December 28th is Dia de los Inocentes in Spain. It’s the equivalent of April Fool’s Day in Britain and the tradition is that the media publishes or broadcasts hoax stories.

One of the main Spanish TV channels had a whole night of screening pranks, one involved fooling a man into believing he was witnessing a murder.

For the last two years I’ve published a hoax story on Tenerife Magazine to commemorate the date…and for the past two years it’s caused a bit of a stir amongst some people who aren’t aware of the tradition (even though this time the piece was clearly tagged with Dia de los Inocentes).

A few savvy people clocked it was a Dia de los Inocentes story right away, leaving comments on Facebook, Twitter and on the article itself. And most others, once wise to Dia de los Inocentes, got the joke. But the comment about why would an English language magazine print a Dia de los Inocentes story that had me reeling wasn’t left on any of the magazine’s social media channels, it was left by an ex-pat resident on an English language forum.

I’m not a judgemental sort of person (what bollocks – I’m terribly judgemental) so if someone living on Tenerife doesn’t know about or isn’t interested in the island’s traditions then that’s up to them. Live and let live and all that jazz. But if someone living on Tenerife who doesn’t know about the traditions has the audacity to criticise me for following one then that’s a very different story.

The question was so utterly ridiculous that I’d have thought it was a hoax itself, except I knew it wasn’t.

Why would an English language magazine write about a Spanish tradition?

Why would we write about carnaval…or the flower carpets at Corpus Christi…or the goat bathing at midsummer? And why do we write about eating cabra and conejo? Because I don’t see the difference between any of those and observing Dia de los Inocentes.

Why would an English language magazine write about a Spanish tradition?

Why? Why? Because we happen to live in Tenerife, Spain and not Weston-super-Mare that’s why.

Instead of leaving them up in the house for 12 months and risking bad luck, I thought I’d post some pics on here, so I can enjoy the house dressed for Christmas for just a little bit longer.

Instead of a Christmas Tree we have a Sprayed Branch, Lights and Old CDs.

Our Only Tree.

By the Light of the Stars.

Bucks Fizz on Christmas Morn.

The Door Handle that Requires a Strong Wrist.

Symbols of Good Luck.

Stars and Discs.

On the Outside Looking In.

A week’s half board at the hotel is the latest prize in our Tenerife Magazine holiday competition and if we’re going to recommend a hotel then we stay in it first so we can give first hand experience of what it’s like. This first hand experience is important to us…no that’s wrong, it’s essential.

Andy and I have long felt that the Achilles heel in Puerto relating to tourism is the hotels in the town, many of whom are in need of being dragged into the 21st century. Historic is quaint and you might even get away with old fashioned charm, but many of Puerto’s hotels don’t tick these boxes. They’re simply dated. I recently read a sharp piece of copywriting which cleverly described a hotel’s décor as being authentic 1960s. Well some of Puerto’s hotels have authentic 1980s décor.

Not so the Hotel Las Aguilas. It bucks the trend by revealing an individualistic style that mixes pop art and ethnic designs with what is simply an aesthetically pleasing style. It’s vibrant and a breath of fresh air and showed us that not all of Puerto’s hotels are doing the timewarp again.

The other myth the Hotel Las Águilas helps dispel is the one that I’d almost come to believe myself. In winter only ‘mature’ Northern Europeans holiday in Puerto de la Cruz.

The other guests in the hotel ranged from couples in their 20s upwards, with the average age being around 40-ish. Not exactly fitting the picture that is often painted. Of course, with each passing year ‘mature’ takes on a different meaning for me.

I was going to say that maybe the ‘mature’ tag might be related to British visitors as the majority of the hotel’s guests were not English speaking (mainly Spanish, German and Scandinavian). But as the bar I watched Man Utd see off Fulham (to the obvious chagrin of the Man Utd hating bar manager) was packed with Brits a lot younger than me, it seems as though that doesn’t apply there either.

In Puerto, and no doubt other places on Tenerife, if you go to bars that are popular with more mature visitors then guess what you’re going to find? On the other hand, if you go to different bars you find a totally different scene.

I hadn’t realised the same applied to hotels until the Hotel Las Águilas opened my eyes.

But that’s not the main reason.

There used to be two mainstream cinema complexes on Tenerife where you could catch the latest-ish movies in their original language; at La Villa in La Orotava and at Gran Sur in Costa Adeje. Each screened one V.O. (version original) a week. Sometimes the movie was good, sometimes it was bobbins.

The one in La Orotava didn’t last long; there’s just not a big enough audience for English language movies in the north of Tenerife.

The south of Tenerife is a different matter. In some municipalities up to 75% of the population are non-Canarios. Not all of these are English speaking, but there’s a massive percentage who are.

And yet every time I’ve been to the Gran Sur Cinema to watch V.O. There has been less than 10 other people in the cinema with me. Doesn’t matter how good the movie is, even the likes of Inception and The Adventures of Tintin didn’t bring in the English speaking crowds.

I just don’t get it. Andy and I think nothing of the 90 minute journey from Puerto de la Cruz to Costa Adeje if the movie warrants it. DVDs are wonderful, but you can’t beat watching BIG movies on the big screen. So, as most ex-pat residents on Tenerife live significantly closer to the cinema, why aren’t audiences bigger? It’s a mystery to me.

The apparent lack of support for the V.O has had me worried that it might be pulled (I say apparent because for all I know, the place is teeming on the days I’m not there).

Sure enough, for the last two weeks the V.O. movie has been absent from Gran Sur. They say that it might be back, but if they don’t re-introduce it I’ll be gutted.

I’ve been a massive fan of the movies since leafing through my mum’s Photoplays when I was knee high to a popcorn seller. I love movies and I especially get a thrill out of seeing them at the cinema.

And because I feel this way about films, I won’t watch dubbed ones.

You might think that as I live in Spain, I should watch movies in Spanish. I do…but only Spanish movies. I also watch French, Chinese, Brazilian, Swedish movies etc…all in their original language (with English subtitles of course).

Movies aren’t just about the visuals – without the performance of the actor, the movie is nothing. And that’s why dubbing is irritating in the extreme.

Dubbing lessens a movie (well maybe not one with Van Damme, Steven Seagal or Chuck Norris). You can’t tell whether a film is good or bad when you’re listening to some wooden performance from a professional dubber. Where’s the richness of voice? Where’s the emotion? Where’s the intonation or the subtlety in the performance? With dubbing you lose all of that…and subsequently you also lose the soul of the movie.

How can people who watch dubbed movies know how good an actor Leo DiCaprio or Brad Pitt is? The answer is that they can’t.

The Spy Who Came in From the Cold was on Spanish TV last week. I’d forgotten how delicious Richard Burton’s voice was. Imagine casting those rich vocals aside for some part-timer from Valencia with a voice that grates like nails down a board.

It would simply be a crime.

Honestly, trust me on this – I live there – stay away from Puerto de la Cruz.

After years of trying to convince people what it’s really like to live in or visit Puerto de la Cruz, I’ve decided to do a complete U-turn. There are a couple of reasons for this.

The first is more irritating than anything else. I can preach about Puerto de la Cruz until the cows come home, bed down for the night and start to dream of grassy meadows. But somebody visits the place on an excursion for 5 minutes and suddenly they know better – if they say it’s always cold, wet and cloudy, then it must be. What the hell do I know?

But the main reason is that, after witnessing an unusual situation involving pissed up young Brits making an ass of themselves a few weeks ago and then reading a couple of reviews on Tripadvisor this week, I really don’t want a certain type of Brit holidaymaker to believe that Puerto is warm and sunny all the year round – or for any part of the year. Simple as that.

Some people just aren’t suited to the north of Tenerife just as some people wouldn’t enjoy staying in the purpose built resorts in the south. The north is never going to ring their bells and these comments taken from a Tripadvisor review illustrate exactly why.

A seriously disappointed holidaymaker moaned about their hotel that -‘The staff at hotel were bad mannered,rude,hardly understood English language’ and even worse, the ‘entertainment that was on every night was Spanish and all the locals came in for a night out,nothing aimed at British people’.

Puerto itself fared little better as the reviewer continued their moan – ‘No British entertainment on in area either,just Spanish singers with Spanish locals sitting in all the seats’.

Their final piece of advice was ‘I would seriously urge anyone from the UK not to go to Puerto de la Cruz…as it will be the worst holiday you’l ever have.’

Absolutely…if the idea of being full of Spanish and having no Brit bars has you penning an ‘outraged’ letter to Puerto’s tourist board for not turning the place into Britain in the sun then please, please, please follow the reviewer’s advice.

It’s not just Puerto who has to suffer these Philistines. On the same day I read hotel reviews for La Gomera; an island ‘more discerning’ holidaymakers head for (or so some of them would like to have you believe) and came across a scathing review from a holidaymaker who, clearly having been seduced by a tour brochure description, had opted to stay in the hill town of Vallehermoso – which is a ‘real’ Gomeran town.

First they complained that their receptionist didn’t carry their bags (it’s a small rural hotel in the country, not a 4 star All Inclusive) then they bitched about breakfast (coming face to face with the continental variety was clearly a shock to the system). They commented that there were a few pubs but nothing special (PUBS? PUBS? Where did they think they were – the Lake District). But the most inconvenient aspect of the place was that families filled the local plaza at night, music was played and everyone had the nerve to have a noisy good time (obviously no-one had told them they would have to come into contact with any foreigners).

The best line of the review was their conclusion that ‘Vallehermoso is a total DUMP’ to be avoided at all costs.

Vallehermoso means beautiful valley in English – it is aptly named…but not if you’re a total moron. It has not, however, been built for tourists. It is the real deal. These plebs apparently couldn’t even find the hotel’s sun terrace they were that clueless.

Finally they were moved to the Hotel Tecina – ‘a lovely place’ where they decided that La Gomera was indeed beautiful…that would be the La Gomera found inside the biggest hotel complex on the island then.

So here’s a tip for everyone out there of similar mind to these two, Puerto de la Cruz and anywhere remotely Canario should definitely be avoided at all costs. You really won’t like it.

In some ways, the British and the Canarios are similar and in some ways the culture couldn’t be more different, occasionally to the extent that it can make your head want to explode.

This week as Andy dropped off some Real Tenerife guides at the post office, I spent my time waiting for her at the car by, as usual, observing daily life in Puerto de la Cruz. This normally involves listening to the old guys at Bar Aqui Me Quedo sounding as though they’re arguing about everything under the golden globe, and enviously watching the slick moves of the pupils at the dance academy opposite where we park. But on this occasion there was the added bonus of a car crash right in front of me.
Actually it was more of a gentle bump, but what developed illustrated the gulf in cultural responses to certain situations.

The road where the bus station is now located is a slow one and accidents like running into the back of another car when you’re driving at 20 kph shouldn’t occur. Who knows what had grabbed the woman driver’s attention as she drove too close to the car in front, maybe it was the moves at the dance academy, but when the car in front stopped for people at pedestrian crossing, the woman behind didn’t and subsequently drove straight into the back of it.

It wasn’t a big bump, but it did result in a small dent on both cars. Both drivers were out of their cars pronto to inspect the damage and that’s when the cultural differences came to the fore.

The car in front wasn’t a Toyota but was a hire car and was occupied by two German visitors who looked at the bump on the fender and then reached for their documents. This didn’t go down well with the Spanish driver who didn’t feel that the damage was serious enough to warrant exchanging insurance details.

The Germans couldn’t speak Spanish but clearly understood the gist of what was going on. One of them pointed to the hire car label on their car. It was obvious to me that they were trying to communicate with the woman that as theirs was a hire car, they had to do this by the book. But she was having none of it and became more and more agitated, flinging her arms in the air and pointing out over and over again that the damage was minimal. Despite their requests she refused to give the Germans her insurance details.

Then, with an impasse looming, the German woman did something really smart. She took out her digital camera and snapped a photo of the ‘culprit’ driver’s number plate. When the Spanish driver asked what she was doing a ‘helpful’ local onlooker stepped into the fray.

Instead of pointing out that the Germans were in the right, he told the Spanish driver they were taking a photo of her number plate because ‘they were German and were trying to get money out of her.’

It was an interesting take on events and not a conclusion that I would have reached. This is what I mean about the occasional chasm between our cultures. In this case the Germans were judged to be in the wrong because they wanted to do things by the book which the culprit believed justified her annoyance at them.

She was the one who drove into them…yet she was the one who was angry. That is the sort of skewed logic that makes your head want to explode.

A few months ago Andy was sitting in the car when a local man we know reversed straight into her. Our car was in a car park and was stationary at the time which made it all the more bizarre. But the guy’s reaction was even more incredible.

Instead of apologising, he rushed across to the car, furious with Andy for, get this, ‘being parked there’. This type of thinking just doesn’t make any sense whatsoever.

Similarly, what did the driver do when the Germans took a photo of her number plate? She jumped into her car, reversed (nearly hitting another car in the process), pulled around the bemused Germans’ car and drove off,  leaving them and their car isolated in the middle of the road.

Thirty seconds later the police arrived. I was gutted as I really wanted to see how they would have dealt with the situation.

When I witness situations like this and the approach to what I’d consider are basic laws of the road, Pirates of the Caribbean always enters my head.

I have a sneaking suspicion some drivers on Tenerife have a similar view to the highway code (codigo de la circulación) as Captain Barbossa does to the Code of the Order of the Brethren – i.e. that ‘the code is more what you’d call “guidelines” than actual rules.’

Outside the window, a queue of clearly quite irritated blue tits, finches and canaries hopped, fluttered and twittered loudly, demanding to know why their local spa had run dry; their local spa being a plant tray filled, an ornamental steel bowl and the current favourite choice for an avian jacuzzi, the cat’s water bowl – either a very stupid or very brave spot for a bird to linger.

They all scattered whilst I topped up their baths but it wasn’t long before this little fellow took the opportunity to have a soak and a splash before the ebullient Tenerife blue tits came back, bullied everyone else out of the way and hogged the bowl until it was emptied of water as a result of their frantic splashing around.

I wonder if the cat has any idea about the outrageous behaviour that takes place in his water bowl when he’s not about?

I’d already noticed that riads in Marrakech had particularly good websites compared to Tenerife where websites can still be conspicuous by their absence. But in remote villages the contrast was all the more noticeable.

It was a surprise to find that a poor and relatively underdeveloped country seemed more advanced in IT terms than its more affluent off-shore European neighbour.

I mentioned this to a guide at one point. His answer was simple, yet possibly glaringly obvious, and revealed what spoke volumes about the differences between Tenerife and Morocco in relation to attitudes regarding using the internet as a promotional tool.

“We have had to work hard for our tourists.”

Touché

All sorts of people have shown interest in blog trips – some with Tenerife’s interests at heart, others, I suspect, with their own interests in pole position. It’s easy to understand why. An intelligently planned blog trip can generate positive publicity to a massive international audience. It represents the sort of priceless PR that you just couldn’t achieve using any other medium.

But every coin has two sides. A badly organised and executed blog trip can be as effective as a soggy match or worse, do as much harm as good.

Not so long ago Andy wrote a blog about why a successful officially organised blog trip to Tenerife was an unlikely concept. Three months down the line and there have been a few ‘blog trips’ to Tenerife. Some organised through official channels, others privately.

Was she right or did the organisers of Tenerife’s blog trips prove her wrong?

The Official Blog Trip #1
Not a full blown blog trip as it was very specialised and aimed at promoting the volcanic aspects of Tenerife. There wasn’t a lot of social media activity and interaction with anyone not involved with the actual trip was minimal. The worst aspects of the trip were related to some of the images that were generated. We’d just returned from the ultra successful Costa Brava blog trip where travel bloggers teased the world’s taste-buds with sexy photos from one of the best restaurants in the world, culinary creations from one of the best chefs on the planet and even pans filled with vibrantly coloured prawns in a fishermen’s hut. The quite unappetising images of Tenerife’s cuisine from this trip on the other hand must have given the impression that the islanders specialise in gruel plonked on a plate with as much care as I put food in the cat’s bowl (less…the cat has standards). If I was offered in prison what was on show, I’d cite the Geneva Convention.
Result: A terrible advert for Tenerife’s cuisine and very limited social media exposure – which was probably just as well.

The Official Blog Trip #2
Gary Arndt of the Everything Everywhere travel blog arrived on Tenerife recently. His visit was mentioned in the local press and by official channels on Twitter and Facebook. On the face of it, it could be viewed as evidence that Tenerife’s authorities were getting a handle on social media…except for one thing. I suspect that had they not been involved with Gary’s visit, Tenerife’s tourist board wouldn’t have had a clue that a well known travel blogger was visiting the island.
The reason for this assumption? At the time of Gary’s visit there were other travel bloggers on Tenerife who completely escaped the attention of Tenerife’s authorities despite their numerous tweets about the island. Worse, there was a very successful and highly respected travel writer on the island at exactly the same time who was completely ignored in social media channels by Tenerife’s tourism board.
Result: It spoke volumes about a total lack of awareness and understanding by Tenerife’s official bodies of social media and the travel writing & blogging world.

The Private Blog Trip #1
In the last 12 months various blog trip models have evolved. One of these is the travel company sponsored blog trip. A UK travel company employed what appeared to be a potentially inspirational approach – travel bloggers out there should cover their eyes at this point. They didn’t use a travel blogger, they used a family blogger. It’s a brilliant concept.
One of the criticisms levelled at some travel bloggers is that their audience isn’t necessarily the same as a mainstream travel company’s or a tourist board’s. But a family blogger’s audience is other families…and we all know that families take family holidays. This is a much more lucrative market than say backpackers.

But day one revealed a flaw in the concept. As a travel writer you become adept at researching places before you go, sussing out where all sorts of essential things are when you arrive. You view locations through many eyes, remembering that your audience has all sorts of varying tastes. You also make sure, where possible, you have the means to broadcast your experiences as you go along.
Day one revealed that the family blogger didn’t employ the same approach to travel, made a sweeping (and incorrect) generalisation based on limited experience and was unable to track down the most basic destination information. They were a good and well liked family blogger, but they didn’t possess the skills of a travel writer or travel blogger.
Result: Hardly any destination tweets during visit, so no real time feel of their experiences. And subsequent blogs were of limited use to other potential visitors as they focussed on too narrow a subject matter.

The Private Blog Trip #2
Sarah and Terry Lee of LiveShareTravel researched the location before they arrived and utilised local contacts with a thorough knowledge of the destination (i.e. us). They were totally prepared and had a strategy for what they wanted to do that would meet the needs of their market (businesses and visitors). Tweets, photos and blogs were posted regularly during their visit to generate interest and their posts were re-tweeted by other respected travel bloggers. They mixed mainstream with cultural, visited resorts, theme parks and places of historic interest and, as a result, promoted a highly attractive image of Tenerife using words, photos and video during and after their trip. Once again, interaction from official sources was absent during their visit to Tenerife.
Result: a successful blog trip that painted Tenerife as a very desirable destination for people with a variety of tastes.

During the same period there were various other travel bloggers and writers visiting Tenerife. In just about every case they were ignored by Tenerife’s official online representatives. Social media is a tool for two-way communication. Tenerife’s tourist authorities don’t seem to have grasped this and are still using it in a conventional and outdated manner as a means for sending information one-way (note: Costa Adeje are the exception to the rule on Tenerife and are actually using social media to interact with others). Cut & paste messages to Tenerife’s blogging community neither engages with them nor is evidence of interaction. Unless they change, any forays into the blog trip arena are doomed to failure.

Tenerife’s tourist board has plenty of tools and expertise at their disposal regarding social media and the online travel and tourism world. But until they begin to listen and learn, things will never progress.

Wrong. The cat had just raised his game. He had another range of tricks up his fluffy sleeve that he’d kept hidden from us.

I should have known better (this is turning into a blog full of dodgy song lyrics). This is the master criminal who actually played possum during a storm to avoid being thrown out into the dark night; got into a bathroom cupboard and somehow managed to close the cupboard door behind him and hid from us by standing still underneath the duvet hanging over the side of the bed (given away only by the curve of his belly causing a ‘bump’ in the cover).

During these hot nights his MO is that once he’s eaten his dinner he trots out of the back door to cool down somewhere outside – or so I was led to believe. I’ve watched him do this on loads of occasions and seen him leave the premises by way of the gently wafting curtain between the bedroom and the back terrace. What I only discovered last week was that he was implementing one of his cunning plans.

As usual I’d watched him leave but this time I had to go outside a few minutes after he’d gone. But there was no sign of the cat. As I came back through the bedroom and into the living room something caught my eye. The damn cat was sitting motionless, as though playing statues, on Andy’s pillow watching me intently to see if I’d spotted him. He was abruptly despatched from his throne with a shout and a helping hand on his furry backside.. God knows how long this has been going on, Andy has been suffering with an allergic bout of sneezing for weeks. We thought summer, but cat hair on the pillow was clearly the culprit.

I’ve tracked him since and discovered that as soon as he exits the house he does a U turn and comes straight back in again via the other side of the curtain which is out of my line of sight. Obviously with us thinking he was safely outside, he’s been free to jump up on the bed and curl up on Andy’s pillow for most of the rest of the night…or until one of us made a move. Since being found out he still makes attempt after attempt to get back to what has become a favourite spot so now we have to shut the doors from the bedroom to the garden, closing off our source of air conditioning in the summer.

You cannot trust this cat for a moment, he has schemes galore in his arsenal and I had simply forgotten this or, more likely, been lulled into a false sense of security. Who knows what else goes on in that Machiavellian head.

Maybe whilst the chimps have been taking over the planet in the cinemas, the cats have been plotting and hatching plans like Billy-o. By the end of the decade we’ll all be their slaves, feeding them mice as they recline on the sofas we once lounged about on…mark my words.