The BGTW trip to Tenerife: events surrounding our AGM

All details of our trips and much more about Tenerife is posted on a dedicated website area for the BGTW: www.webtenerife.com/bgtw2010/partners.html

Photos by Stuart Forster, Jeremy Hoare, John Lloyd, Liam White, John Malathronas (to see name of photographer, hover your cursor over the photo; JH denotes Jeremy Hoare.

Tim Locke sets the picture

Below are reports from members who attended our wonderful AGM trip to Tenerife at the end of January.

For the first three days we were based the Costa Adeje, in the south of the island – at four sumptuous hotels. On the first evening, we dined in a banana plantation (just that, set up and lit for the occasion, with tables against a backdrop of banana crates).

Then we divided into three groups for whale-watching, a visit to Siam Park (the water park) and a golf session, while the committee met up for a business meeting. In the afternoon, the whole group joined together for a trip up Mount Teide, into a very different world at the highest point of Spain, and onto a theatrical presentation by islanders of an Agatha Christie short story written when the author was on the island.

For interviews with Guild members in Tenerife, see www.tenerifemagazine.com/tag/british-guild-of-travel-writers – there’s a link to photos of the trip at the bottom of the web page.

At the Gala dinner, I sat next to a local travel writer, Andrea Montgomery, who was a fount of information about walking and the lesser-known parts of the island. Andrea has published a book of drives to her favourite places in Tenerife: see www.realtenerifeislanddrives.com

Any further contributions or thoughts about the AGM visit will be gratefully received and posted in next month’s Globetrotter and on the website (under Meetings – these are kept on the public area indefinitely).

Judith Baker reports on the opening days of the AGM trip

There was a record turnout at this year’s AGM which was held on the beautiful island of Tenerife, the largest of the Canary Islands. Over 100 members were transported from London Gatwick, Luton, Birmingham and Manchester airports courtesy of Monarch Airlines.

Most of us were luxuriating in our 5 * hotels in Adeje in the South of the island by early afternoon. All four hotels in the South, the Hotel La Plantación, the Gran Hotel Bahia del Duque, the Gran Tacande Hotel and the Grand Hotel El Mirador provided fantastic accommodation of exceptional standard.

Travellers from Luton arrived in time for our welcome reception in the evening which the Tenerife Tourist Board had organised at a spectacular venue at the banana plantation and packing plant in Fañabe. We mingled in a tropical setting surrounded by banana trees full of the fruit for which Tenerife is famous.

Guild taste buds were tickled by canapés such as jamon iberico and banana parcels and a Gala Dinner in the restaurant gave us further examples of how the banana is used in Canarian cooking including cheese salad with banana vinaigrette and pork shoulder with banana and red mojo sauce. We also had our first taste of Canarian wines such as Brumas de Ayosa and El Mocanero.

Cooking, wining & dining at Bodegas Monje

Kathryn Tomasetti

I love to cook. Better yet, I love to eat and drink wine. A Canarian cooking course and wine tasting, held at Tenerife’s Bodegas Monje? It’s safe to say my mouth was watering with anticipation from the moment I signed up.

Our lesson started with a little game of musical chairs. There weren’t enough – and intentionally so. The quickest students sized up the situation, tying on aprons, slipping on the flattering hairnets and grabbing an orange folder of neatly printed recipes. (How swiftly we all revert to school behaviour – shamed at the thought of having to perform at the front of the class.) The pack’s more distracted pitched up to find themselves short a chair, were thus gathered into cooking group one, the dessert-makers.

As we huddled around the kitchen’s freestanding island, chef Dolores García outlined our mission: 15 different dishes, to be prepared and cooked over the next three hours. There may have been more than 40 of us, but the towers of ingredients, piled against the kitchen’s back wall, were definitely intimidating.

‘Begin with the desserts’ was the first nugget of knowledge imparted by our teacher. Like in any cuisine, most Canarian sweets need to chill or bake. The aspiring chefs subdivided further into four groups, starting a pattern that would be emulated for the rest of the morning; each team was then led by one of Dolores’s savvy assistants.

Mirroring the controlled chaos of any professional kitchen, batches of recipes were prepared simultaneously. Dolores tasted, adjusted and advised, deftly mixing the traditional (‘Use an old biscuit tin to set the pudding‘) with the ultra modern (I’m now convinced every kitchen needs a piston funnel).

Canarian cuisine relies heavily on locally sourced ingredients. During my moment to shine, I had my first encounter with the pale green chayote (also called a christophine or cho-cho), a type of gourd I chopped and added to our vegetable soup. We learned about gofio, a toasted blend of local grains, which is rolled into a savoury paste, added to soups or topped with milk and eaten as a breakfast cereal.

Methods of food preparation developed according to local needs too. In contrast to mainland Spain, Tenerife’s island climate is too humid to air-cure meats. Instead fish and meats are salted; traditionally, fish are also partially ‘sand-dried’ on the islands’ beaches. Taking inspiration from North African cuisine, chilli peppers are used as a natural disinfectant, here forming the basis for spicier sorts of mojo sauce. Island recipes are also topped up with non-perishable items that have been traditionally imported, such as tinned cream.

When the heat got too intense (the kitchen’s large, dome-shaped oven had been blazing for hours), students wandered out onto the restaurant’s terrace, basking in the winter sunshine, present as promised by the Tenerife Tourist Board. I roamed from the kitchen’s herb garden – the first time I’ve seen a cinnamon plant – to the vineyard’s edges, sloping 500 metres downhill to the sea. It may have been January, but the pockets of activity in the vines made it obvious that winemaking is a year-round job.

Courtesy of both a short film and a guided tour, we were soon to learn much more. Leaving our instructors to tweak our efforts in the kitchen, we trooped into Bodegas Monje’s cellars. During harvest season, the winery’s staff of four swells to more than 30, as the island’s volcanic terrain makes hand picking the Canarian grapes (Listán Negro, Listán Blanco and Negramoll) a necessity. Oak barrels, some as old as two centuries and still in use, line the walls of the original cellar. Lower floors house a wine club and tasting room, where the walls are decked with a rotating selection of contemporary artworks.

Back in the restaurant, we settled down to sip, sample and enjoy the fruits of our labour. To my surprise, and clearly owed to the strict guidance provided by chef Dolores and her nimble crew, we managed to prepare an excellent, elaborate lunch. A few glasses of house white, rosé and my favourite, the red Monje Tradicional, later, I was convinced I could replicate the experience in my own home. Although the jury’s still out on the chocolate mousse and crisp combo.

Contact details:
Bodegas Monje
Camino Cruz Leandro, 36
38359 El Sauzal, Tenerife
Tel/Fax: +34 922 585 027
www.bodegasmonje.com

A trip to Siam Water Park

Judith Baker reports

An adrenaline pumping wake up greeted Guild members who opted to spend their first morning in Tenerife at the Siam Park water kingdom. John Malathronas braved the Naga Racer on his own. while David Whitley test-drove the jaw dropping Tower of Power. Hilary Bradt and John rode the Jungle Snake in a two-seat with new member Damian Harper sampling the white-knuckle ride on his own.David, Hilary, John and Damian then span around in the dark of the Volcano ride not once but twice in a four-seat donut.

Less adventurous Guild members strolled round the grounds at a sedate pace and soaked up the sun at the wave palace set against a backdrop of Thai architecture.

Golf in a perfect climate

Linda Jackson reports

While the main BGTW contingent departed to enjoy their spa treatments, culture tours and volcano treks, our small group of six golfers sneaked off to much greener pastures - to stroll along the fertile fairways of Golf Las Americas, one of Tenerife’s nine golf courses, and to immerse ourselves in the dubious depths of bunkers, lakes and shrubs strewn around the level resort course.

Our “threesome” - made up of Malcolm the Great; Natasha, the Russian princess, and me - in carriages fit to tackle any golf course be it on the side of a volcano or not, headed to our designated tee, already backed-up with a gaggle of golfers despite the reasonably early hour. Although golf courses in Tenerife all run a smooth tee-time operation with strict tee-off times, it wasn’t unexpected to find a queue in front of us as, with a perfect year-round climate, the island is a popular winter golfing destination (particularly with the Brits) and tee times are generally reserved months in advance.

We soon realised playing the full eighteen holes at Golf Las Americas in the time allocated before the planned afternoon activities was not viable, so settled down to soak up the oh-so-perfect climate for golf and enjoy a leisurely nine holes with the promise of an al fresco lunch on the clubhouse terrace overlooking the 18th green. As it happened, our unhurried nine holes proved an ideal opportunity for semi-pro Malcolm to take on the role of golf mentor and charmer to novice Natasha with 2½ hours of on-course golf instruction. As for the other threesome of Richard, Liam and Jon: they managed 14 holes before having to desert the course and return to base... having to forego that added perk of a scrumptious lunch and glass of wine that we so enjoyed on the golf clubhouse terrace.

Our next leisure day saw us leaving the south with its cluster of courses and heading to the only golf course in the cooler and lush north-west of the island, to the rugged coastline of Isla Baja to play 18-holes on the spectacular Buenavista golf course designed by Severiano Ballesteros. A 1½ hour scenic drive up and over the Anaga range of mountains from the Playa de las Americas area took us to the relatively unexplored north and to a relatively new gem of a golf course, opened seven years ago. With panoramic views of the ocean from every hole, a dramatic backdrop of the Anaga Mountains, elevated tees, attractive water features, plus several greens edged by the swirling sea, painted an amazing turquoise-azure, our foursome - Malcolm, Liam, Richard and I - were well pleased with our lot.

At the end of the round, however, a couple of us did but wish our golf had been as pretty as the course. I confess it did fleetingly cross my mind that maybe, after all, there could be some truth in that well-known non-golfers’ quote that “golf was a good walk ruined”. Being open to the elements, located on the cliff edge, golf at Buenavista could be meek and mild or wild and windy so a few days staying in the north playing this one course would not be tiresome; each round could prove to be a different challenge depending on the wind strength and direction. We liked it a lot. The clubhouse with its huge glass windows overlooked the course and presented magnificent seascapes; the restaurant was excellent where we enjoyed mouth-watering steaks, so tender and cooked to perfection.

A few hundred yards away, a five-star hotel is due to open in March which will be a big bonus for the golf club. But we stayed in Garachico, a pretty village twenty minutes away, in a small hotel on the main square. Dating back to the 16th century, the hotel La Quinta Roja still has many of its original features and a wide wooden Canarian balcony overlooking the open inner courtyard. Garachico’s harbour was the most important port on the island during the 16th century, handling vast amounts of sugar cane and Malmsey wine, but the town suffered volcanic landslides in 1645 with over 100 deaths and another eruption in 1706 caused rivers of lava to pour into the harbour making it unsuitable for shipping. We sat in the main tree-lined square beside the ornate bandstand, now a bar, talking of how much we enjoyed the contrast of the verdant north from the dry bustling south; the day’s golf, the bad drives, the good putts; the intimate rural hotel, small restaurants very Spanish in character, and the overwhelming chilled-out atmosphere of the small town of Garachico.

To be honest, we would like to have stayed for a few more days to tackle Buenavista golf course again, to have eaten a few more grilled cuttlefish, to have enjoyed another whisky or wine from the bandstand bar... then headed back down south to play that tempting cluster of golf courses... But hey, no problemo... hasta la vista, baby.

Cultural Tour of La Laguna and Santa Cruz de Tenerife

Stuart Forster reports

Twenty-seven of the guild’s members registered to attend this post-AGM cultural tour of San Cristóbal de La Laguna and Santa Cruz de Tenerife, historic cities separated by just 9km on the north-eastern side of the island.Guides wearing eighteenth-century costumes met guild members on the Plaza del Adalantado and explained that the city, known popularly as La Laguna, was Tenerife’s capital from the Castilian conquest, in 1496, until 1723.

For an hour the guides led us through the streets of the Casco Antiguo, the historic quarter in which 600 Mudejar-style buildings are preserved. As the guides pointed out, La Laguna may seem familiar to anyone who has visited Latin America, as it was the model for Spanish colonial urban planning. In 1999 it was added to UNESCO’s list of cultural World Heritage Sites.

The guides led the way into the courtyards of a handful of the grand buildings which were constructed as family mansions for Tenerife’s most influential settlers. These included the Lercaro Palace, the sixteenth century home of public scribe Gaspar Justiano, which now hosts the Tenerife History and Anthropology Museum. Following a coffee break at Casa Rural la agomada del Cato, a cosy restaurant which gave several of the members the impression that they had just stepped into a local La Lagunan home, the group strolled back to the bus and was shuttled over to Tenerife’s current capital, Santa Cruz.

Santa Cruz’s La Noria district was once the home for dockworkers and fishermen. These days several of the Carnival groups that play so active a role in the cultural life of Tenerife are based here. Guild members were invited into the headquarters of the Ni Fú Ni Fá group, to hear how carnival groups spend the year preparing costumes and satirical lyrics ahead of the colourful annual Shrove Tuesday/Mardi Gras parade through the city. Parallels have been drawn between Tenerife’s major annual event and the carnival celebrations in Rio de Janeiro. A key event in the proceedings in the election of the carnival queen and guild members were invited to meet Ana Maria Tavarez, who was aged 18 when named as the 2009 Reina del Carneval.

We were then given a crash course in drumming by one of the percussion groups who beat samba rhythms during the parade. Initial self-consciousness soon gave way to hip-swinging enjoyment as guild members paraded with drums along one of La Noria’s usually quiet streets. Lord Nelson lost his right arm during the naval battle of Santa Cruz and, on hearing the din, locals may well have been wishing that we too lacked the limb which gave us the capacity to beat our drums.

The final appointment of the tour was a late lunch in La Hierbita, a restaurant popular with locals. Typical of the unpretentious tasca style eateries of La Noria, La Hierbita has something of a rustic feel and serves typically Tenerifian cuisine, including papas antiguas, the tiny potatoes served with mojo sauce which are the island’s signature dish.Tenerife Tourism will undoubtedly hope that the tour provided guild members with sufficient material to bang a drum for the island in a number of leading publications.

Walking in the far east

Tim Locke put his walking boots on

Reached by tortuous, inaccessible roads, the Anaga peninsula constitutes the northeast corner of triangular Tenerife: this is the oldest bit of the island, and it’s strikingly different from anything else we saw – stupendously lush and green rain forest, with the terrain in dauntingly broken up ridges that makes for some very tough hiking terrain. In places there are caves hereabouts that are still inhabited.

At the Gala Dinner the night before, I’d been chatting with a local travel writer, Andrea Montgomery, who rates this as her favourite area for walking in the island, and that there were other walks even better than this one. Not that there are a huge number of circular hiking routes, she pointed out; you’ll need to work out bus times carefully and walk from A to B. But on the evidence of what we saw the effort to sort the logistics is amply worth it.

Our ‘easy’ graded walk was a bit more than a saunter down from the road that runs along the top of the ridge. An old path, used from medieval times as a route to La Laguna from the coast, took us down past some startlingly odd plants – tree-size heather bushes, a few of the thirty-odd local types of fern and outsized variants of dandelion. We stepped over goat droppings, encountered a walking party of cheerfully chattering Tenerifean schoolchildren and surprised the odd gecko. Underfoot it wasn’t that straightforward, and those not in walking boots (and a few with them) struggled to keep upright in the earlier, slippery sections.

Suddenly the view opened out memorably over a lusciously unspoilt section of rugged coast as we dropped between terraced fields and into the back-of-beyondness that is Taganana, surely one of the most remote spots in the Canaries. A modest café here advertised rooms for 30 euros a night; this would be a simple and restful place to stay, potter around, count the snoozing cats and hike into the hills; Andrea had told me that San Andrés, on the other side of the peninsula, would also make an excellent base.

From outside the café on the astonishingly scenic surfers’ beach with its spikily mountainous backdrop – Casa Africa – looked like a greasy spoon: cheerfully basic, with long tables, no frills whatsoever, and red plonk in glass carafes. It proved an absolute treat, though: the tenderest octopus some of us could remember, and fresh fish and other goodies cooked up by ‘Momma’, who passed the day chatting with locals at the bar.

There looks to be a lot on Tenerife to tempt walkers. I asked Joe Cawley to nominate his favourite walk, and he opted for one at the other end of the island: start at Los Gigantes, take a taxi to Masca, walk to the sea then get a pre-ordered boat back to Los Gigantes.

Hands across the sea

Spa impressions from Bryn Frank

It was of course all in the cause of research. Somebody had to do it. There we were in the extraordinary Hotel Botanico, and while Guild members were lining up for the swimming pool, the various saunas, the hot tub, the jacuzzi and – it's only rumoured – the gym, it seemed nobody was going tochance the more exotic treatments in the Oriental Spa .

Therefore, convincing myself that I had a sore shoulder from heaving logs for our woodburner and a bad back from sitting hunched over a computer, I signed up for a Canarian Massage. Togged up in the sort of full length white bathrobe recently made fashionable by Chris Portway I made my way via acres of deep-pile carpet in the hotel-proper towards the spa gardens and the treatment rooms.

Wiba ('Viba') from Thailand was my date.'Me massage you long time'. No, of course she didn't say that! Rather: 'Good morning, Mr Frank. I believe you've booked me for 55 minutes?'Cool and chic and as beautiful as a lady can be in a white coat, she was efficient and to the point, methodical and effective.

The hour passed all too quickly. She was also quite direct:'Your skin is too dry. You should use oil in your bath, almond oil is best.'I thought, 'Bang goes the Radox'. She took my hand: 'You feel MY skin? You feel my arm, my shoulder? Soft yes?' Oh, yes, most definitely yes. Would I go back? I would and did.

I rang down to make an appointment for a day later. (I didn't want anybody questioning the thoroughness of my research.) I asked for Viba, but they came back to say she was not available. 'She is on light duties tomorrow.' they said. Oh dear, was this the Thai version of 'Sorry, I'm washing my hair tomorrow. And the day after'. Not quite: it transpired she could run to 'aromatic massage with hot stones', but wasn't up to pummelling old blokes for a while.' So we will give you Nieves.' A pleasant choice of phrase. 'A Spanish lady.Will that be all right?' Was it all right? Was it just.

This time round things seemed more intimate, while remaining on the side of propriety. Just a gnat's crochet from the erotic, however. Extraordinary lingering caresses as light as a flutter of small butterflies were coupled with serious work where it mattered. We hardly spoke, so how did she KNOW where it hurt (a bit)? How did she KNOW when I was thinking 'A bit more there would help'. How did she KNOW when I was thinking 'a bit more of that would be very nice'.

It left me floating somewhere near the ceiling. ('Come down Mr Frank – your time is up'.) Magic.* It later transpired that the athletic and photogenic newish member Rob Savage had an hour of Pain Relief with a non-English-speaking Spanish masseur [said one lady member not in the first flush of youth, 'Rob can massage ME any time']. So how did Rob and his masseur communicate? Said Rob:'He prodded me, I yelled where it hurt and we took it from there. But Istill don't know why he kept shoving his knee into my buttocks.'Of course, you can enjoy the Botanico's vastness and luxury without the Oriental Spa, but it might just put a spring in your step. It couldn't be easier: if the mood takes you, just phone 742 from your room.

Observations of a Spa Virgin

More on the spa experience; this time from Malcolm Campbell

I guess it was a bit of a cock-up on the form filling front that diverted me to the spa sidebar of the post-AGM tours rather than the wine-swilling and grub-guzzling routine that would normally be more my forte.

Golf writers don’t really ‘do’ spas so when Tim Locke asked me to throw a few thoughts together on the experience he couldn’t possibly have known he was talking to a spa virgin. I mean, why would he? It is a shocking admission I know but I haven’t really got together with new sports like spa-ing. But I did do a quick check and I see that it hasn’t been included in the 2014 Olympic games along with golf but that’s not a bad thing. Golf shouldn’t be in there either if the truth be told and I’ve had to give the International Olympic Committee the benefit of some robust advice on the matter.

Anyway, back to the post-fam form. Having hooked my tick out of the fairway of the “food and drink” box and into the rough of the “spa box” there wasn’t much I could do. However, I did feel some duty of honour to see the process through although a certain anxiety had by then settled on me with the precision a Phil Mickelson lob wedge.To be perfectly honest I wasn’t entirely clear as to what is involved in spa never really having felt a need to ponder the question in the odd idle moment between pink gins in the Big Room at the Club. In fact the only spa I have had any experience of is the one at the corner in the village where I go for the Sunday papers and use in emergency when we run out of gin and cat food and can´t be bothered going to Sainsbury´s.

So it was with some trepidation but nonetheless a lightness of step that I made my way to the Oriental Spa Garden of the Hotel Botanica, a member no less of the Leading Hotels of the World. Sadly, I arrived there only to find that I was abandoned; the others had deserted me. I was a spa virgin alone, vulnerable and cast adrift in a sea of strangely roaming figures in white robes and funny shoes that clicked along the passages of some displaced Oriental backwater.

I assumed the Leading Hotels of the World status put it in the same bracket as the Top 100 Courses of the World, upon whose selection panel I am privileged to sit, so I was therefore a little disappointed to find no immediate evidence of a practice ground to hit a few spas, or whatever it is they do to warm up. So I had a good look around instead and to be fair I couldn’t fault the entrance to the clubhouse. Beautiful Spanish girls in virginal white uniforms greeted the interloper from the world of golf with charming smiles and a personal key to the men’s locker room.

This level of service has not yet found its way to St Andrews, so I made a mental note to raise it with the Members´ Secretary as a possible future development for the Club. It’s very clear to me that this is the sort of thing that would chime more in harmony with the enlightened times we now live in rather than ushering through stricter controls on the trampoline effect of titanium drivers which is the current vogue.

So, suitably impressed and determined to give this new sport of spa every chance but also anxious, too, not to transgress any of the rules or conventions that, like golf, must attach themselves to such refined activity, I waited respectfully for the huge wooden doors of the clubhouse to creak slowly open and issue me forth into the new world of discovery and pleasure that is the sport of spa.Layered in acres of toweling that I now realise is de rigueur for all competitors I felt it incumbent upon me to mention to the young lady who I assumed to be my spa caddie and who accompanied me through the grand but sluggishly opening doors, that perhaps a drop or two of oil might speed up the process and prevent a bit of a bottleneck if there was a sudden rush of competitors arriving at the gates all at the same time. I am not sure but I think it may have been my accent that made her glance at me with something of a vague expression.

However, mindful of the need to comply with whatever protocol spa’ers – if indeed that is the collective noun for those who spa – take for granted, I was given a quick tour of the pre-game rituals that must be an important part of the game. Possibly it was the experience of the doors but I soon cottoned on to a obvious tendency among spa-ers towards, shall we say, the slightly more measured approach. It became quickly clear that they lean heavily on an oriental penchant for doing things slowly utilising equipment that seems on the face of it to have a high propensity towards inflicting large and severe amounts of pain.

I didn’t like to raise the point but it did also appear to me that this particular spa, splendid as it undoubtedly was, seemed to suffer from ongoing illumination problems judging by the number of candles that were lit and scattered around the clubhouse. I enquired from one of the spa caddies if there were frequent interruptions in the electricity supply requiring back-up lighting at this sort of level but again I think the accent was a major factor in the second quizzical look I had had that morning.

Worried about missing my spa tee time (it was a bad week for that sort of thing at the AGM if you recall) I didn’t linger long among the machines or venture into the array of operating theatres that lined the corridors. Even I was taken aback by the high level of potential for injury that must be the lot of the dedicated spa-er judging by the medical facilities and support staff they keep in full-time attendance.

But I am very pleased to report that, like golf, this is a very healthy sport where diet is taken seriously. At first I couldn’t comprehend why efforts to elicit a large Kummel on ice as a sharpener before the main event were met with less than an enthusiastic response until I realised that milk is obviously the drink of choice among the ranks of the regular spa competitor. Such indeed is the consumption of milk among the great spa clubs that they have devised a novel way of storing it. They keep it in baths readily accessible for spa-ers during their warm-up period. However, I did feel they let themselves down a little by not having suitable utensils on hand for dispensing the milk or indeed suitable vessels from which to drink it. But there again every spa probably has its own rules and conventions on the matter.

Leaving the locker room I ventured into and entirely new world. Probably because of my strong traditional links background I felt immediately there was a little too much water on the practice ground for this to be considered an authentic links spa. A large round pond seemed to be the main gathering point for spa-ers warming up and where, rather amusingly I thought, they practised their spa swings mostly submerged and overseen by a young lady who I assumed to be the head spa pro and who, I quickly decided, was well qualified and clearly ‘fit’ in all departments.At the side of the pool she adopted what I assume was the classic spa stance, going through the moves swinging a couple of blue dumbbells probably the latest technology allowed under the Rules of the Royal and Ancient Spa Club who I assume administer the sport.It was, I have to say, an exceedingly well laid out practice facility. If I were critical at all it was perhaps in the feeling that there was too much in the way of carries over water although this is probably a reflection of the modern trend among spa course designers much in the same way, sadly, as it now is in golf.One thing that really did impress me, however, was what must have been one of the championship spa tees used for major championship spa events. It was splendidly set away from the main practice area in a small forest of palms under a sort of pagoda with interesting carvings that may have been “local rules”, although I couldn’t be sure and didn’t want to risk any further difficulty on the accent front.

But I couldn’t help feeling that this championship spa tee didn’t really get much play. Why else would there have been a large double bed in the centre of the playing area? Possibly it was there because of protracted waits between spa shots similar, I suppose, to the situation we often find on many German golf courses where a bed would be a sensible solution to the ongoing scourge of slow play. But I am not on the R & A Rules Committee and therefore couldn’t possibly comment.I felt it unwise to raise the question of the championship bed tee with my spa caddie mostly because of the fact that she had by this time left me. I speculated that she had been called away on candle duty after another of those sudden breaks in the power supply although I had no way of knowing for sure.

Sadly, with lunch waiting, I didn’t have the opportunity to witness the top spa-ers actually take to the field but I was sufficiently impressed by the build-up and the preparation around the clubhouse to appreciate how exciting this sport must be among the true aficionados.By this point I had come to feel a real member of the spa fraternity) and having spoken with a fellow spa-er who was probably an international player judging by the Swedish flag she wore on the left breast of her robe – possibly even a European Tour champion – I awakened to a new dawn.

I realized I was no longer a spa virgin and was already counting the days till I could go spa-ing once again.

Mount Teide

By Alan Hart
One intrepid group of writers headed off in safari-style jeeps to scale Spain’s highest mountain.
It seems bizarre that we there, off the west coast of Africa, catching a cable car up The Teide, which is described as “The highest peak in Spain.”

Yet Tinerfenos are insistent the Canary Islands are very much a part of Spain – “just like your Isle of Wight,” as our guide put it.
Those of us in the lead 4x4 had the benefit of hearing the story of a Shirley Valentine-style love affair in reverse.

Sixteen years ago Jose Francisco Diaz Luis, our driver, fell in love with an English tourist from Doncaster. He abandoned his life of constant sunshine in Tenerife for the dubious charms of south Yorkshire. Marriage and two children followed but there was no happy ending. Frankie, as he likes to be called, returned to his native island after a painful divorce. His British bride and their kids remain in Donny.

We left Frankie and his three co-drivers at the cable car, where we ascended to a height of 3,555 metres – 163 metres short of the summit. From there we could advance a few feet higher for photography purposes, but without a permit it isn’t possible to reach the top and peer over the volcano’s rim. I didn’t hear any reports of sightings of the 400 insects endemic to this World Heritage site, including the beetle known as Hegeter lateralis.

Botanists among us also failed to find the Teide violet, which lies underground and emerges for a few weeks to flower in spring.
But who can say it wasn’t just inches beneath our feet waiting to burst forth? Mount Teide last erupted in 1909, and it’s a well-worn joke among drivers and guides alike that it could blow again at any moment.

After the long descent from the mountain, our convoy stopped three miles short of Puerto de la Cruz for lunch at an atmospheric restaurant called Sabor Canario in the old town of La Orotova. We enjoyed tapas starters and soup in the open area of a converted 16th Century manor house. These were followed by platters of meat for the carnivores and spectacular mounds of salad for our veggies.

Whale watching in Tenerife

Tristan Rutherford took a short cruise

My tummy a twist of caffeine and nerves, I boarded ship for the whale watching activity. It wasn’t seasickness or the boyhood memory of Moby Dick I was worried about, rather the dread of conversing with worldly-wise travellers with decades of writing experience from the earth’s most exotic locations.

I needn’t have worried. Not only were my new colleagues uniformly lovely, but some Guild members had chosen to wear shorts. In my humble experience, when you whip out your knobbly knees, you tend to leave your ego at the door.

Better still, we soon learned that whale watching in Tenerife is a one-off experience. The island’s unique undersea topography makes it one of the few places in the world where one can see these enchanting animals year-round. Our hosts on board claimed a 90% whale-spotting success rate. This figure was reinforced by our first spume of whale breath off the ship’s bow. A whole pod of pilot whales drifted to the surface, like giant blue ice-cubes floating on a calm sea.

What entices these whales to stick around all year long? Like most intelligent mammals, explained our host, they know what’s good for them.

Firstly, the deep submerged valley between Tenerife and La Gomera makes a fine breeding ground and a safe haven for calves. Indeed, the trip’s highlight was seeing a baby pilot whale, itself a new addition of the colony’s 500 or so members, gambol to the service and stick its bulbous smiley head into the salty air.

Secondly, the local waters are jam-packed full of squid, the pilot whale’s principal snack. A peaceful spot with as much calamari as you can stomach? Perhaps they weren’t the only intelligent mammals sold on Tenerife.

With 25 of the world’s 78 sea mammal species represented, Tenerife’s local waters hold even more secrets. Dolphins are regular visitors, and it’s possible to spot migrating sperm and fin whales, depending on the season.

Our morning was topped off with a more reptilian vision. Part of our hosts’ aim is to create a protected micro-habitat in El Puertito bay, just a few kilometres north-east of Los Cristianos. This includes nurture of the seven sea turtles that call the bay their home. Seeing one of their number glide slowly to the surface was awe-inspiring.

Future visitors to Tenerife can get even closer to the action. For €60 they can help fund further conservation by partaking in an ocean bed ‘flyover’, a dreamy glide across the seafloor in the arms of a qualified diver. Sounds like heaven to me.