Time for a Cuppa!

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My holiday in Tenerife

By
Mike Coatesworth

My first view of Tenerife was a little disappointing. I had expected beauty, lots of trees and colourful plantation, but what I saw was a huge area of land that can only be described as being similar to a very large factory yard. Where the planes were parked were small trucks for loading and unloading the aircraft, fuel tankers to refuel the planes after they had landed, and airport staff walked around wearing bright coloured jackets and carrying ear protectors either over their ears or around their necks. The plane had stopped outside a terminal and a huge concertina type tunnel came towards the exit door and completed a seal around the door. When the stewardess opened the heavy aircraft door, the passengers were allowed off. I was the last one to leave, two well-built men arrived and placed me in a small wheelchair and carried me off the plane.

The sun shone high in the clear blue sky as we left the airport terminal on our way to our hotel. Sweat poured down our torsos, I knew that we were wearing the wrong type of clothes for the climate, and would be glad to get to the hotel to shower and change into something more appropriate. Our journey to the hotel took about twenty minutes, and I was beginning to cheer up as I saw lots of palm trees and the view of the blue ocean just beyond the beach on our left was fantastic. As we stopped outside the Hotel "Noelia Sur" I was immediately impressed with its magnificent structure, and I was delighted when an immaculately dressed porter arrived and took care of our luggage. Inside the hotel we were immediately cooled down with the air conditioning, and after we were shown to our rooms, the first thing that I did was to have a well-needed shower. An hour later I was ready to explore, and Betty and I set off to look around our home for the next fourteen days. We followed the signs and found ourselves in the back part of the hotel and my mouthed dropped in pleasant surprise. Here, a huge glass dome covered the exotic rich green plantation alongside which was a small decorative waterfall under coloured lights. The centrepiece was a huge palm tree that obviously the dome had been built around as the top half was outside the roof of the dome. As we went outside, to my left were trees with large hands of green bananas growing on them. In all the countries that I have visited, this is the first time that I have ever seen banana trees in a hotel complex. Walking further to the back of the hotel was the pool area and already all of the sun beds were taken up, and once again I was a little surprised at how immaculately clean everything was. Also in this area, besides the swimming pool, was an assortment of outdoor pastimes such as "French Boules, Ping Pong, Table Tennis and rifle shooting." We took a look around the rest of the hotel that boasted a gymnasium, sauna and other activities, but we stayed away from the roof, as this was the "nudist colony" part of the hotel, and anyway I had just eaten.

Lesley and Neil had joined us and we decided to take a tour around the area immediate to the hotel, as we didn't want to go too far away until we became acclimatised to our surroundings. As we left the hotel and went up the street we were approached by different people called "PR's" whose job it was to entice anyone they could into the restaurants that they worked for and they stated anything that would attract customers, some of which were lies, but it didn't bother them as long as they got paying customers into their establishments. We ignored them and went passed these PR's only to be virtually accosted by locals selling original watches and sun glasses, as well as genuine gold wrist chains and men's gold necklace's. Almost every five yards we went there was a local, virtually demanding that we buy their wares at really cheap prices, so cheap that I knew that they couldn't be genuine, and after refusing to buy from one man, I looked around and saw him giving us the "middle finger." I was glad to get to an area where we were for a time no longer hassled. We took a steady and pleasant stroll admiring the scenery, and immediately to my front was the huge volcano, the "Teide." This was really impressive, and in my younger days I wouldn't have hesitated, I would have climbed that, to see what it was like on top. Although the volcano is dormant, in certain parts of the immediate area of it, the ground is so hot that if you put a raw potato a few inches under the ground and cover it up, within minutes it is baked! The volcano is very impressive in size, but the beauty comes from the landscape surrounding it. No vegetation grows on the volcano, it just sticks out like a black mountain at the end of the street. In my opinion, the volcano does not fit in with the surroundings of the town, or is it the town that doesn't fit in with being in the valley below the volcano and surrounding hills? I do know that if ever the volcano erupted, as the locals know that it could, and then the town would surely disappear, especially the magnificent structures of hotels built immediately below it. In the local tourist guide, it informs the traveller that there are still eleven complete villages submerged beneath the now hard lava, from the last eruption.

We toured in a circle so that we would end up back at our hotel, and as we turned the corner we came upon a huge "air balloon," and when I saw that it took paying customers I informed Betty that I was going up in that before the end of the holiday. My joy at seeing this great sphere was short lived by "do you speak English?" asked a man dressed in long robes, "do you want to buy a genuine Rolex watch?" When we stated that we didn't want one. "How about a gold wrist chain or necklace for the man in the wheelchair?" I looked up sat him and smiled, "what do you think I am, a Christmas tree?" He appeared dumbfounded that I could speak, "sorry sir, I don't understand, you want to buy a tree?" At this stage I thought he was taking the Mickey so we left him trying his line on other tourists. Then a few minutes later we were stopped by another tout and each of us were handed a "scratch card" to which Neil, Lesley and Betty, all won towels, and surprise, surprise, I won an all inclusive, all expenses paid holiday for four people on an island of my choice. The man feigned surprise that I had won this and was delighted for me. All we had to do was follow him to a local hotel and claim the prizes that we had won. I handed the man the winning ticket for the holiday and told him to take his family and friends on it, as I didn't want it. Anyway, I knew that as soon as we had gone inside the hotel with him, they would have done anything to persuade us to buy a timeshare apartment, and winning a holiday is only one of the tricks that these touts use to get tourists to part with their hard earned money. Why is it that whenever touts see a wheelchair user, they think that they are stupid and easy targets? I was glad to get back to the hotel and have a nice cuppa!

The hotel was excellent, and the service was great, and was completely wheelchair friendly, and besides the adapted rooms, there is at least two other wheelchair friendly bathrooms around the hotel, and almost everything is accessible, but sadly the one thing that let it down was the food, I won't say too much about it, but I can safely say that although the food was good, I have had better. As for Tenerife being wheelchair friendly, although some of it is and a lot of the shops are accessible, the majority of the time the wheelchair user will require assistance.

The next couple of days was spent sitting in the sun and sightseeing, and it was on one of the sightseeing trips that we came across the harbour in "Las Cristianos," and here they were selling tickets for a cruise to see the dolphins and whales, that was due to set sail within the next ten minutes, so we decided to go on it and purchased some tickets. I was wondering how they were going to get me on board the ship, when two burly sailors came down the gangplank and picked up me in my chair and carried me aboard. I was really excited, as I hadn't been aboard a ship since my military days. Within minutes of us boarding the ship we were under way and soon the land was disappearing from sight. I have read of people being rescued in the open sea after one of the passengers phoned for help using a mobile phone, and to be honest, I didn't think it would work without a mast nearby, so once we were several miles out, I decided to use my mobile phone to test out whether it was indeed possible to phone someone from the ocean. I rang my daughter, Tina, in the UK. She answered the phone almost immediately and when I informed her that I was phoning her from somewhere out in the Mediterranean, she was totally delighted and to cap it all, my daughter Lesley got it all on video. So if you are ever going on a cruise, then besides taking a lifejacket, take your mobile phone with you, as I can safely say that it does work out there amongst the waves.

For a while the passengers on the ship were quiet as we all sat around the side enjoying the view, not that there was much to see except miles of ocean, but I wonder if the other passengers were thinking along the same lines as me? I sat there looking across the wide blue ocean and thought how tranquil it was, with only the hum of the ships engines and sea gently crashing aside the ship's hull. For a moment I could imagine being all alone out there, and I understood why so many people would try sailing alone, but the atmosphere was broken by; "there she blows!" We all looked where the sailor was pointing and immediately we saw a school of grey whales swimming alongside the ship, it was absolutely wonderful, especially as we watched a young whale swimming at the side of its mother, then the dolphins came on the sea and they joined the whales and this is something that I have never seen in my life before, I never knew that dolphins and whales swim side by side, but I guess that they are all of the same family, so why not? On our return we did a tour around the Island and some of the scenes of the hills and colourful vegetation were really beautiful, but from out at sea I noticed once again, in my opinion, how the property did not blend in with its surroundings, there was something missing, maybe instead of all the white and grey buildings and mostly square buildings, they could add a lot more colour and design something different? I don't know, maybe this is the way they had to build it because of the lava beds? Anyway we had a really wonderful time on the cruise, and would do it again tomorrow.

My next excursion was to visit the exotic park, situated part way up the Teide. Transport took us to the park and as soon as I saw it I knew that I was going to enjoy my day out. Besides having the normal animals that a person finds in a zoo, we had to cross wooden bridges on a river with alligators lying below basking in the hot sun, we came across an African village with the natives dressed as cannibals banging on the drums, and we had to cross through parts of jungle as well as go through a couple of caves. It was quite a bit awkward with my wheelchair and absolutely no way would I have made it unassisted, especially with some of the hills that had to be ascended. One part of the park, just after we had emerged from the mini jungle, we came across a park ranger handing out small cups of juice, to which she quickly explained was to feed the birds in the nearby enclosure. As we entered the enclosure, Lesley fed the birds and was quickly rewarded by a couple of them doing their business on her back and down her arms. We were all in stitches with laughter and many of the other visitors were laughing too. "Get it off me she screamed, dirty birds!" This made us laugh even harder, and out of all the visitors that went through the enclosure, Lesley was the only one targeted by the birds. We did clean her up, and she did see the funny side of it afterwards.

We arrived at a wall and over the wall was a breathtaking scene of part of the island and out to sea where a lot of activity with pleasure boats and jet skis were taking place. But in the distance, and immediately to my front was the air balloon, it was gradually ascending skywards, I really was looking forward to going up in it. We carried on around the park and we were delighted at a couple of shows being performed by an assortment of birds from parrots to eagles. It took us several pit stops and hours to get around the park, but everyone agreed that they'd had a wonderful time.

By now we had got used to the touts trying to sell us jewellery and easily fended them off. As I looked from the hotel foyer, I saw that the balloon as ascending in the near distance, and I was excited as this was the day that we were going up in it! Everyone could see the delight on my features as we got near it, as this was one of my life's ambitions to go up in a balloon, something that I had only dreamt of doing. As we turned the corner, just in front of us was the balloon, it looked enormous, and this was the closest that I had ever been to one before. The balloon was owned and run by an Englishman, and with my beaming smile, I informed him that we wanted to go up in the balloon. He looked at my chair, and me, "I don't know? I'll have to check something out first." Everyone around me including other potential passengers easily noticed the disappointment on my face. The man left, and a couple of minutes later, he returned and began measuring my chair. "You're in luck, your chair will fit, so you can go up in the balloon!" I was once again delighted and nearly wet myself in excitement, and the other passengers cheered at the news, at last I was going to fulfil a life's dream.

We were placed in the large basket beneath the huge balloon and requested to move around to distribute the weight. I looked out of the basket and watched the objects getting smaller as we ascended. Soon we were over four hundred feet high above Tenerife and below to my right, I could see our large hotel that now looked so tiny, and for a moment I felt like a giant and that I could pick up the hotel as we do with a child's toy. Everything and everyone was so quiet, not even a sound from the wind. I will admit that at one stage I did look down and think that it was a long way to fall if anything went wrong. My heart was pounding, and a tear formed in the corner of my eye at having succeeded in completing another life's ambition. The view of the country, the ocean, was fantastic, and for a while I could imagine how a bird feels when it is soaring high in the sky, there was no need for any legs up here, and the whole atmosphere screamed freedom! Freedom from pollution, freedom from trying to avoid vehicles whilst crossing the road, freedom from touts trying to spoil a well earned holiday, freedom to scream and shout whatever I wish without fear of anyone looking at me strangely, freedom to come and go whenever and wherever I please without having the hassle of someone being needed to assist me, and in general freedom from all things materialistic that is needed to run my life.

All too soon it was over, and we began our descent to reality, I had thoroughly enjoyed myself, and I casually wiped my eyes as I left the balloon behind me.

My two weeks in Tenerife Spain was brilliant and I really enjoyed it. I got some fishing in and caught three fish, which of course I returned to the ocean. Okay, so they weren't monsters, but I had a good few hours of fun.

The markets are huge and can easily take three hours to visit each and every stall, and I would definitely recommend people to visit the country, but sadly it is not what I would class as a romantic country, it doesn't scream for the visitor to return. To me it doesn't rate a second glance. It is one of those places that a person can visit and state that they have had a wonderful time. And I have visited the country, and I did have a wonderful and brilliant time, but now I want to see what other countries have to offer.

Mike Coatesworth