Thursday, January 10, 2008

Three Kings Day Parades in Tenerife

The Christmas season ended in Tenerife (all of Spain and the Canary Islands) - finally - this week, on Monday. January 6th, Epiphany, was El Día de Los Reyes Magos (Three Kings Day) and, being a Sunday this year, Monday was a day off in lieu. Schools went back and the winter sales started promptly on Tuesday!

This year, as it was threatening to rain (earlier, 5 meter waves had obliged the authorities to close the road along the front at Garachico) and I wasn't keen on standing, getting wet at the roadside, we gave the Three Kings Parades a miss on Saturday night and "made do" with the traditional Roscón de Reyes (Crown of Kings) desert.

We saw part of Santa Cruz' huge Three Kings extravaganza on the TV news. In La Laguna, the Three Kings arrived at the Tenerife North Airport, Los Rodeos (how do they manage with the one bag hand baggage limit?)

In Santa Cruz, as has become the custom in recent years, their majesties then transfer to the 24,000 seater Heliodoro Rodríguez López football stadium (packed with 20,000 parents and kids) in a helicopter, then, after some ceremony and the collection of all the kids' begging letters, the 700 person strong parade takes to the city's streets. More than 400 people, kids mostly, were participating in the Gran Cabalgata de Reyes de Puerto de la Cruz too and this scenario was to be repeated in every town throughout the islands.

All the local Three Kings Parades here in the north west were televised on Televisión Daute (and watching an infinite number of children pose with the three chaps might be interesting if one of them is yours). It did allow me to see that in Buenavista, all three kings arrive on the back of one flatbed truck.

This is the low budget corner of the island and, I'm not knocking it because they do their best, which is probably enough if you are a small kid and your only interest is getting your present and your toy. From a grown up spectator's or tourist point of view, there's no camels and not much else for you to see.

In Los Silos they seem to have gotten a bit mixed up with that Santa chap and/or a Disney Parade, with Disney characters at the head of the parade.

The only parade locally that follows the "authentic" format of three blokes arriving on real camels and who re-enact a visit to Herod then go to see a baby, is the one we usually go to see in Garachico. Because the town's architecture also adds much to the atmosphere, I will continue to say that this is the best and certainly the best one to come to see from a tourist point of view.