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Leisure
It all started off when I decided to have a few quiet pints watching a Munster Rugby match in town, several hours later I was appointed as a project manager. My task was to organise to send a small group of hombres to the sun for a week in February. The following week I walked into Budget travel and I booked a trip to Tenerife. Tenerife or Tin of Grief is one of the 7 Canary Islands, located off the northwestern coast of Africa. It cost € 340ea for a week; this includes rtn flights from Cork, and self-catering accommodation. We flew with Futura airlines, it’s a four hour flight, and it takes another four to unhinge from the foetal position you're locked into, in the cramped conditions. Make sure you remember to bring something to chew as the plane begins its decent. I learnt that the longer you stay at 10000m the less fuel you use. So Futura make their decent to Santa Cruz airport in a Patrick’s hill type fashion. It took almost two bottles of Sangre de Torres wine to un-pop my ears the evening we arrived. The first thing you notice on the island of Tenerife is the dormant Volcano that dominates the entire island. Its called mount Teide, legend has it’s the second highest mountain in Europe, standing at 3715m. It was snow capped during my visit so I decided to forfeit the excursion via cable car to the summit.
Three handsome hombres took part in this expedition; we stayed in the Altamar Apartments in Playa de las Americas. We had to share self-catering facilities with a healthy collection of local cockroaches. After the initial shock we began to affectionately refer to them as “le cookarocha.” Don’t get me wrong the Altamer apartments are perfect, you get cockroaches everywhere in the Canaries. We got a spacious two bedroom villa style apartment with a balcony and a pool nearby. The only problem was the location. When you translate Playa de las Americas into English you get Blackpool beach with sun, and more hawkers than a Munster final. It's primarily an English tourist resort, you can get your egg and chips, a pint of bitter, and a ninety minute fix of the premiership in every second pub/cafe. The bars run pretty much the same as Castlebar.ie 24 x 7 x 365, every Irish man's dream, until he realises he has to share the pub with our British neighbours. Naturally there are plenty of Oirish pubs too; you’d never think you’d left the Queens soil.
At night Playa de las Americas bursts alive. Suddenly there are thousands of black gentlemen everywhere, trying to sell you everything from a pair of x-ray vision sunglasses to a fake Rolex. One hustler or “Looky Looky man” stood out from the rest, there he was bold as brass touting these gold bracelets, wearing a Shamrock Rovers top. Was this man from Dublin or had he just bludgeoned some unfortunate Jackeen because he wouldn’t buy a watch? I don’t know because to be honest I wasn’t willing to risk making eye contact with him, never mind discuss the current league status of the Hoops. Along with the droves of hustlers the perimeter of the Altamar apartments plays host to, what can only be described as, a whore's runway. Not a suitable family environment by any stretch of the imagination. I don’t paint a pretty picture so far. However we did witness a police clamp down in the later part of the week. You’d swear that Mike Tyson was in town the hookers disappeared that fast. Playa de las Americas is not all bad the dodgy area is concentrated around the four building complexes on the shorefront known locally as the Veronicas area of the town.
Los Christianos is around a 20-minute stroll from the Altamar apartment complex. It’s like walking from Michael Guineys to Brown Thomas. It’s the same part of the same island, but it’s like a different planet. It is clean, tasteful and safe; a favourite haunt of the islands coffin dodgers. The beaches on Tenerife are poor, but the sea itself is as warm as a bath and judging by the absence of mullet its cleaner than the Lee. Eating out in the Canaries is cheaper than buying the food raw in Ireland. You can get a three-course meal with a good bottle of Spanish wine for € 15. Everything on the island is tax free, so it’s a good spot to buy a camera or a watch if you know what you want, and how much you’re saving. As a rule of thumb offer them one quarter the price that they are looking for. In general if you’re the person who always gets the best seat in Rockies, then you already know how to drive a bargain. All in all Tenerife offers what you would expect. If your single between 18 and 35, you suffer from SAD, then you can’t go wrong. All you need is about € 600 and some cop on. If you head to Tin of grief as streetwise as a banana, well then I guarantee you’ll come back peeled. ¡ Hasta luego !
© Copyright 2006 by the author(s)/photographer(s) and www.castlebar.ie
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