Ready to Go

Cousin Jan and her wild bunch are returning to Tenerife for the third time next month. There can’t be many of the activities on offer on the island that they have not tried already (except perhaps spelunking down the lava tubes) and they will be revisiting their favourite adventures this time including Bike Rafting and Bob-Diving.

It was Jan’s  family’s  enthusiastic reaction to their day Bike Rafting that encouraged me to add the activity to my Tenerife portal website (eTenerife.com) in the first place knowing that if it was equally enjoyable to 50-something parents, a teenage boy and girl and an 11 year old girl all with vastly different characters and hobbies that it was a pretty safe bet that any website visitor booking through eTenerife would also enjoy the day.

Now, I can see what they were all raving about. Nino and I and two of his French rellies an four other people went Bike Rafting on Saturday and we all had a ball!

Put simply, bike rafting involves being picked up in a minivan and transported up the mountain to a starting point from where you sail back downhill the 22 miles to Los Cristianos (or Golf Del Sur or Playa San Juan). Being downhill all the way there is hardly any peddaling involved at all – something which came as a great relief to me.

The Journey Begins…

The journey begins in the pine forest corona at the lip of the crater. The pines scent the air and the view over Tenerife South is magnificent. Where everyone else seemed to breathe deep and grin madly at the scenery my tummy was doing backflips.

I don’t know if everyone on the Bike Rafting trip that day was as nervous as I was to start with but then my biking track record is pretty grim. I have had my lip stitched back together from a bike accident when I was three, a black eye from a lonely concrete post that stood sentinel at the bottom of a scruffy hill  along from my house when I was ten. I ran my cousin’s friend’s motorbike up the school wall in Belgium (and it had a crate of beer on the back at the time), nearly cut three old Belgian ladies off at the knees as I crash landed into them after trying and failing to brake in Aalst and caused the domino effect on a long line of bikes for hire in Yangshou, China which resulted in me being chased down the road by the furious business owner.

In the ten years flocks of bike rafters have been shepherded down the mountain no-one has ever had a serious accident. Even so, my disasterous biking experinces warned me that there was a first time for everything and if anyone was going to go careering off the road and down the hill the hard way it would be me.  It didn’t help that guide Thomas quipped that should anyone’s brakes fail to remember that we were heading for Los Cristianos.

I needn’t have worried. Almost as soon as we started, I began to relax and enjoy the ride.  The feeling of the wind rushing past, the smell of the pines, the silence and the spectacular views just wrapped me up in a bubble and carried me through that first nervous patch.

The pace is easy and relaxed. For most of the time brakes are applied to keep behind the guide but now and then there is a steep downhill slope followed by an uphill surge where all brakes are off and you pelt down hell-for leather in order to maintain the momentum to get you back up the rise without pedalling. It is totally exhilarating.

While the bike riding is the main event there is more to the day than that alone. Owner Mauricio and guide Thomas have the route so carefully planned that they have interesting stories to tell on each stop.  They also play off each other like an old comedy team and you have to keep a careful eye on Mauricio to know when he is pulling your leg. On the rare occasion when  the group of bikers is required to cross lanes of traffic Mauricio positioned his van and trailer across the road like a mother hen  spreading her wings  while her chicks scampered to safety on the other side.

The scenery was not restricted to the rural lansdscape either. We flew though the villages where the locals waved and bid us “Buenas Dias!” and then on down to just past La Escalona where we stopped for a drink and traditional Spanish nibbles. From there it was small sideroads all the way down to the highway into Los Cristianos and the day finish with a gallop along the beachfront and an explosive surprise from Mauricio.

If you are looking for something to do in Tenerife, I can not recommend this day highly enough to everyone.  So far Mauricio’s oldest participant is an 85 year old World War II veteran and young kids can ride along on a baby chair fitted to their parent’s bike. At about nine or ten years old a child will have enough strength and maturity (depending on the child of course) to handle their own bike and I imagine the day would give them a huge sense of accomplishment.

Book your Bike Rafting at eTenerife (my website) or direct with Mauricio at Rafting Bikes. If you do book direct with Mauricio please let him know you read about the day here so maybe he’ll give me a freebie the next time.

There are  only two things that you really, really need to bring with you in order to enjoy an unforgettable holiday in Tenerife.

Forget the Factor 25 and you may very well end up with a sunburn that you’ll never forget but leave behind your common sense and you may get burned in another way entirely.

I’ve posted before about Tenerife Timeshare Touts and there are articles on eTenerife both about Cockroaches (no, they don’t bite!) and Tenerife Con Men but an email I received the other day from Sinead Cleary prompted me to bring the subject of Tenerife Rip Off Merchants and Other Insects up again.

Sinead had a fabulous holiday. She thinks Tenerife is a ’smashing’ place and was particularly  pleased to find so many things to do here over and above the typical sun/sand/beach holiday. She should have left Tenerife ready to go home and tell all her mates what a brilliant time she had. Instead, while she made sure to include her positive experiences of the island in her email, the overall impression she’ll be talking about back home is getting ripped off by the camera cowboys.

I asked Sinead’s permission to reprint her email both here and on eTenerife and I couldn’t agree more with her answer. She told me to go right ahead because “…the sooner these feckers stop getting away with making a fool out of us tourists the better!”

Just back from holiday in Tenerife and first off have to say what a smashing place it is…..  Not just a sun/beach holiday like many think, but lots of activities and fun things to do also!  However, to get to the point, I think people should really be made very aware of the con-men in the electronic shops, not all, but fair to say, the majority!

Every second shop is an electrical shop and they all sell mainly the same things with really really cheap prices ie. less than 100 euro for really good cameras and camcorders that are on display.  THESE PRICES MEAN NOTHING!!!!

They will get you into the shop, give you a seat, a drink, fill you with bull-sh*t and crap and try sell you another really expensive and “better” camera.  They will blatently straight out tell you the one that you want is crap and talk you into giving them way more money for something you don’t want.  When calling their bluff once you know their scam and insist on having the original camera at the price quoted, you will hear lines like, “the boss is out”, “call back tomorrow or monday and I’ll have it”, “we’re out of stock at the moment”, “Will have to get it from another shop, but for 50 euro extra!!”, and last but not least, “are you SURE you don’t want this way more expensive one???!!!”

If you’re sucker enough to fall for it, which in fairness they’re so good many would, you’re probably better off buying at home, as you end up paying not only the tax which is supposed to be tax free but you end up paying maybe double what you would at home!  TELL THEM WHERE TO GO!

One guy that was honest, owns a shop called Boots and is called Ricky.  Next beach to Fanabe.  He Rocks!

I should say I have no idea who Ricky from BOOTS is, I’ve never met him or done business with that shop, but after her bad experiences if Ricky’s honesty impressed Sinead enough for her to give him a special mention then I reckon he deserves to be included here as proof that there are good and trustworthy camera shops in Tenerife.

They say beauty is in the eye of the beholder and that is shown to be the case on the 28 Days Later Urban Exploration Forum. Members of that forum explore old buildings and constructions but not necessarily old churches or buildings of significant historical value. They find beauty and interest in the old, abandoned and neglected but everyday structures of times gone by.

Those from the UK UE forum who have visited Tenerife have taken a very different series of holiday snaps than your average tourist. Looking at the pictures of the old dam at El Rio which I must have passed in the car a hundred times, makes me rather sad not to have noticed the odd beauty in this old structure and promise myself to be more observant in future.

Other Tenerife structures that have been documented by the forum are an old miner’s cave from which I borrowed the picture above, and an abandoned army camp at Poris de Abona.

All credit to the Urban Explorers who put those pictures together. Nice job.

The Tenerife Tourist Board wants us all to know about Another Side of Tenerife.

The beautifully produced video features Peter Nunn as he investigates the island and talks to local guides and residents, including travel writer Joe Cawley who makes the point that indulging in Tenerife’s culture is as enjoyable as the typical sun, sand and sea tourist attractions.

The video includes footage of Teide, sun-bathing whales, various hotels, a wine-tasting visit to a bodega, the Tenerife Arts Museum and Tenerife Auditorium in Santa Cruz and more.

The campaign’s intention is to show how much more there is to Tenerife than its popular beach resorts. I’d say the video performs that function very well.

Yippee. At last. After all the false starts Siam Park, with its world class water rides, is open to the public. It looks to be an absolutely brilliant day out and you can find out more about it on several places online.

The main Siam Park webpage is very colourful and beautifully designed but (at least today) it does seem to be experiencing problems with accepting online bookings. I am sure they will get that sorted right quick although in the meantime you should know that tickets are available at the gate.

You can expect to pay: €28 adult, children (3 to 11) €18. There is a resident discount of €3 for adults and €2 per child so remember your residents cards if you have them.

A Twin ticket will also be available with which you get Loro Parque thrown in. Unfortuantely I can’t give more details on that as on clickthrough the info page was down.

Just to whet your appetite for this glittering addition to Tenerife’s tourist repertoire enjoy this exciting account from a Times reporter who seems to have found the Siam Park experience totally invigorating and concludes his story with the words, ‘it’s quite simply the most fun you can have with your clothes off.’ Ahhh, okay. If you say so, mate.

I knew it was going to be madness before they arrived. You don’t get invaded by two sisters-in-law, one bro-in-law and three kids, the youngest of which is two without experiencing a teeny bit of disruption in your life.

They are all French too, so mostly I don’t have a clue what they are rabbiting on about and they commandeer my kitchen to cook massive meals which are very tasty I’m sure but enough already! I don’t want to eat a three course meal for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

My poor cat will never be the same, having been dragged across the room by her tail and strangled by the youngest kid. The dogs are permanently banished to the patio to stop them being stressed out by the noise level. I wish I could shut myself out there with them at times.

Of my kids, one has abandoned me in favour of her glam French Ta Ta and the other has become a Nintendo DS addict since receiving that overgenerous gift from the other auntie. When I do prise the NDS from his sweaty clutches to force him to interact with the other kids, he somehow always manages to be in the middle of a fight in nano-seconds.

Oh boy. It’s nice to see visitors arrive but it is bloody marvelous to see them go.

Being as I am a little on the vertically challenged side, my young nephew bravely stepped into the breach and volunteered to go Bob Diving on my behalf.

He’s very happy he did as you can see from the following excert.

I did one of the most extraordinary activities in the world or Europe at
least. Bob (Breathing Observation Bubble) Diving. It was one of the most
brilliant experiences I have ever had.
It all started in Puerto Colon where I boarded a boat full of people and six Bob Scooters. Once on the boat it was about a 20 minute ride to the location where the anchor was dropped and we were shown how to operate the scooters – a button to go forwards and handlebars to steer.

Read Bob’s Tenerife Bob report on eTenerife where you can also make an availability request and receive a whopping €4 discount per person on a confirmed booking!