m hoping for wall to wall sunshine, I don’t want rain and storms, but sometimes I get them – the weather is the weather.

The wonderful thing about Tenerife is that bad weather rarely lasts very long. Within 48 hours of the weather warning being issued the sun was shining in the south again. That’s the reality of weather on Tenerife.

And this morning we woke in Puerto de la Cruz to clear blue skies and this magnificent vision.  Like they say, every rain filled cloud has a silver lining.

There was a moment on Thursday night at the gala dinner in honour of the British Guild of Travel Writers, visiting Tenerife for their AGM, when I suddenly felt like Alice through the looking glass.
The Disney-esque setting of the luxurious Gran Hotel Bahia del Duque combined with a laser show, which made feel as though I’d just tripped the hi-tech alarms in a heist movie, created a scene which was bordering on the surreal. I thought back to the previous Sunday when I was in San Antonio in La Matanza’s upper reaches for the San Abad celebrations.

Gran Hotel Bahia del Duque

Up there, sharing a bench with a pair of narky looking eagles and filling glasses from a carafe (a pepsi bottle) of sultry wine from the kiosk owner’s own vineyard seemed like the most natural thing in the world to be doing on a Sunday afternoon. That’s the Tenerife I know best. The plush, luxury hotel setting would be as alien to the people I had mingled with the previous Sunday as their world would be to most of the people who temporarily populate the tourist conurbations in the south of Tenerife.

But that didn’t make it any less real. It was simply a different face of Tenerife. In fact the gala dinner was a lively and enjoyable affair and Andy and I met some truly interesting people – no surprise there I suppose. If you’re passionate about travel and other cultures and you mingle with people who clearly share this passion, then their company is almost guaranteed to entertain.

The Tenerife Cabildo (government) had laid on a series of very diverse excursions to expose the BGTW members to the many different faces of the island and to try and drive home the message that Tenerife is much more than the tiny, purpose built area which grabs much of the attention…outside Tenerife that is.

Real Life in Tenerife's Hills

Pretty much all of the people I spoke to praised the organisation and the effort that had gone into showing them Tenerife. Although some trips had impressed more than others, most members seemed to have learned things about Tenerife that they hadn’t known previously.

I’m hoping that the learning process has been two way. In the short time I had to speak with various guild members it was obvious that their wealth of expertise and experience could help the Tenerife Tourism Board enormously. John Bell pinpointed marketing strategies which could revolutionise the way Tenerife is perceived in Britain. Sarah Monaghan’s knowledge about eco-tourism was a deep well which was there to be drawn from and Michael Howorth’s insight into the yachting fraternity’s view of marinas on Tenerife should have had tourism board officials scribbling furiously. I could go on and on.

If the powers that be on Tenerife are serious about the island modifying its media image so that it attracts more visitors who have an interest in the culture of the island rather than just its temperatures then they also have to adjust. They need to learn to listen more to and, more importantly, follow advice from external sources.

What impressions the BGTW will take away from their visit to Tenerife we’ll have to wait and see. Hopefully they will have been exposed to enough of the real Tenerife to convince them that Tenerife is full of, ironically given its annual amount of visitors, ‘undiscovered’ treasures.

However, my heart sank when I woke the morning after the gala dinner to read that after the dinner some journos had headed straight to the infamous Veronicas in Las Américas.

No prizes for guessing what they encountered there. I’m sure their visit was motivated by journalistic fascination, but just in case it wasn’t I’ll repeat what no doubt will be inscribed on my tombstone…

That is not a part of the real Tenerife; hell, it isn’t even representative of Las Américas these days.

Some people will tell you that Tenerife has a reputation for having a few bullshitters amongst the ex-pat population. In truth we haven’t encountered too many in the six years we’ve lived here; most of the people we meet are solid, sound and interesting.

However, the ones that we have encountered have usually fitted a very similar pattern. They go to great pains to tell you how wonderful they are and turn you glassy eyed by droning on about all the incredible things they can do. Invariably these people turn out to be quite the opposite of the picture they paint of themselves and more often than not are unable top deliver the goods they promise. These are your common or garden Tenerife bullshitters.

The Spanish have a phrase for people like this which I think is just perfect:

‘No tiene una abuela’ (he doesn’t have a grandmother).

Last week we met someone who completely broke this mould. He wasn’t a bullshitter as such, he just told endless stories about his exploits. I didn’t doubt that any of them were true, but he put such a spin on some that I’ve still got a graze on my chin from where it hit the concrete floor.

This is the most outrageous example of what I mean.

I don’t know what the hell we were talking about, but to illustrate that he wasn’t racist, our new acquaintance told us he had an African child, an Indian child, a Japanese child, a Maori child… and so on; all illegitimate. He was your stereotypical example of the sailor who really did have a woman in every port and by the sound of it left her something to remember him by forever.

Using the fact that you’ve shagged your way around the world to demonstrate that you’re a firm believer in everyone being equal is quite a unique approach in itself. But it was what came next which was the real sucker punch.

When we pointed out that leaving unsupported babies across the world wasn’t exactly the most responsible pastime going, he provided a rationale which not only justified it, but turned his shagging his way around the world into a truly selfless act.

Apparently at the time of his misdeeds, in Japan and New Zealand any Japanese or Maori child who had been sired by a western father was automatically guaranteed certain privileges (guilt payments no doubt) like monetary grants, a better education and various other benefits.

Ostensibly he wasn’t leaving a load of women all over the world with another unwanted mouth to feed, he was doing them a favour by giving them a way to access benefits they wouldn’t otherwise get and help ensure that their child would have a better chance than most. All without him having to do anything else apart from dip his wick.

What a saint! It was classic.

Precise – There’s a word I don’t use often here, in Spanish, English or any other language.

We recently bought a TDT digi-box and it has transformed our viewing pleasures. No longer do we have to sit through movies dubbed into Spanish where George Clooney’s smooth tones sound more like someone scratching chalk across a blackboard, or put up with Demi Moore’s too-sexy-to-be-good-for-you husky voice being replaced by some 99 year old crap actress who’s had a tracheotomy.

Now we can press a button and change many programmes into their original language, it’s fantastic. There’s also a button which, when you press it, tells you what time everything is on. However, this being Spain, it’s a complete waste of time.

The Spanish don’t seem to be able to do precise scheduling, so programmes that are due to start at 9.15pm say, usually start at around 9.25. It is a classic mas o menos approach. Once you’re aware of this, it isn’t really a problem; you adjust. What does drive me mad though is when they apply the mas o menos to commercial breaks. We were watching The Truman Show the other day and I’m pretty sure they left the film running for part of the break and completely missed a crucial part of the plot. Not only that, they inserted a huge chunk of the programme that was due to follow the movie in a commercial break about ten minutes from the end of the film!!!

When I’m in the middle of watching a movie, I don’t want to have to watch bloody Buenafuente for ten minutes – I want to watch the flippin’ movie.

WHAT IS UP WITH THESE PEOPLE?

I just can’t decide whether it’s incompetence, or they just think that life’s too short to bother with such things as meeting schedules and timing the film to start at the exact point they stopped it for the break.

The second example of a generic casual approach to being ‘exacto’ occurred in the supermarket this week. We were after some picada de vacuna (minced beef). However, when we looked through the trays of picada de vacuna, it didn’t take a butcher to spot that half of them weren’t actually picada de vacuna, they were picada de cerdo (minced pork). Somebody had cocked up. But to even it out, half the trays of meat in the picada de cerdo section were actually vacuna, unless pigs here have unusually deep red flesh.

But, hey it’s all meat, so I suppose it was mas or menos exacto!

La Orotava - a warm, winter wonderland

I’ve just read a thread on Tenerife Forum which was comparing Christmas in the UK with Christmas on Tenerife. A couple of people said they thought that there was no Christmas spirit on Tenerife. It illustrated for me yet again that there are still a lot of people on Tenerife who really don’t know the island they live on.

During the holidays I’d been to La Orotava, Santa Cruz and La Laguna to take photos for a Tenerife Magazine article about the most Christmassy towns on Tenerife and they were all very festive with live music and stalls selling hot food.

These and the other historic towns had streets decorated like Christmas trees and full Christmas agendas which involved Christmas concerts, music in the streets, Christmas markets and all sorts of festive goodies. If you wandered through any one of them at night, it was impossible not to be infected with a jolly dose of Christmas spirit.

It’s true that because the most Christmassy places tend to be found where most Canarios live (i.e. the north of the island) and that decorations in the purpose built tourists resorts are maybe not quite as elaborate as in the old historic towns. But it’s also true that places like Arona and Adeje, where the biggest resorts are located, also had extensive Christmas agendas.

There was Christmas spirit by the sparkly bucket load to be found on Tenerife. There always is.
However, depending on where you live, or are staying, it might not  come to you; you have to make the effort to find it.

Santa Cruz - the odd light in the centre is a fire juggler.

30th December
After our climb it was back to work full steam until my birthday. I’ve got a sort of Victor Meldrew attitude to my birthday. Not because I don’t like birthdays, but because it falls at a damned awkward time. If my mother had held on for another 16 minutes it would have fallen on New Year’s Eve and that would have been just tickety boo for partying, plus I would be sharing it with the great Sir Alex F. We spent the morning at La Villa which was a nightmare as Canarios were still shopping en masse for presents for Tres Reyes.

Morcilla con Almendras...yum!

Queuing to escape the chaos didn’t help with the birthday spirit, but an afternoon spent at tasca El Olivo and some of the best tapas I’ve tasted on Tenerife soon brought it back. The boquerones , olives in a spicy sauce and home made croquettes were above average but the morcilla con almendras (a type of black pudding with crushed almonds) and lightly grilled cheese drizzled with cilantro sauce, a spicy red sauce and honey were exceptional.

Andy played a blinder for my birthday; she got me a bottle of something that I’d wanted to try for eight years, absinthe. Its link with bohemian artists had intrigued me ever since we’d read a guidebook in Barcelona which mentioned this bar, Marsella I think it was called, specialised in absinthe and was allegedly frequented by dwarves, ladies of the night, transvestites and circus performers. We tried to find it one night, but it lay down a dark alley full of people who lurked in the shadows so that all you could see was the whites of their eyes and the glint of steel blades in their hands (well that’s what my imagination saw). We bottled it after a couple of hundred yards. But I’ve had a hankering to try it ever since, so we spent the evening trying to perfect how to pour absinthe properly – it involves sugar lumps, ice cold water and a special absinthe spoon.

The 'Rave' street in Puerto

New Year’s Eve
I thought bohemians drank absinthe to be creative. We woke up on NY Eve morning feeling about as creative as a pair of amoebas and the malaise lasted all day. The idea of traipsing the three kilometres into Puerto de la Cruz for the Nochevieja celebrations didn’t appeal in the slightest and we considered giving it a miss this year.
But you’ve got to do these things, so at around 10pm we deseeded our grapes, stuck a couple of bottles of cava into a Zara bag and dragged ourselves off to the party.
Of course as soon as we got there the infectious atmosphere took hold. As usual the place was full of smiley, dancing people looking fab. This year the style of evening dress seemed to be from the 50s and many of the girls had dresses of green silks with wide stiff hems. There were enormous waves pounding the harbour walls, so the firework display took place from the direction of Plaza Europa. We had the usual grape eating fiasco at midnight. I managed to get all mine down as the bells rang out for midnight, but Andy still had some in her gob.
“I didn’t know I was supposed to swallow” was her excuse, something I attribute to a good catholic upbringing.
After the fireworks it was party time again and the streets around the harbour filled. Calle Perdomo, the ‘rave’ street was particularly impressive this year as the fairground’s big wheel added the disco lights to the scene.
However, the effects of the absinthe hadn’t fully worn off, so we only managed to last a couple of hours this year before being party poopers and heading for home.

New Year’s Day
Pretty much a rerun of Christmas Day, except with a lot less alcohol. It was a beautifully sunny day, but we didn’t venture outside at all. Once more it was a case of overeating and slobbing out on the sofas; this time to watch Slumdog Millionaire. What an incredible film and a rollercoaster ride of emotions – There were tears before bedtime.

2nd January
Another walk to try to combat the effects of overeating throughout the festive period. This time we headed down to El Médano to meet our friends, Richard and Nikki for a hike across Montaña Pelada. The island’s volcanic cones are fascinating places to explore. Pelada’s surreal slopes lead to a flattish plateau which overlooks the windmills at the Institute for Renewable Energies.
In typical Tenerife fashion, this Eco centre lies right beside the area where a big new and controversial port is planned. I wonder if the windmills will power it and if the Tenerife authorities understand irony?

Snow on Teide...again

A great walk was finished off with an even better lunch courtesy of masterchef Nikki.

Tres Reyes - 5th & 6th January
The day after our walk we both woke to find we had what felt like the start of a cold. It turned out this was Andy’s fault as she had mentioned whilst chatting to Nikki, that we rarely caught colds and in saying that completely jinxed us. The symptoms got worse until by the night of the arrival of the Tres Reyes in Puerto, we were in no shape to go to the parade of the wise men bearing gifts which was a bit of a shame as the press release promised that there would be 60 animals involved. As I type, Andy is still in bed coughing and spluttering and feeling completely sorry for herself, whereas I’m feeling quite sprightly (but then she felt like that yesterday before relapsing). It’s a beautiful sunny day and there’s actually some snow on Mount Teide, so as Tres Reyes is actually Christmas Day for Canarios it looks as though we’ve got a white Christmas on Tenerife after all…even if the temperature is in the mid 20s.

Christmas Eve
There had been an orange weather alert for high winds, rain and choppy seas across the Canary Islands, but whilst 75% of Tenerife was grim and dreary, the north, funnily enough for the second year running, basked in hot sunshine with temperatures in the upper 20s.

We’d downed tools at lunchtime on Christmas Eve and after buying vegetables from the greengrocer near Plaza de la Iglesia in Puerto de la Cruz did what everyone else does, headed to Plaza Charco and one of the bars near the harbour for a cervesa or two.

The town was buzzing. The younger locals tend to meet up with mates and have a bit of a session before heading home to snooze off the booze while their mums no doubt prepare the big Christmas Eve meal. Plaza Charco had a real party atmosphere. If you didn’t know better, you’d think the town was preparing for a big night of partying, so some first time visitors were in for a shock when they left their hotels later to find that the party would be over and the place deserted by 10-ish.

Christmas Day
The weather on Christmas Day was glorious, but disappointingly there wasn’t any snow on Mount Teide, so no white Christmas on Tenerife.
Even though there was just the two of us we spent most of the day cooking Christmas dinner, which was no hardship as we both find cooking therapeutic, especially accompanied by some thumping music and plenty of bucks fizz.

I’d insisted on opting for a 5kg turkey, so by early evening we were prone on a sofa each,  all three of us having scoffed too much turkey (I’m including the cat here who was using my shoes as a sofa) and drunk too much cava (not the cat) to try to watch Star Trek over the sound of the cat snoring. We still managed to snack on some turkey butties and home-made mince pies later… well you’ve got to haven’t you.

On Top of the World... nearly

Boxing Day
Clearly being a British holiday it isn’t celebrated here, but we did what we’ve done on Boxing Day for yonks, went for a long walk to try to reduce in part our pregnant-whale sized stomachs.

Tackling Tenerife’s second highest mountain, Montaña Guajara seemed just the ticket. At 2715 metres high, it’s quite a test on the lungs and leg muscles, but emerging at the summit with quite stupendous views of Mount Teide and the surrounding crater made it well worth the effort.

27th December
It was off to the Beehive Bar to watch Hull v Man Utd. Hardly got to see much of the game as the bar was full of British and Scandinavian visitors we’ve gotten to know over the years. Still it was good fun and the result was right.

At this time of year there are regular weather warnings for high seas and big waves in particular. When people in Britain who are planning a visit to Tenerife hear about these, they’re understandably the cause of some concern.

When the alerts are purely for big waves there’s nothing to worry about… unless you ignore them and take a stroll along the top of the harbour wall.

We had a yellow alert this week and Richard, a windsurfing friend who knows about such things, had given me the heads up that there might be some mad fools trying to surf them.
On Wednesday, hoping that I might get to photograph the biggest wave of them all ‘El Bravo’ and even better, some loon surfing it, I headed to Punta Brava; the magnet for monster waves.

Unfortunately it was overcast, the lighting was bobbins from a photographic point of view and I’d mistaken overcast skies for cool ones. Wearing a hoodie had the same effect as sitting in a sauna fully clothed and it was soon wrapped around my waist.

Unfortunately there weren’t any surfers riding the waves, but the tsunami sized waves were impressive and I joined a few other wave watchers to be hypnotized by the huge rollers pounding away at the Punta Brava coastline.

The photos aren’t great, but here are a few to give you an idea of what a yellow alert for high seas really means in Puerto de la Cruz – nature putting on a spectacular show.

She's hoping she doesn't have to rescue anyone today

And she's too engrossed in her book to notice the waves

White Horses

Who'd live in a house like this?

They had a look and decided against it...

And this is why you don't walk along the sea defence wall when there's a yellow alert.