Windy Christmas and New Year

First of all, belated seasonal greetings from Snr Gizmo ...

and what festive season we've had here ! The wind has been blowing non stop for the past couple of months just like it does in the summer, and we've been windsurfing pretty much every day including X-mas and New Year. Here's a snapshot of how the forecast looked - as I say this is how it normally looks in July or August:

After a good couple of hours on the water on Christmas day we drove up to St Cruz to have a wonderful x-mas dinner with our friends Anna, Arturo and Danny and then on Boxing day we drove out over the Anaga mountains to Taganana at the far end of the island. There's a real 'end-of-the-road' feel to the beach there and even though the swell was quite small, there were still clean overhead waves and plenty of surfers. Nikki shot a short video clip on our titchy little camera:




We had lunch in an end-of-the-road-surf-style restaurant on the beach: fantastic seafood and a glass of vino contribute to a smiling Nikki ...

Finally the last couple of days the wind has gradually been turning off, the waves have disappeared and we look like getting some flat calm days. So, time to get the bike out again - it's still dirty from the last ride, more than six week ago !

Just before the wind took a rest a friend visited el Medano with his camera and took some pics of me from the harbour wall. Not very exciting conditions - tiny waves and moderate wind ... I was using my 100 litre WitchCraft Chakra board and my 5.7m Tushingham Rock sail, but at least everything is colour co-ordinated :-)

and to finish, here's a rare pic of the two of us ...

Holiday in the North

We first drove to Masca, which has very winding roads,( not advisable to take this road if you have a hangover or have had a particularly large breakfast though ! ). The views from Masca are spectacular. Masca is a tiny mountain village perched on rocks with fantastic views of the sea .

Our next stop was Buenavista del Norte on the coast where we watched some amazing boogie boarders . Then had lunch on the edge of the ocean in a wonderful restaurant 'El Burgado' which was recommended by friends of ours who are travel writers link.

Boogie boarder at Buenavista

Restaurant 'El Burgado'

Our first couple of nights was spent in Puerto del la Cruz 'las Aquillas Hotel" which is a very reasonable priced hotel you get a one bedroom appartment with Jacuzzi and sea view for 140 euros for two nights half board. The breakfast is huge , it normally lasts us all day until the evening meal..

Puerto del La Cruz has amazing restaurants one night we eat at 'Mil Sabores' the meal came to 120 euros for four , but the standard of the cusine is so high. in London you would pay double for this kind of standard of cooking. The Chef in this restaurant is an artist his food not only tastes amazing but the presentation is beautiful..

Unfortunately I fell off my bike when we went cycling at our next stop 'La Esperanza' it was raining though !, but slamming on the brakes when going down a wet slope was probably not the best decision I have made lately. I basically flew over the handle bars and on my nose and ribs !. I managed to get back to the car , very slowly. I had completely bent my left brake but surprisingly it still worked.

Me at the start of our bike ride before I was covered in dirt..!

When I got back to the car my nose was starting to throb, so I went into a restaurant to ask for some ice for my nose but due to being a bit 'out of it', I forgot the word for 'ice' (helo in spanish) and asked the barman for 'helado' icecream instead. The barman then responded in a confused tone and said "What flavour, vanilla"? . I was by this time getting some funny looks from customers. I soon discovered why, when I went to the bathroom. I looked like someone who had been living in the wilds of the forest for a month. I was covered in dirt from head to toe..!

After lunch in La Esperenza and copious amounts of ice applied to my expanding nose, we made our way to the 'Parador Hotel' Mount Teide. The Parador is a fantastic place to stay to watch the sun go down and experience the silence and of course the rocky, moonscape, vista is incredible.


The evening meal at the Parador was excellant. The first course Richard had sardines with sweet red peppers and salad and I had a pan fried smoked cheese. main course Richard had goat stew in maderia and I had filets of pork in a mustard sauce, yummy !

View out of our window at The Parador late afternoon

Before sunset

New Toys :-)

Just had my birthday ... don't ask how old I am ... I'll just say that I'm well old enough to justify a mid-life-crisis style impulse purchase (or two) ... And no, it's not a Harley / leather jacket / topey (how on earth do you spell that word ? the checker comes up with 'ropey. dopey, to pee etc) ....

And here it is ...

It's a full suspension Marin cross country machine: Rift Zone Quad XCR7. Bought it from the excellent bike shop that we have here in El Medano: Bike Point (check em out)

I put those combination clip / no clip pedals on it (Shimano SPDs) so I can ride with 'proper' biking shoes or nip down to the beach with flip flops.

And the other new toy ? well, not quite so impulse or mid-life-crisis style but a beautifully elegant bit of design - it's this bike rack for our new Opel Corsa. It's actually integrated into the boot of the car and pushes back when not need. You can check out just how cool the design is (sorry, but it just is) in this little video:

So anyway, new toys ... and as you can see ... no topay ("copay, to pay" etc):

Wow what a bike ! Took it for a spin around my usual coastal circuit (Palm Mar - Faro de Rasca - Las Galletas) and did the ride about 15 minutes quicker, with hardly any stops and 25% less effort !

Here's a last pic of my old bike (Specialized hard tail) taken by my biking friend Anna, on a recent downhill ride. If you click on the pic and look closely you can just about make out the summit of Mt Teide in the background. It was taken near the start of the ride at around about 1200 meters and we descended to 800 ms on wonderful single track through the forest and saw hardly anybody else the whole ride. Definitely looking forward to doing that route again on the Marin :-)

The lady in the bikini was a sculpture in a garden along the coast at Abades - If the wind doesn't start blowing again I will be a similar size to her soon ..!

Poris de Abona

Masca

Masca is one of Tenerife's most beautiful traditional mountain villages. Set in a hugely impressive barranca (gorge, ravine) that plunges down to the sea, the views are simply stunning. You reach it by taking a notoriously hairy single track mountain road that has only fairly recently been tarmaced, and the village used to be splendidly remote. Now that the road has been improved they get a lot more visitors there, and tourism has taken over from agriculture as their main sourse of revenue.


The first time we visited Masca we had lunch in a restaurant perched on the terraced mountain side, with quite simply the most awesome view.

That restaurant, and five other properties, was tragically destroyed in the forest fires that raged on Tenerife this summer.

We decided to revisit the village to see the damage for ourselves, and to lend our support by at least spending some more euros there.

The first thing you notice is the charred, blacked palm trees ...


But the great thing is how everyone has rallied round to help re-build the village.

Here there are teams of volunteers from all over Europe working for free to restore the place, and that says a lot about the way people feel about this marvelous traditional Canarian village.