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Published: April 5th 2010
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Hola gringos y gringas!
Stor - mee wea - ther! We've had a couple of spells of seriously heavy rain here since my last blog, one the first weekend of Feb and the second a couple of weeks later. Part of the beach here in Playa de la Arena was washed away as was part of the beach in Playa San Juan, a few miles down the coast. The gym at the posh hotel just up from where I'm staying was also partly flooded causing its closure while they mopped up and sorted everything out. Bit of a shame really as I was about to join there rather than the council - run one I'm using now. The worst of the flooding appears to have been up in Santa Cruz, whose general layout is similar to that of Funchal on Madeira with the town built up against mountains so when it rains, all the water runs through the town washing away everything in its path although the damage in Santa Cruz was much less than that in Funchal. There are some pictures of the flood on the losgigantes.com website if you're interested.
On the plus side, the days here have
increased in length significantly over what they were in the depths of winter and when the sun does come out, like it did yesterday, it's time for the Factor 30. It's Carnaval time down here this weekend with the Grand Procession having taken place yesterday afternoon so I went up to take some pictures, some of which I'll try to post above. I don't know what happened to the Carnival Queen jamboree this year, it might have been on Thursday and I missed it so I've posted a picture from last year's instead and yes. there is a girlie in there somewhere. Tonight's the culmination of the festival with the Sardine parade followed by its ritual incineration and a firework display. It's just been raining again but it seems to have stopped for now so hopefully it'll stay dry now for the rest of the day although the forecast was for showers.
So, I went to the Sardine procession which was about as well attended as last year. which is to say far less so than the first winter I was here which is a bit of a pity in view of all the effort that goes into organising
it. The subsequent dancing in the square was also less well attended than previous years - the recession is clearly taking its toll. I ran into one of the guys who was on the organising committee for this years' event and he told me that it had been difficult raising money from local businesses to support the event as many of them were feeling the pinch. There's a lot more property up for sale around here than the last two winters but no - one seems to have dropped their prices.
OK, I'm now actually back in the UK where I'm finishing off this blog as my wireless connection has become so erratic that I can't even reliably post text, never mind pictures. The last month has seen a major improvement in the weather with occasional days of wall - to - wall sunshine with temperatures into the mid 20s and no rain to speak of. However, the rain we had in February has had a noticeable effect on the island, it was never as green as this the last couple of years and on the plane home you could see the whole island was affected, not just the
Los Gigantes area. I've had a look round for somewhere to stay next winter and have a couple of potential flats in Puerto Santiago, between Playa de la Arena where I was this year and Los Gigantes but I'm going to try to find somewhere in Los Cristianos as I fancy a change of scene for next winter and there's more going on there. It's also right next to the main resort of Las Americas and closer to Santa Cruz and the airport. Altogether the scheme of spending the winters in Tenerife is working well to the point that I was considering buying a place out here. However, there's such a lot of choice of rental properties I've decided to keep renting, at least for the time being. If I go travelling elsewhere this summer, I may do another blog from there. By the way, you can expand the pictures by clicking on them. In the meantime, all the best,
Tom.
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