Sunday, January 31, 2010
San Antonio Abad and Almond Flower Walks Cancelled
That Tenerife weather really isn't behaving today. Information we've gleaned, via El Cardón, is that both the annual Almond Flower Route that had been scheduled for this morning in Santiago del Teide and the Livestock Fair and Romería de San Antonio Abad in Buenavista del Norte had to be suspended.
It seems the Livestock Fair and Romería have been postponed until next Sunday, February 7th, but there's no news yet with regard to the Almond Flower walk - I guess that depends whether the rain has washed off the blossom.
Fingers crossed that the bad weather is out of the way before Carnaval.
Labels: Tenerife Weather
Have you seen the Tenerife Weather?
If you're on the island, you can probably see what the weather's like already ...
For everyone else and those of you who'd like to know what the weather's going to be like tomorrow, we'd like to introduce you to our updated weather page.
We've added a few services to hopefully provide more comprehensive coverage of the things you need to know, such as live weather maps, current weather conditions; forecasts for the next 5 days for the island in general; specific forecasts (by municipal district) for the next 7 days, detailed historical weather data for various resort areas on the island, for every month of the year, to help you plan when to visit, plus general information about adverse weather warnings.
Current weather conditions and forecasts for Tenerife
Labels: Tenerife Weather
Saturday, January 30, 2010
Presentation of the candidates for Carnaval Queen
Last Tuesday evening the various candidates for the titles of Carnaval Queens in Santa Cruz de Tenerife this year were presented to the public in an event involving a procession through the city streets in classic cars and a bit of fanfare and a drawing to determine the order that the candidates will run in their respective galas.
This year there is, as usual, a whole army of kids going for the junior title, but only four opting for the title at the glamorous granny end. Twelve, another relatively low number, will partake in the grand gala to select the adult Carnaval Queen in Santa Cruz, which will be held on Wednesday, February 10th, 2010.
Santa Cruz Carnaval 2010 runs from 12th to 21st February.
Via: Carnaval de Santa Cruz de Tenerife
Labels: Carnaval 2010
Friday, January 29, 2010
The Great Flood is coming to Tenerife
Well, you'd certainly think it was, depending on which local media outlet you decided to pay attention to. (Nothing like a bit of melodrama to surge ahead in the ratings war, even if it does leave the public in a state of panic!)
Nevertheless, the meteorological office, AEMET, are predicting that there will be an "important" orange weather alert in force on Sunday, January 31st.
This "deluge," according to Canarias Ahora will be in the region of 100 litres of water per square meter in 12 hours. (No, we don't know what that looks like either.)
The majority of the rain (contrary to the widely held belief that the north is colder and wetter), is expected on the southern elevation of the island. Strong winds are expected at the peak and snow is expected on Mount Teide this weekend.
(Good job this is expected in the south, otherwise the animals at the San Antonio Abad processions in Buenavista del Norte would need to line up two-by-two.)
UPDATE 30/01/10: The orange alert has now been extended to cover the entire island on Monday, February 1st, 2010.
Labels: Tenerife Weather
Updating Tenerife's Street Maps
Victor at Villa y Puerto de Garachico reports that the post office and Grafcan (the public company who provided the [previously censored] imagery for Google) are currently collaborating on a project to revise the street maps of El Tanque, Garachico y Buenavista del Norte, according to a post office press release.
This is part of an island-wide project that began in 2004 in Santa Cruz, followed by La Orotava, to update all of the data for the territory of Tenerife.
The post office are correcting house numbers and providing data on missing street name plates, while Grafcan are providing town halls with the information so that corrections can be made and, the post office with the new plans so they can study the logistics of improving the mail delivery process.
Just think, if they get all of this organized, it may finally be possible to know one's actual, proper address in Tenerife - something that is currently quite rare.
On the negative side, anything that smacks of efficiency could be said to be ruining the time-honoured, traditional way of doing things on the island.
In truth, I think this indicates that Tenerife is missing me. We had a perfectly good system going while I lived in the district: if the post lady didn't know where something was, or if a letter was addressed to a "foreign sounding" name, she just brought it to see if I could translate/locate/solve it! 
Thursday, January 28, 2010
Fiestas of San Antonio Abad 2010
This coming Sunday, January 31st 2010, the town of Buenavista del Norte holds it's annual Livestock Fair and Romería (translates loosely to walking piss-up) in honour of Saint Anthony Abbot, who, amongst other things, looks after the spiritual needs of farm animals and pets.
Oh, how we miss these occasions to see all the lovely animals; horses, cattle, goats, dogs, ferrets, chickens in baskets, iguanas on leads, doggies getting pony rides ... and, by mid-afternoon, a whole wall-to-wall (or curb-to-curb) carpet of freshly produced manure.
The Livestock Fair, as usual, will be held in the ambitiously named Recinto Ferial (Fairs' Enclosure) - it's a patch of waste ground - in the Triana area of Buenavista del Norte (see map), starting sort of mid-morning.
The procession is around the middle of the day, more or less, give or take a couple of hours, and will proceed down the main streets to the square and church, where the animals will be blessed for another year.
Click here for more of our photos from previous years
Los Silos held their celebrations last week, as did La Matanza (read Andrea Montgomery's account of the latter to confirm it's the fiesta of fertilizer, strange pets & cheap booze.) We noticed that at last week's event at Los Silos - there's a slideshow of images currently displayed on the front of the Radio Isla Baja website - that the lady with the turkey on a lead was there again, but this time she was accompanied only by a chicken (is this a downgrade, due to the crisis?) We don't want to speculate what happened to the turkey in the interim! 
