It’s Easter but my friend says she lives on a holiday island, which means that the shops are always open.
On small islands people don’t ask you “Where you’re from?” or “What do you do?” but rather: “De quien eres?”
There is a beach called El Socorro in Tenerife. When my friend visited the beach, a safeguard came immediately running up to her. She was told not to take a swim.
In Garachico, an old seaport town up in the north of Tenerife, we see the flower strelitzia, the Bird of Paradise plant. The flower is the symbol of Tenerife: it needs a lot of sunshine.
Islands mostly have some ghosts wandering around. Apparently there are some on Suomenlinna where I spent time last November but I was only told so after my stay. I’m sure I would have experienced some if only I had known to look out for them. In Tenerife it’s said you can take a ghost tour everywhere but especially in La Laguna, a town near Santa Cruz, that was build on swamps. In a 16th century house the ghost of Catalina still wanders around. Catalina is said to have committed suicide by jumping down the well rather than to marry an elderly man.
“Why is it so windy?” I ask my friend. “Because it’s an island on the sea,” she answers.
There are the famous dragon trees on Tenerife, El Drago, 650 to 3000 years old. El Drago got its name because of its red colored resin. It’s said to be dried dragon blood that has healing properties.
Tenerife has even a sauce to represent itself: red and green “mojo.”
Friends of my friend decided to rent an Airbnb in a beach town in the South. But they were disappointed. The windows that had been promised to look out on the ocean, were made of mirrored glass and especially in the evening, the only thing they saw, was themselves.
My friend drinks Barraquito’s, a coffee made with sweet condense milk and Licor 43, a Spanish citrus based liqueur. It looks way too sweet to me and it’s only when reading up on it back home that I realize it’s traditionally Tenerife drink that can’t be found anywhere else. “Repeat daily until it’s time to head to the airport,” the blogpost says. Damn! Instead I drunk a lot of Dorada, the local beer in Tenerife. Holidays need to be spend in a bit of a daze.
Apparently in the 1990s, when Tenerife was booming economically, there was this idea in Spain that every town needed some famous architect to come in to do a special cultural building. In Santa Cruz, Santiago Calatrava did the job, building the Auditorio de Tenerife that looks like a giant wave about to crush down on the city. At its café, we had a coffee, a tortilla and a zumo de naranja.