Photographing Tenerife, Viewing Things Differently Through a Lens

A thought occurred to me as I focussed my camera on a sun-dappled, tree-lined street populated by smiling strollers wearing chic summer clothing; the women in colourful, light cotton dresses of various lengths that complimented their curves; the men in loose shirts and three-quarter length pants that were both casual and stylish. The camera liked them.

The thought that occurred to me was that my camera likes some places on Tenerife more than it likes others and that has possibly fashioned my view of some of the towns and resorts on the island.

Over the years I’ve photographed many towns, resorts, villages and hamlets on Tenerife for print and web publications. For many of these I use the images to compliment the text by trying to show the subject at its best. This isn’t always easy as there are lots of places on Tenerife that I don’t find particularly photogenic.

You can more or less point and click in La Orotava and get a result

The old towns and cities are easy. There are places like Garachico, La Orotava, La Laguna and Santa Cruz that I could return to again and again and still find new things to photograph. The rural places like Masca and Santiago del Teide have scenery to boost their lack of streets and historic buildings.

Towns with a fishing community have harbours, colourfully bobbing boats, fishing nets piled high and grizzled fishermen and those are always good subject matter.

Hill towns can sometimes pose a challenge, especially when the population has grown and breeze block buildings are in the majority like in Santa Ursula, La Victoria, La Matanza, San Miguel de Abona and Granadilla de Abona. But these have history and there are always quirky corners to uncover.

It's got a church and the buildings are inoffensive - but it's 'blah' lifeless

It’s the purpose built resorts where I struggle. Remove the beach from the equation and there’s usually very little left to interest the camera. Being new they don’t even possess any urban grit.

Funnily, Playa de las Américas, which is often unfairly held up as Tenerife’s tackiest resort by those who don’t know it has a lot of potentially interesting shots. Whereas once I move away from the beach at Playa del Duque in ‘upmarket’ Costa Adeje my camera positively yawns with boredom.

Worst of all are the purpose built resorts without a beach where the architecture is new-ish and often characterless. What the hell do you photograph there? And if there’s no sunshine, forget it. I’ve tried Callao Salvaje, Playa Paraiso, Golf del Sur and Costa del Silencio a number of times and never been satisfied with the result.

I tried to use the holes in the wall in Playa Paraiso...but still no cigar. Just can't get a decent picture.

Of course that could be my limited creativity, but search Flickr for any of the above and the evidence suggests otherwise.

The upshot of this is that there are places on Tenerife that bore me in photographic terms and subsequently I avoid spending time in them.

Another thought occurred to me as I focussed the camera and that was the people in the photograph. I point a camera up La Noria in Santa Cruz and the people in the frame are very, very different than if I point it along the promenade at…say…Puerto Colón. But that is the topic for another blog completely – and I’m not sure I’m brave enough to go there…for the moment.

If there’s anyone who has managed to get really good shots of the places that I mentioned I struggled with (I don’t mean HD, sunsets or over processed so that they don’t match what the eye sees) I’d love to see them.

The Different Faces of Tenerife, La Matanza & Fiesta de San Abad

Everybody knows Tenerife, course they do – sun, sand, Brit bars aplenty and feels about as abroad as Skegness.

Oh yeah? Well anyone who really believes that clearly knows jack about Tenerife. A visit to one of the biggest fiestas in January, the Fiesta de San Abad in San Antonio in the La Matanza hills, might make them reconsider their views.

On a damp and dreary day we made our annual trip to the ganadera (livestock fair) to mingle with the farmers and caballeros and share a Pepsi bottle carafe and a goatskin of vino del país.

These are some of the faces of the real Tenerife.

If you want a real taste of the Fiesta de San Abad and get some tips on what colour not to wear at a gathering that includes bison-sized bulls , have a look at Andy’s blog and video.

Cruelty to Animals on Tenerife

Cruelty to animals or just an unusual fashion accessory?

Actually it’s neither; at the Fiesta de San Abad in La Matanza in the northern Tenerife hills it’s custom to dress up your animals for their party day.

The British Guild of Travel Writers in Tenerife – Did They Find the Real Tenerife?

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.

Animal Crackers – the Fiesta de San Antonio Abad

Dancer from El Hierro

A Yorkie riding a pony; an iguana squaring up to two bulldogs, a donkey wearing a straw bonnet and a mongrel in full traditional Canarian costume…you really don’t need to take mind altering narcotics when you live in Tenerife.

The weekend had been bizarre enough when we returned home from watching Man Utd beat Spurs in the FA Cup to find a rock concert taking place in the neighbour’s garden. The band wasn’t half bad either. After an initial set of enthusiastic Spanish rock they switched to rock and did a pretty good job of Pink Floyd, Clapton and Hendrix. So sitting listening to a rock concert from the comfort of our house was a pretty surreal start to the weekend.

Sunday we dragged ourselves out of bed (the concert didn’t finish until 2am) to head to Buenavista del Norte for the Fiesta de San Antonio Abad. Last year we had enjoyed the equivalent fiesta in La Matanza, so we were interested to see how Buenavista’s would compare.

It was a pleasant day, the sun making intermittent appearances which immediately scored better then La Matanza’s which, lying quite a way up the hillside, is more prone to cloud at this time of year.

I’d been expecting a bigger event than the fiesta in La Matanza, so was surprised to find that it was quite a bit smaller and there didn’t seem to be nearly as many animals. Today’s El Dia reported that there were over 1000 head of cattle. Personally, I reckon that whoever was doing the counting must have been partaking of generous quantities of the beer and wine from the jam-packed stalls and bars all around the town and was seeing three of everything.

Unusual opponents

However, numbers aside, it was a completely enchanting fiesta with a wonderfully welcoming atmosphere. The Teno Massif provided a dramatic backdrop to the fields where the livestock were gathered and the town of Buenavista was looking at its best; bright streamers lined the roads and antique wooden balconies were decorated with wicker baskets adorned with fruit and vegetables.

Small groups of musicians strummed their timples outside nearly every bar, whilst dancers in white costumes with twirling skirts, reminiscent of the Turkish national dress, whirled to the haunting pito herreño (flute) and drum riffs from the island of El Hierro.

Whilst the ‘show’ animals (horses, cattle, goats, dogs) looked magnificent, it was the fringe events which I found the most interesting. There were nearly as many animal ‘spectators’ as there were human ones and when a small crowd gathered in one spot it was a clue that something different was going on. The most bizarre of these being the iguana squaring up to two bulldogs who barked and strained at their leashes…until the iguana responded by lumbering slowly toward them which shut them up big time.

Love me, love my python

As always, everybody was only too happy to pose for photos; the event is a photographer’s dream with any number of potential impossibly cute ‘greeting card’ type shots. I particularly liked the Yorkie riding the pony which seems to be an annual favourite. But cats in scarves, bunnies in bows, kid goats with ribbons around their throats, donkeys in straw boaters and a girl doing an impression of Salma Hayak in ‘From Dusk Till Dawn’ with a python around her neck all added an ‘Alice through the Looking Glass’ element to the whole affair.

Despite many animals wearing more clothes than some of their owners, the only uncomfortable looking creature I noticed all day was a cat in a scarf, but then cats don’t really do social events do they?

Buenavista del Norte is on the Hidden Depths route of Island Drives

Going Native

Now I know how the Guanche felt.

First, a brief history lesson. In 1494, Fernández de Lugo and his army of well armed mercenaries got their asses well and truly kicked by the primitive Guanche warriors armed with sticks and stones. It’s said that de Lugo only escaped the battlefield because he gave his distinctive red cloak to an expendable minion.
The place that this happened, on the hillside of northern Tenerife is now a town with the wonderfully macabre and evocative monicker of ‘The Massacre’ (La Matanza).

The story didn’t end there of course. The underdog might occasionally have his, or her, day but in the long run you can’t beat the big boys. De Lugo returned a year later to wreak vengeance upon the people who’d humiliated him.

One story is that de Lugo didn’t win because of superior tactics, or even firepower, but that he prevailed because by the time he returned, the Guanche were basically buggered. They’d succumbed to a mysterious illness (i.e. they’d done a ‘War of the Worlds’). They couldn’t have repelled a flock of mildly irritated bunnies by that time. And so they were conquered.

But what’s all this got to do with the price of butter? Well, the point is that the after four years of living in this wonderful climate with its clean air and generally bug free environment, my immune system has gone Guanche.

I sail through the year cold and flu free…until that is I mix with someone who’s brought a disease from a far off land…or at least cold germs from the UK.
Last week I headed to The Beehive to watch Man Utd play Portsmouth in the FA cup. A couple of stools behind me some bloke had obviously brought more than his holiday togs in his suitcase as he sneezed continuously throughout the match, sending legions of malicious germs in my direction.

Clearly, my defence system isn’t at its optimum levels. Whereas once it would have batted the germs aside with a disdainful ‘Ha’, it has now developed a mañana culture attitude to protecting my health, and was obviously overpowered without a murmur of protest.

Sunday morning I woke with a fuzzy head and a ‘blocked dose’. A double whammy as Man Utd had been dumped out of the FA cup, by bad luck, good defending and some shite refereeing.

However the difference between the Guanche and me is that they didn’t know about ‘Hot Toddies’. A generous glass of whisky, hot water, honey and lemon juice before bed gave my defence system a kick up the rear. Whilst I slept soundly, this Willie Wallace of germ fighters rallied the troops and after two days of battling, my body was pure again – relatively speaking of course.

 

Once upon a time on a hill in the West

The policeman’s expression was the same as a rabbit caught in a car’s headlights. Standing at the centre of a crossroads where four single lane roads converged, he was faced with the prospect of trying to manoeuvre the four cars which had emerged from each road at exactly the same moment; it was impasse.

The driver in each car stared at the policeman, like band members waiting for their conductor to orchestrate their next move.

He turned full circle, seeking a possible solution, then shrugged and raised his arms, palms upwards; a gesture which spoke volumes, it said:

“What do you expect me to do about it?”

No, this wasn’t the amusing, but not unexpected, chaos which faced concert goers trying to get in to the Elton John gig in Costa Adeje (clearly not funny to those stuck in the queue as Reg started belting out his tunes), this was the approach to the small village of San Antonio, home to one of the ‘other’ big events that were taking place on the island last week, the Fiestas of San Antonio Abad, taking place on the slopes of La Matanza, however the principle was the same.

Tinerfeños love fiestas and generally organise them very well, it’s just the small matter of how you get to them and where you park when you do that’s left in the lap of the gods.

Thankfully we’d seen that movie many times and knew that when we spotted the first signs of people leaving their cars and setting off on foot, that it was time to do the same, even though we were still a couple of kilometres from the event.

We left the policemen to his logistics problem and wandered past private garages which had been turned into makeshift restaurants for the day with long trestle tables set with chequered tablecloths. There was no need for a menu; the aromas which mugged our nostrils told us everything we needed to know and by the time we reached the Ermita de San Antonio Abad, where the fiesta was taking place I was drooling like a hungry sheepdog.

Around the small church, paddocks, pens and stalls housed stocky hunting dogs, placid bronze coloured oxen built like the proverbial you-know-what, goats, sheep, mules, donkeys and horses. Caballeros in embroidered waistcoats rode their steeds through vertigo inducing streets. Old guys in felt homburgs, chewing on oversized puros (cigars) sat on walls shooting the breeze.

Although this fiesta wasn’t as big as the one in Buenavista del Norte, there were still a few thousand people and their animals packing the little streets of the small village. We ambled around the town avoiding the little ‘gifts’ left by the animals, passing a trio of girls pulling two dogs and a kid goat (poor wee thing, he was in for a right shock when the time came for him to change from family pet to family dinner – that’s the sort of thought that makes me consider reverting to  vegetarianism), ferrets, guinea pigs, a couple of snakes and, clinging to one girl’s side like a 3-D tattoo, a three foot iguana with the most beautiful markings (though they only came in green).

After a couple of circuits, we squeezed ourselves into a space at the main refreshments stall where Desperate Dan-sized pans bubbled away with beefy stews (a bit insensitive I thought considering it was placed right next to the oxen stalls – that could have been somebody’s brother in there), and ordered a couple of cervezas and a plate of carne con papas (meat and potatoes).

Dipping my doorstop sized chunk of bread in the seasoned stew, I thought about the other ‘big event’ which had taken place last week on the opposite side of the island.

Having a legendary pop star play a gig on Tenerife is great for tourism, but for me, standing amongst those smiling, simple (in the nicest sense of the word) farmers and their animals on a hill, that was the real deal.