Showing posts with label Puerto de la Cruz. Show all posts

Last Tuesday was the Festival of the Embarkation of the Virgen del Carmen, part of the Fiestas de Julio. Here in Puerto Cruz they have a whole month dedicated to celebrating life, and happiness by the sea! If you’ve been following for awhile you may remember Megan mentioning this as one of the major things she wanted to experience...(Why Tenerife) glad to say neither or us were let down!

During the Fiestas de Julio the city gets crazy in the days leading up the Tuesday Embarkation. There are celebrations, parades, and a sardine festival in the town square, all to honor the Virgen del Carmen, the Patron Saint of fishermen and the sea. People stayed up and partying until five in the morning the weekend before Tuesday's Embarkation. It is common to hear fireworks going off all night long – and sometimes, even during the day. Every evening we were treated to multiple firework displays set off near the town square. There was a show every hour from dusk until one or two in the morning. We happily watched from our seventh story balcony, pleased to be having July 7 - 10 fireworks to make up for missing our own tradition of July 4th.

We've both read and heard from the locals that the Embarkation Festival is a day that shouldn’t be missed. Tuesday morning we woke up extra early and went to the local cafe for coffee and Internet access. By 10am the street outside the cafe and neighboring Supermercado were packed with teenagers in their swimsuits! We witnessed kids - who couldn't have been over sixteen years old mixing rum and Coca Cola into emptied six-liter water jugs. People were walking in droves towards the marina, so we quickly changed into our bathing suits and followed in their footsteps.

Walking through the town square to the marina was easier said than done. It is estimated that each year over 35,000 people cram into the areas surrounding the marina to take part in the festival. Everywhere we looked people had on t-shirts with images depicting the Virgen, which we found out were being sold nearby - so we splurged €3 apiece and each bought one! One of the best parts of the festival was the traditional Canarian food and drink that was being sold by the street vendors. For just a few Euros we got fresh fish and shrimp on a skewer, a loaf of crusty bread, potatoes con mojo and a Mocaña (traditional Canarian cocktail made with sugarcane juice).

After we indulged in our lunch we grabbed a seat on the stone wall surrounding the marina. With our legs dangling over the water, we proceeded to watch the "spectacle" take place around us. This included a collection of Zodiac boats floating in the water with drunken Canarios dancing and swimming around, young kids leaping, fully clothed, off the pier and into the water, and drunken teenagers stumbling around and laughing. We heard that the image of the Virgen typically "embarks" to sea around 6pm, and is accompanied by some of the town’s sailors. Unfortunately the ocean breeze was very cold that day, and the Virgen didn't appear until after 8 - but as she did the atmosphere at the marina changed dramatically. The masses of people began singing in unison; imagine 35,000 people crowded around a traditional Canarian boat singing! Many tears were shed as the throne of the Virgen was placed on the boat and led out to sea.

Experiencing a traditional, and very emotional ceremony in another country is enlightening. The festival showcases the Canarian dedication to Spain and their devotion to the Catholic religion. We're both very pleased that we got to witness and in our own way, be a part of such an amazing day.

Xo,
M&K

We're all familiar with the idea of hard work paying off, and the beach Playa Bollullo is testament to this idea. Kyle has tired of frequenting La Playa Jardin; it is overcrowded, some parts have course rocky sand, and it's usually very cloudy... So he offered up the idea of a short 4km walk, mostly uphill to this secluded beach called Playa Bollullo! It took a few days of coaxing, but Megan finally agreed to make the trek, despite having a perfectly good beach a short walk from home.

We were glad to discover that the walk was both good exercise, and very enjoyable. Hugging the coast, weaving in and out of banana plantations, spiraling up and down sets of stairs to our own "private playa." Compared to Jardin the beach was empty, with only three of four groups of people covering 200 meters of coastline. We walked barefoot through the silky, warm sand while colossal waves crashed on rocky outcrops. There was even a cute cabana cafe that sold beverages and bocadillos. Of course, we were a short distance from Pto. Cruz so the ominous cloud coverage was still there, but that aside, this is our favorite beach thus far!

Xo,
M&K

Choosing to travel spontaneously means that quite a bit of time goes into researching our destination - after we have already arrived! When we decided to leave London, we had a rough idea of where we wanted to go… South; out of the rainy, gloomy weather and somewhere warm. Tenerife was one of our top choices; Kyle spent a few days here for a shoot and fell in love. You can best describe the Canaries as Spain’s version of our Hawaiian Islands. Beautiful beaches, palm trees, and luscious green hills leading up to a volcanic mountain. Sign us up! After doing a little math we figured out that we could trade in our umbrellas for beach towels, and experience an entirely different culture.

Most of the English speakers (Brits) stay in Playa de Las Americas, on the south side of the island, where the majority of the major resorts are located. We decided to forego the resorts and ended up settling on Puerto de La Cruz, a seaside city on the northwestern coast. Being one of the oldest cities on the island means it’s less popular with tourists, and inhabited by true Canarians. The weather is a bit cooler compared to the parched desert to the south, and often referred to as “Eternal Spring.” El Teide, the volcanic peak, creates a giant rain shadow trapping the moisture in the north, and keeping the hillsides green with trees that blanket the volcanic soil.

We booked our apartment using Airbnb, trading in the luxuries that a hotel would provide… opting for a longer vacation. We would much rather live somewhere for a month then take a vacation that ends abruptly, a couple days after it begins. The island is large and has much to offer, four weeks seemed more appropriate for the kind of trip we had in mind. In the end, what really matters most to us is that we get the chance to experience a place very few Americans have even heard of, immersing ourselves in a culture not our own, opting for an authentic encounter versus the tourist’s experience. We've been spending about an hour everyday practicing Spanish with one another just so we can complete day-to-day tasks. It’s difficult to order the right type of coffee (Kyle likes his lattes) when no one here speaks English!

As we mentioned before, research is the name of the game and thanks to Google, anything you could ever desire to know is at your fingertips. We’ve both become experts in determining what a place has to offer, while making it fit into our budget…Proof that you don’t have to be wealthy if you’re willing to put in the time, and take advantage of opportunities as they present themselves.

Thanks to the help of resources like Tenerife Magazine, we’ve comprised a pretty solid list of things we both want to do while we’re here. Megan has decided that The July Fiestas and the Embarkation of the Virgen del Carmen is at the top of her list. Kyle wants to see the view of the island from the crater at the top of El Tiede, and hike from the village of Masca down to the ocean. We both want to spent a few days renting a car (which is really cheap to do on the island) and drive to all the places we can't get to on foot or by bus. Of course, the days in between our adventures will be spent relaxing on black sand beaches like, La Playa Jardin, sipping sangrias or ice cold Doradas (favorite local beer), and eating tapas every afternoon!

Oh, and did we mention that the famous Barrett Mitchell will be flying half way around the world from his lovely home in Los Angeles to join us for a week at the end of July?! Looks like we will have our hands full… planning activities to keep the man-child entertained. ☺

Xo,
K&M

We’re writing this with no Internet, in Microsoft Word, from the seventh story of our apartment. Below us the people of Tenerife are going crazy, feverishly waving flags, hanging out of their cars while honking their horns, yelling, screaming, taking their clothes off… Spain just beat Portugal in the Semi-Finals of Euro2012 and despite it being after midnight on a Wednesday the city of Puerto de la Cruz is in full celebration!

Fast-forward a few hours: Today began with a slow lull. Knowing that in just a few hours we would be taking off for an island paradise made sleeping Tuesday night impossible, turning us into zombies. We woke at 4:30AM, hoping to give ourselves enough time to catch the tube to Victoria Station, then on to the Gatwick Express, and finally to Gatwick Airport where we could board our 10AM flight to Madrid. As most world travelers know, days of travel rarely go entirely according to plan. There always seems to be something that goes wrong, gets forgotten, or makes the journey “extra special,” we are no exception to this rule – especially today. Needless to say we were both exhausted from lack of sleep, and had difficulty with even the simplest of tasks – reading signs, checking tickets, looking at flight numbers, answering simple questions, keeping track of our items, etc. On top of all that we were flying into a non-English speaking country; Megan’s Spanish is NONEXISTENT, and Kyle throws on an accent, but his words are useless at best (he basically speaks English with a “wannabe” Rico Suave twist).

Our first hang-up was in London when the man at the AirEuropa ticket check-in couldn’t find our flight, despite having confirmation numbers, Passports and credit cards. Eventually he was corrected by a colleague, which saved Megan from tears thinking she had done something wrong, like managed to book us on a flight that didn’t exist. Our next shortcoming was the inability to recognize the time change from London to Madrid, which shortened our layover time from what we believed to be an hour and a half to HALF an hour. Couple that with the primitive layout of the Madrid Airport, their non-functioning bus system, a barely English speaking “siesta” bound staff, and finally, Kyle getting stopped at security because of his suitcase frame (putting us on the later bus route), almost taking another bus to the wrong terminal, trying to get on the wrong plane due to misinformation; we were destined to miss our flight. Luckily, we had youth on our side as we picked up our bags and sprinted through the airport, arriving at the right place seconds before the gate closed. The flight to Tenerife was way more relaxed; a plane full of people vacation bound makes for a pleasant atmosphere! Arrival in Tenerife and the journey to Puerto de la Cruz was fairly seamless.

Next obstacle, hopping off a bus on a street you can’t pronounce, in a place you’ve never been with people that can’t speak your language… what a nightmare! We had a few names and addresses written down, but with Kyle’s broken ‘Spanglish” we couldn’t manage to locate our contact to pick up keys… as luck would have it, smiles and hand gestures once again managed to get us back on track. We finally located our contact, Mikel, got the keys to our apartment, which were in a bakery shop two doors down from his office – and acquired in a drug deal type transaction. About an hour later we dropped our bags and headed out in search of basic necessities and WiFi (not available in our apartment).

During our exploratory journey we ended up getting sidetracked and roped into watching the Spain vs Portugal match in a public square on the patio of a Spanish-German tapas bar. Needless to say, we still have no Internet or cell phone. We did however manage to buy a pre-paid Spanish SIM card for our British phone… that still needs to be “unlocked” to work… OOPS! But of course, these are the things that we love about traveling; getting ourselves into situations that makes us think on our feet and force us to acquire new skills… Can’t wait to see what awaits us on our first whole day on the island!

Xo,
M&K