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This is a recollection of the week we spent in Tenerife, in the Canary Islands in March 2004.
I had, in early January, a phone call to state that in a competition I had entered, I had won a free week in Tenerife. The only stipulation was that I had to pay for my air fare. That seemed reasonable enough. One other thing was that we had to go before the end of April, and I would be invited to a talk on from the people who were paying for the trip.
Well that sent the alarm bells ringing, as first of all I thought they must be time share operators. I was told however that they certainly were not. In any event if they were, I could not afford to take one on, so the free week in the sun in exchange for a few hours chat seemed a good deal.
So we booked a week for the 5th of March with flights from Manchester airport. The day duly came and off we went. The flight was not until 18.45,arriving at 00.15. First of all the flight was delayed by about 45 minutes. Oh the joy of travel. We arrived finally in Tenerife at about 1.00 am, tired and fed up. We were meant to be picked up by a bus, but soon found out that it just was not suitable for Mary and her wheelchair. We had to take a taxi to the hotel.
The taxi driver must have taken lessons from Nigel Mansell, as he was doing 170 kph at some points! Anyway we finally checked in at about 2.00am. The room in the hotel, was first class. A really nice room and I would recommend it to all.
The next day, we were woken by lovely sunshine streaming through the window, and had breakfast every day on the patio outside our room. Each day the temperatures got up to about 25-28c or about 75-80f. Lovely in early March.
I arranged to hire a car through the hotel. I only wanted something cheap and cheerful, and by God that's what I got! I hired a Renault Twingo. If you have never had one, don't bother. This one had no power steering and no radio. The steering was so heavy, at one point I thought it had a fault! But no that's how they are.
The Saturday was the first day that we had the car, so we went for a short drive to get to know the area. We were near the small town of Playa das Americas. This was about 2 miles away. Not far away was Los Christianos. Both small towns, but very popular with the youngsters. Plenty of discos and loud music. We were lucky in that respect as we tend to go to bed before the music starts.
The next day, we had look at the map, and decided to venture a bit further. One of the well known parts of this island is the interior. This has a large extinct volcano in the centre known as Mount Tiedi. The roads are narrow and twisty, and the drivers are as a rule lunatics. The speed limit on what passes for a Motorway on that small island is 120kph, or about 80mph. That's as slow as most of them go. The ride up the mountains was lovely. A complete change from the coastline, up all the way into the mountains, with a drive through the trees that seemed to go on for miles. I kept stopping to take photo's all the time.
The volcanic fields are really unusual and have been used by film makers to make shots of the moon in films. They do look like another world.
We went on to the bottom of the mountain, and while Mary had a coffee, I went up in the cable car to the top of the mountain. With three cameras round my neck, I must have looked the complete tourist! So up and down I went. I did not stop as I only had a tee shirt and shorts on. The top of the mountain is snow covered, and no place for shorts!
Another day was spent in Loro Parque. This is a large zoo in the north west of the island. A real difficult place to find. At least it was the way I went! There was a easier way, but as usual I did not find out until after we got there. A lovely park as you will see if you take a look at the photo's I took there. What it does not show is how hilly the place is. Up and down all over the place. Not suitable for wheelchairs really, but we had a lovely day out.
I have so far ignored the reason we were given this week in the first place. Here goes. We were contacted on the Sunday by a representative of Carpe Diem. This is the firm that had organized the trip. We were invited to come to a talk on the Tuesday. Michael the rep picked us up and took us all over the area we were staying in, showing all the hotels that his firm could book us into at a great price. It was explained that they were corporate travel agents, and had gone into the business of normal agents as a sort of sideline. Yes I believed as well.....
We went to the talk, and for the first two hours or so all the talk was of how they could get us a room in a hotel all over the world, with a minimum of four or five stars for £80 a week. The idea was that they booked thousands of rooms a year, and that gave them great prices. We just had to pay the joining fee. He still would not say what this fee was. Eventually I was getting fed up, and told him that I wanted to know the fee they expected. For 90 of these cheap weeks, I would have to pay nearly £13,000 or over $20,000! I nearly fell off my chair. And they thought that was reasonable. They had a thing where you sold ten of your weeks and that got some of the money back. In the end it worked out that what they REALLY wanted was £165 a month for three years. That still worked out at about £5000. I said thank you but no. They would not believe me when I said that I did not have the money, and things got a bit heated. In the end I got out.
Apart from that, the holiday was lovely. We did see most of the island as you will see from the photo's. A beautiful place. Not perhaps suitable for my Mary, and we probably won't go back. But definitely worth the week. To see the photos taken there, click on the link below.
