Dublin & Canaries Xmas Cruise - 17/12/2014 - Santa Cruz de Teneriffe Page

Monday 29th December 2014

Grey at first. A lot of ships in, including two Aidas. We got up at 06:48 & the bus left for the Northern mountains of Ariaga at 08:45. We had not had high hopes of this trip, as we are running out of places in Teneriffe but this was spectacular. First was a pointless call at Santa Cruz’ beach at A1359-Oil, 5 miles from the city.

Santa Cruz beach North-East

Santa Cruz beach Soth-West

Locals not happy about oil drilling

Then, we climbed on steep & often, narrow roads with passing places up through several different vegetation zones & went down the other (North-West) side to Taganana at sea level for the view from there at the Roque de Las Bodegas & coffee (€3).

The Roque de Las Bodegas

West from Roque de Las Bodegas

More rocks East of Roque de Las Bodegas

Then, back up, which showed up the extensive but now, neglected terracing they will need again when the tourism packs up. The guide Anna gave us a breakdown of the economy of the islands over the centuries, with boom & bust for sugar cane, wine, cactus (for cochineal & jam) & bananas. (On the way to Laguna, I gave a mini-talk on what Jane did for the bananas in Jamaica & here, which was well received).

Taganana

Taganana neglected terraces

Taganana from above

The alarming thing is that the tourist boom, which is probably unsustainable in the longer term like the others, has lead to a large increase in the population, 80% of which (& probably more, in practise) serve it. We went South-West across a different way on the South-East side through the Laurel forest to a viewpoint called, for some reason, the English View (Mirador de Ingles). This had views of the Laguna valley &, since our luck was in, Teide, views below.

North-West from the Mirador	North-East from the Mirador	Laurel Forest
Santa Cruz from the Mirador	Lichen	Teide from the Mirador

Then, we went down to Laguna to a posh hotel for wine tasting (three) & different goats cheeses. After this, we had a look round this old capital & found the Casa Alvarado Bracamonte with the most complicated Xmas model we have ever seen, having seen many on this cruise.

Laguna on our way down	Little church in the main square	The Main Square
Nunnery	The extensive pedestrianised area	Quarter
Crib in the hotel	Governor's House

From the harbour bridge	One of the few old buildings on the front	The sloping garden in better condition
Church of the Conception	Other way from photo, left	The wonderful new library
Crib in the museum	In the Museum Courtyard	So is this

The Show Team did ‘Composers’ but it was nearly all Irving Berlin & none the worse for that.