viernes, 6 de octubre de 2023

Turism in Tenerife - The shadow of the "cholas" in winter

The white marks on the tan of the foot left by the "cholas" in winter

If the Maori call the spiral tattoos "koru" which means new beginning and inner growth, what would we call in the Canary Islands the white marks on the tan of the foot left by the "cholas" in the middle of December. 

Si los maoríes llaman a los tatuajes en forma de espiral "koru" que significa nuevo comienzo y crecimiento interior como llamaríamos en Canarias a las marcas blancas sobre el moreno del pie que dejan "las cholas a mediados de Diciembre.

Reasons why you should not go to Tenerife in winter

It is hot
You get off the plane excited about spending the winter in the island and find that the temperature vary between 20
 and 35 degrees centigrade.

 
Fortunately the night can bring some comfort as the desert climate is quite abrupt but you can only enjoy it if you are careful not to burn yourself during the day, which is another matter.


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Motivos por los que no debes ir a Tenerife en invierno

Hace calor
Te bajas del avión ilusionado con pasar el invierno en la isla y te encuentras con que la temperatura varía entre los 20 y 35 grados centígrados.
 
Afortunadamente la noche puede traer algo de consuelo ya que el clima desértico es bastante abrupto pero sólo podrás disfrutarlo si tuviste cuidado con no quemarte durante el día, que esa es otra.

Subiendo pal' sur, bajando pal' norte

People are very rare

To begin with, they are happy all day long. And they talk a lot. Here, when people cross the street with a friend, they spend more time saying hello to each other than friends do in another city... when they meet!

Everyone greets you, and they invite you to sit down for a drink on a terrace when you walk. They also like to say "my boy" even though you are 80 years old and talk and talk in all languages: the taxi driver, the cashier, the waiter... sometimes they even make you laugh. A very strange thing.


La gente es muy rara
Para empezar, están todo el día contentos. Y hablan mucho. Aquí la gente cuando se cruza por la calle con un amigo pasan más tiempo saludándose que lo que tardan unos amigos en otra ciudad… ¡cuando quedan!

Todo el mundo te saluda, y te invitan a sentarte a tomar algo en una terraza cuando paseas. También les gusta decir mi niño aunque tengas 80 años y conversar y conversar en todos los idiomas: el taxista, la cajera, el camarero… hasta a veces te hacen reír. Una cosa muy extraña.

Celebrate the holidays there is not the same 

If you go in the Christmas season, you will notice the debacle. Forget about snow, it only appears in the shops in the form of spray powder.

The only dolls you'll be able to make are sand ones. And as for New Year's Eve... Where have you seen this celebration of the arrival of a new year by taking a dip in the sea on the first day of January? Then you have to dry yourself in the sun.


Celebrar las fiestas allí no es lo mismo

Si te cuadra ir en temporada navideña, notarás la debacle. Olvídate de nieve, sólo aparece en las tiendas en forma de polvo de spray.

Los únicos muñecos que podrás hacer son de arena. Y en cuanto a fin de año… ¿Dónde se ha visto eso de celebrar la llegada de un nuevo año dándote un chapuzón en el mar el primer día de enero? Luego encima hay que secarse al sol.

The place

Those who visit Tenerife often say that it is a unique, unrepeatable place. A completely new environment for which you are not prepared. Is there anything more terrifying? 

How would I know what to expect? All day long, one surprise after another, I don't know if it's the most advisable thing to do if the initial idea was to relax.

They say that's true too, but the way they sell it, I don't trust it anymore, but the time is not even the same!


El lugar

Los que visitan Tenerife suelen decir que es un lugar único, irrepetible. Un entorno completamente nuevo para el que no estás preparado. ¿Existe algo más terrorífico? 

Cómo voy a saber qué me espera, todo el día una sorpresa tras otra no sé yo si es lo más aconsejable si la idea inicial era relajarse.

Que dicen que eso también pero tal y como lo venden, ya no me fío. ¡Pero si ni la hora es la misma!

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Conclusion

Going to Tenerife in winter is wrong because it is an escape from winter. It is only recommended if you like to go against the tide or if you are able to endure more summer than usual per year.

Conclusión

Ir a Tenerife en invierno está mal porque es escapar del invierno. Recomendable sólo si te gusta ir a contracorriente o si eres capaz de aguantar más verano de lo normal al año.

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enlace video YouTube

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enlace video YouTube

POR UN MAR AZUL - Tomás Vera cantautor

La costa, la playa, tu litoral
tienen fecha de caducidad

la población aumenta cada vez más
el turismo no lo saben controlar

se hacen proyectos sin viabilidad
el ecosistema no lo puede aguantar

emisarios en cantidad, vertidos por aquí,
vertidos por allá y les da igual y les da igual,

la marea amanece gris cuando siempre ha sido azul
y la maresía* nos va dejando atras

la marea amanece gris cuando siempre ha sido azul
y la maresía* nos va dejando atras

Por un mar azul, si no lo cuidas tú quien lo va a cuidar
Por un mar azul, si no lo cuidas tú quien lo va a cuidar

Por un mar azul, si no lo cuidas tú quien lo va a cuidar
Por un mar azul, si no lo cuidas tú quien lo va a cuidar 


maresía* -
Aire cargado de humedad marina en las zonas cercanas a la orilla del mar.

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martes, 24 de enero de 2023

SALVAR TENERIFE – ABADES

enlace video YouTube

There is a place on the coast of Tenerife that has remained untouched by urban development. 

It is one of the few areas that remains undeveloped and that maintains its landscapes practically intact. 

This has allowed biodiversity to find a place to survive here.

Abades is a traditional village although in reality its real name is "El Abriguito" as the orientation shelters the Bay from the trade winds so that the waters inside are calm almost all year round.

On land, the dominant ecosystem, as in all this area of the coast of Tenerife, is the tabaibal, formed by the sweet tabaiba. During the summer its leaves fall off to resist the lack of water and the high temperatures, but with the first rains they bloom again, turning the landscape green.

The cardonal tabaibal is a unique ecosystem on the planet that does not exist anywhere else but here and apart from the authenticity of this ecosystem, if these plants were not adapted to live here, this place would practically be a desert.

So thanks to the fact that they are adapted to live here, we have such a rich ecosystem full of life.

In addition to their ecological and landscape value, the tabaibas hide a secret. All these scars were made about 70 years ago because the latex of the sweet tabaiba was used for various purposes.

The best known use was the extraction of its latex to make chewing gum. "Tabai chewing gum" was made from this latex and even sponsored a Spanish cycling team.

This means that we are not only dealing with a very important species in the ecosystems of the Canary Islands, but also with a piece of our history and our culture.

And under the waters of this area of the coast, thanks to the fact that practically nothing has been built, the ecosystems found here have not been altered as in other parts of the island.

Here you will find one of the most extensive sebadales of this part of the island where you can observe different species of rays.

And even some green turtles that come to the Canary Islands in their juvenile stage feed on the sebadal and algae in the surrounding area for several years before continuing their migration. Some underwater travellers also arrive here seeking refuge.

The amount of life associated with these seagrass meadows means that predators such as the "angelshark make their presence felt.

 


Abades is a very important place for the angelshark in the Canary Islands as there we can find both adults and young and even sub-adults, which is a size of angelshark that is very difficult to see.

Over the last few years, the "Angel Shark Project" has carried out a project to tag and monitor angelsharks in this area and the important data obtained will be used to effectively protect this species whose only stable population is in the Canary Islands.

With this data we have been able to demonstrate that it is a breeding area where the mothers go to give birth to their young and the young stay in this area during the first stages of their lives, but we also see that it is a place where adults return every year to reproduce.

However Abades like many other places in Tenerife has a major management problem.

There is an illegal outfall discharging thousands of litres of sewage water just a few metres from the bathing areas.

The village which belongs to the municipality of Arico has tripled in size in the last few decades which means that the amount of sewage that ends up in the sea has tripled and far from fixing the problem it seems that the intention is to continue building and increasing the pressure.

The latest constructions that have been carried out have completely destroyed the tabaibal forest in the area in order to build on top of it.

And the rubble of all that was destroyed was left in the ravine, burying the vegetation in the area.

The millions of years old Tosca, (Tosca) a very porous and light limestone formed by the precipitation of lime dissolved in water or by the accumulation of ashes or other very small volcanic elements.

And if we go back two years in time to the moment of their construction we can see the dimensions of the destruction they caused.

This urbanisation has completely buried this ecosystem and not only have they destroyed it in order to build on top of it, but they have not even had the slightest decency to collect all the rubble and have left it lying there in the ravine, destroying the landscape even more.

The nearby land is ready for further development in an area that was a natural area only 10 years ago. This is what the area looks like today.

Where once there was nature, now there is nothing. Further urbanisation, apart from causing an irreversible destruction of the island, will only continue to worsen the serious problems Tenerife has.

In only 20 years the density of the sebadal of Abades, represented in dark green, has been lost in a worrying way, only a small percentage of the meadow is still in good condition.

And this serious problem extends to the rest of the island. 

The truth is that the state is quite bad, we have found many places where the historical maps showed that there was a dense sebadal and we have found real sandbanks, real dumps in some cases with rubbish, abandoned pots and where the only thing there is is water and sand. (Pots) The fishing pots are a type of net that is a bit special, as they are used for passive capture.

There is a sebadal where I have some precious memories of when I was a child, my first turtle, my first Angelote, my first Chucho, because that is no longer there.


The evolution of Abades is that the sebadal is diminishing little by little and you will find that historically they have been dense, they are very dense, now we find bald patches and places where the tendency is going to disappear.

So I don't want to be pessimistic but of course after everything we have seen we think that if we don't do something to protect it we could lose it too.

During the production of this documentary we learned that a tourist company was planning to propose the modification of the partial plan of Arico, to build on top of the ravine, but thanks to a report that assured that this ecosystem is in good condition and that under no circumstances should it be destroyed, this project was stopped.

At present, it is completely counterproductive to continue building on an island that is overexploited because it will have a negative impact on the quality of life of its inhabitants.

Tenerife is an island completely collapsed both in the north and in the south, there are people who have to get up at 4 o'clock in the morning to get to work at 8 o'clock in the morning.

We have 6 million tourists, 800,000 cars, these are unthinkable numbers for an island. We are not a European capital so what is absurd is to keep thinking about growing.



What we have to do is the opposite, to stop and think about how to improve our island. Much less should we destroy one of the few places in this part of the island that remains undeveloped and in a good state of conservation.

There is a large concentration of juveniles (in botany, the state of the young plant and its organs during the first stages of its development), which means that the ecosystem is in full development and in optimal conditions.

There are tabaibas of all sizes, hundreds of them, and some are probably more than 100 years old.

These natural values found both on land and at sea open up new possibilities for Abades to develop in a different way to the rest of the island and become a pioneer in conservation.

Abades has been proposed as a critical area within the recovery plan for the Angelshark in the Canary Islands. This will give Abades special protection for the conservation of the Angelshark in this important site, any modification of the habitat could disturb the Angelsharks that return there every year and have a negative impact on the species.

The sebadales are one of the warriors we have against climate change because they capture carbon from the atmosphere and sequester it in the sand in their roots, they are the nurseries of the Canary Islands where all the small fish come from.

But they also retain the sand and prevent the sediment from leaving the beaches.

It is time to stop now, to put the brakes on, because we cannot continue to lose nature. Losing nature right now means losing money, because the people who come from outside come to see this, the nature that we are destroying.

And it is this nature that makes all Canarians feel proud of our islands, that makes us boast about them wherever we go, but there is also an increasingly widespread feeling of shame and impotence to see how the politicians who should be the first to protect the islands are doing and have been doing the opposite for decades.

Not only do we have to stop this destruction, but what we also have to do is to recover the ecosystems, we have to recover our nature, because this does generate jobs and, in the end, investing in this is investing in our own future.

Abades is a very special corner of the island of Tenerife and that is why it is so important to stop thinking about building there and to look for measures to protect and safeguard this place.


Imagine reducing the number of tourists on the island and starting to focus on quality tourism.

And if an eco-tax of 10 euros were established and 50 million euros were collected each year to be invested in conserving Tenerife's natural areas.

How many jobs could be created, how many ecosystems could be recovered?

Economic profit has to be created without destroying nature, that is being truly sustainable.

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Ruta Costera de Playas aisladas en Tenerife 4K - Hiking in the Canary Islands 

Roque Imoque y Montaña de los Brezos, Adeje - Tenerife

Playa Tejita in Tenerife | El Médano, Montaña Roja (4K)

Juggling (malabares) in El Médano montaña roja


En la isla baja. Macizo de Teno
 


 
En el oeste de Tenerife (Islas Canarias, España) se levanta el Macizo de Teno, parte del Parque Natural del mismo nombre. Sin duda, uno de los mejores sitios para viajar este verano en España. 


Aquí existe una naturaleza increíble con paisajes de todo tipo, aunque nada como el Faro de Teno y los gigantes de piedra que custodian el Océano. Fauna marina, tradiciones Guanches y pueblecitos hacen de esta zona de la isla una auténtica joya que vale la pena descubrir.
 

El rorcual común (Balaenoptera physalus, Linnaeus, 1758) es el segundo animal más grande del mundo, después de la ballena azul.

El rorcual común, también llamado ballena de aleta, es la segunda especie de ballena barbada más común que observamos durante nuestros tours de avistamiento de ballenas y delfines en Tenerife. Entre Tenerife y La Gomera las escarpadas islas volcánicas descienden creando un canal de más de 3 kilómetros de profundidad. 
 
Cetáceos residentes en Tenerife: todo el año en una zona fija
Calderón tropical (Globicephala macrorhynchus)
Delfín mular (Tursiops truncatus)

Cetáceos esporádicos en Tenerife: todo el año sin frecuencia
Cachalote (Physeter macrocephalus)
Calderón gris (Grampus griseus)
Delfín de diente rugoso (Steno bredanensis)
Delfín listado (Stenella coeruleoalba)
Delfín moteado atlántico (Stenella frontalis)
Rorcual tropical (Balaenoptera edeni)

Cetáceos estacionales en Tenerife: en alguna época del año
Delfín común (Delphinus delphis)
Falsa orca (Pseudorca crassidens)
Rorcual común (Balaenoptera physalus)
Rorcual norteño (Balaenoptera borealis)
 
Cetáceos raros en Tenerife
Cachalote pigmeo (Kogia breviceps)
Delfín de Fraser (Lagenodelphis hosei)
Orca (Orcinus orca)
Rorcual aliblanco (Balaenoptera acutorostrata)
Rorcual azul (Balaenoptera musculus)
Yubarta (Megaptera novaeangliae)
Zifio común (Ziphius cavirostris)
Zifio de Blainville (Mesoplodon densirostris)
Zifio de Gervais (Mesoplodon europaeus)
 
Dónde ver cetáceos en Tenerife: Los Gigantes

Que esta isla es uno de los mejores sitios donde disfrutar del avistamiento de cetáceos está fuera de toda duda. Así, Tenerife dispone de muchas empresas dedicadas a la organización de excursiones para contemplar estos animales en libertad.

Las embarcaciones zarpan desde los puertos de Los Cristianos, Puerto Colón y, sobre todo, Los Gigantes, y casi siempre hay opciones que se ajustan a lo que se busca, tanto en tiempo como en precio. Las opciones de avistamiento de cetáceos en Tenerife son:

Salida de avistamiento de dos horas: se puede elegir una sesión corta, en barcos pequeños y rápidos, cuyo único objetivo es avistar ballenas y delfines, suficiente para muchas personas.
     
Excursión marítima de dos a tres horas: una opción más lúdica, que suele incluir comida a bordo y alto en alguna cala para un baño. Se hace en barcos medianos que dan una mayor libertad de movimiento.
     
Salida de avistamiento de hasta 5 horas: esta experiencia completa la ofrecen las naves más grandes, ya que incluye un recorrido por los lugares más representativos del suroeste y oeste de la isla, con paradas para el baño y comida a bordo.
 
 
Antes de adentrarnos en las aguas que albergarán el Área Marina Protegida para los Cetáceos en la Macaronesia, el santuario donde los mamíferos marinos puedan tener asegurada su protección y reconocimiento, conviene en primera instancia acercarnos al propio concepto de Macaronesia. 
 

 Las islas Salvajes poseen más de 150 especies de plantas. Representan asimismo un valioso santuario ornitológico. Existen también especies únicas (endemismos) de caracoles y un reptil (Tarentola boettgeri bischoffi). 
 
Las islas tienen características desérticas. El naturalista francés Jacques Cousteau dijo que estas islas tenían las aguas más limpias y transparentes que jamás hubiese visto.
 

 
El sonoro término Macaronesia, de etimología griega (makáron = felicidad, nesoi = islas) ha sido utilizado por los estudiosos de la Naturaleza para expresar un concepto fundamentalmente biogeográfico y botánico”. 
 
En la mitología griega, las Nesoi eran las diosas de las islas. De cada isla se decía que tenía su propia personificación. Fueron clasificadas como unos de los antiguos dioses primordiales (que existieron en el principio del mundo). De las islas Nesoi se decía que habían sido en tiempos unas montañas pero que Poseidón las golpeó violentamente y las plantó en el mar con su tridente
 
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El Mirador - Los Cristianos (Booking 743 euros, 1 week)

17 Avenida Ámsterdam, 38650 Los Cristianos, España 

“Roof terrace excellent and the location great for young couples who don't mind hearing music”






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14 Avenida Juan Alfonso Batista, Los Cristianos  

Delicado apartamento con una excelente ubicación justo en primera línea de mar y vistas al mar.

Gustó  · Excelente ubicación justo en primera línea de mar y cocina bien equipada. Bonita terraza con vistas al mar y puesta de sol. Bonito apartamento recién reformado. Propietario servicial que respondió rápidamente.

No gustó  · El apartamento no tenía aire acondicionado. En verano hubiera estado muy bien. Hacía mucho calor a 25 grados por la noche. Tenemos 2 fans, así que eso ayudó un poco. El sofá podría haber sido reemplazado y cambiado de lugar con el comedor. No se usó porque era muy poco delicado. La ducha tiene paredes demasiado cortas, por lo que durante el uso se acumula mucha agua en el suelo.






Guayero Los Cristianos sea view

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