Travels in Tenerife

Tenerife engulfed me in its colourful, lunar-like volcanic landscapes, fringed with rocky coastlines and vast stretches of sandy beaches, some white, some blackly volcanic.

Teide hill and Orotava valley, Tenerife, Spain

Spain’s tallest mountain, Pico de Teide, towered above me and created a dramatic backdrop, dominating the skyline wherever I went on this sub-tropical island. The botanical gardens at Puerto de la Cruz are rich with sub-tropical plants and flowers they are a perfect haven, gripping you in a flurry of perf

ume and colour. The tropical garden and dolphinarium at Loro Parque is home to the largest collection of parrots in the world, as they swoop overhead you feel their strong, beating wings cause vibrations in the air around you.

As I ended a long day of hiking around the untouched scenery of Tenerife, I settled on the beach of Lago Martianez near Puerto de la Cruz. The area is a wonderful spot for swimming and sunbathing during the day; designed and created by Canarian architect and artist Cesar Manrique, the seawater pools and lagoons surrounded by lush vegetation is built into the volcanic coastline as though a natural formation.

I stared out to the ocean with a fruity drink from the local bar and I watched the sun set across the water before me, basking me in its last warm rays before the sea swallowed it whole and it disappeared in a shimmer. The earth around me cooled pleasantly under the twilight stars and moon above. Here I felt truly relaxed.

The climate in Tenerife is an amicable 17º on average. It made my spring visit quite pleasant as I aimed to throw myself into an active holiday of exploration and adventure. However, as I said goodbye to the warm sunshine I thought it would definitely be worth a return holiday during the hotter summer months to relax on the coast with a drink and a book under the shade of a large umbrella.

The clubs start firing up early on the densely populated beach resorts such as Playa de Las Americas, Los Cristianos and Costa Adeje; They are a magnet for fun and sun-seeking holiday makers because of their pulsating nightlife. As you walk down the bustling streets late at night it’s hard to not get caught up in the excitement. Hen and Stag parties sing and laugh as they amble bar to bar, promoters call out to the partygoers jovially rallying them into their bars. The lights transform the streets with their neon glows of blue and green it feels like you’ve visited a different world!

Capturing the Sunset in Tenerife.

On my last day in the canaries I took a boat ride out of the Adeje bay to find some hidden treasures of the island and within an hour I spotted Dolphins frolicking by the boat and the smooth backs of whales rising in and out of the water in the horizon. Following my close encounter with the aquatic life I drove to a rural village in search of the archeological evidence and information about the islands native Guanche people. Tenerife is often thought of as a place for young people to go and ‘party’, but on my holiday there I discovered it has so much more to offer and it’s clearly mislabeled by many. Tenerife is a versatile destination that caters for more and is somewhere I’ll be returning to in the near future.

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Dubai for a Day

“Good view, yes?” An understatement, the words of our kindly Arab guide brought me back from my reverie, his wide grin and sweeping hand gesture revealing his pride at the breathtaking vista that had rendered us so lost for words. We smiled and nodded our enthusiastic response, still speechless at this expansive – and expensive – view of Dubai, laid out far below us like a three-dimensional road map, the dunes of the desert stretching into the distance beyond.
We were standing on level 124, the observation deck of Burj Khalifa, which, at over 160 stories and half a mile high, is the world’s tallest building. This elegant needle-like tower in which we stood is so immense, we were advised, it actually extends Ramadan fasting for its Muslim residents, who can see the dawn ‘til dusk sun for longer than those on the ground. Way down beneath our gaze were avenues lined with metallic-looking skyscrapers, glinting greyly in the afternoon sunlight, like rows of sleek glassy fingers reaching up to us. In any other cityscape, they would be considered neck-crickingly tall.

The Burj Al Arab lit up at night.

Our guide was clad in a white and perfectly crisp dishdasha topped with a red checked gutra head-dress, and I couldn’t help thinking how well he was attired for the wall of heat that had engulfed us as we stepped out of our sleek hotel that morning. Winter warmth was what we’d come for, and that delightful Dubai sun wasted no time in delivering. Our stay in this Arab city of architectural wonders preceded seven nights of on-board pampering on a luxury cruise around the Persian Gulf, and the wow factor had started before we’d even landed. The sight from our aeroplane window of an elaborate archipelago of man-made islands of which we’d heard and read so much brought a series of gasps from our fellow passengers, as shapes of world countries and then palm trees emerged from the blue of the ocean below. This is where wealth and fantasy meet, I thought, as I marvelled at the dreams of its creator, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, the absolute Monarch of Dubai.

It occurred to me, from my privileged Burj Khalifa viewpoint, that Dubai is a city of extreme and fascinating contrasts; the hard polished architectural surfaces of its fabric are in stark opposition to the rich dark treacly substance that has given its founders their wealth, and the golden desert sand on which this cosmopolitan metropolis is built. Space age structures tower over ancient souks, carrying on their market dealing as they have for centuries, their bustling bartering traders seemingly oblivious to the space age city that has crept up to co-exist beside them. Where the souks will have traded their way with the breadth of the Gulf and beyond in ancient times, the new financial district has taken up the mantle as a business hub of global importance.

Burj Khalifa

The most striking aspect of the city for me was the opulence, everywhere we looked. Everything we saw or touched was of the finest most lavish quality that money could buy, but somehow not in a vulgar way. Precision-laid roads are roamed by cars that are as much of a head-turner as the buildings that surround them – Lamborghini, Bentley, Rolls, Ferrari – all gliding smoothly along as though there were a six star car convention in town.
Perfectly groomed and pristine walkways are laid out with lushly planted arrangements of palms interspersed with highly scented Bougainvillea, and exotic birds trot prettily through the immaculately planted hotel gardens. Highly polished marble walkways in a range of intricately coloured patterns and perfectly swept to keep the desert sands at bay, led us through hotels and restaurants and duty free shopping malls, all competing with each other in their elegance and style.
Returning to the splendour of our magnificent hotel, we pondered that we could probably have stacked more than a couple of houses in the foyer alone, the greens and blues of the exquisite glass sculptures there reflecting like jewels in the radiance of hundreds of tiny lights around the walls and columns and in the vaulted ceiling way above us. At the end of the hallway, a giant aquarium delayed our ascent back to the indulgent comfort of our room. Tomorrow we were to join our ship for our tour of the Emirates – Abu Dhabi, Muscat, and the exotic sounding Al Fujayrah and Khasab – but for now we were lost in the world of Jules Verne, gazing eye to eye with a giant thick-lipped Grouper fish, as a honey coloured manta ray flapped its way elegantly past in the background.

                       

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