best part of the day: what I did on my holidays

It has been over 2 years since we last went abroad. I had forgotten many of the charms and rituals involved, and deliberately blanked the memories of just how appalling it can be to travel budget. The return flight was far more civilised than the bridal-hen-party-drunken-football-fans mayhem of the flight there, so that made life easier when we returned on Thursday. It was still the best part of 11 hours of airports and covid passenger locator forms and wearing a mask for pretty much all of it.

However I am here to show you a few photos taken in the last few days, not complain about cheap air travel. Although here is a quick tip while fresh in my memory: if the holiday company bus transfers you to the airport 3 full hours before your flight, the most comfortable seats, the ONLY comfortable seats (in which to spend 2.5 hours waiting for your 4.5 hours flight) are in the bar. When they ask what size of beer you want - get the biggest. This will act as a basic anaesthetic for much of the next few hours. Unless you are a seasoned traveller more than one is not advised as you may inadvertently trigger the fight or flight response.

We stayed in the north of Tenerife far away from the hotels full of the stag and hen parties, and trash getting sunburned while hungover. Although there are hundreds of hotel rooms along the North coast there are also older towns and villages with cultures and traditions and people who have made lovely places to live and visit. It was a delight this trip to find Garachico, a small and very scenic town which made both Mary and I think ohhh! I wonder how we organise ourselves to stay here next trip?

We also saw and photographed birds and butterflies we hadn't seen before. The hoopoe on day 2 was the highlight of this trip, although there were at least 2 other encounters with the same or another, all be it a bit more distant. And parakeets! They are easily missed because they live high in palms and are not very easy to spot there - until you start to look. And listen out for them. We changed our route into town to check out the parakeet palms and often spotted a couple.

A few days before the flight home there was a properly sunny day and we hadn't anything planned. The advantage of 2 weeks away is you don't feel compelled to spend every minute going places and seeing the sights. So we just got up and out with cameras and went for a walk round a few of the best local spots for butterflies and birds. It turned out to be one of the best days of the holiday and we got pretty lucky with the wildlife.

canarian chiffchaff

African grass blue

First up was the Alf Tupper running track coined by Colin and Joan who had flagged this up as a favourite spot for butterflies as well as laps of the track. When I google-earthed it before we left (so I could see how near our apartment it was and how best to get there), it looked a bit dry and desolate.

However the more time I spent there, the more I liked it. Colin had even specified a bush to check for Long tailed blues and African Grass Blues both species I had never found in Tenerife. No Long tailed blues and I wondered if they were seasonal. I always took a moment or 2 at the magic bush but never saw anything exotic there. Colin had had a good haul of exotic Lycaenidae (blue and similar) at the end of the year here. We only saw some Geranium Bronze at the track and African Grass Blues near the track down the street a bit.

AGB underwing

white circle surrounds hammer mid-throw

I was impressed to see how much the track was used. A couple of occasions when we were there, it was being used by people for hammer throwing. (Other than that mostly just 2 or 3 individuals jogging.) We wondered if it would be safe to wander around the butterfly bits then quickly realised the throwers were really skilled and we were in no danger. There was also a covered workout area where blokes lifted stuff and did pull ups. I ran several interval sessions round the track which was a combination of a bit rocky, a bit lumpy and soft in places! There was a good back straight of firm cinder track. I'm guessing it was 400m but it wasn't quite the traditional shape having something of a bulge on the East side. One tempo lap took about 85 seconds. Could I do 4 laps in 6 minutes? First attempt I did quite a few laps before going for 4 and failed at 6.12. Yikes, since when did 6minute miling (my half marathon pb pace) become that hard?

On the next session I ran to the track - not easy on busy streets while wearing a mask - then just did one warm-up lap before going for the mile. 5.53. But it was a near death experience. On the next session it was very humid and I only managed 5.57. I regard this as the beginning of the journey back to fitness. With a LOT of work to do.

Meanwhile back at the track there were birds and butterflies. Speckled woods and whites were the most numerous with chiffchaffs and dragonflies to look out for as well.

I'm not sure what this dragonfly is. The wide body suggests a skimmer of some sort, and I was thinking a female epaulet skimmer but the back end looks male. Clearly I am no expert. If anyone knows I'd be interested to hear what it is. I got bored googling through a list of all Canary Islands odonata.

As we were leaving the running track we saw several monarchs over the other side of the Barranco de San Felipe. These barrancos are dry ravines or gorges that exist to presumably funnel flash floods from the mountains through the coastal towns without washing them away. The scale of them is huge. While we were there there were a few heavy rain showers but the barrancos remained dust dry. Given it was winter I wondered when these barrancos get innundated. But was fairly glad it wasn't when we were there. They were also treated like waste ground so could be a bit grotty in places - think litter and dog poop. But I was glad the local species list did not contain biting spiders, scorpions and snakes, as I would wander about them looking at distant butterflies and not at what I was wading through.

Anyway you can spot monarchs from 1/4 mile away and we wandered over to find 4 or 5 dancing about some red leaved shrubs. The barrancos also attract kestrels of which there are loads. They seemed to nest in palm trees and sit on lampposts and high perches, hovering over grassy waste ground. Further down the barranco we saw a suspiciously new monarch sat on the grass. It still had an oily blue sheen around the wings and they don't normally sit on the grass. We got close for photos but then it flew away an unchaseable distance.

Next we headed West along the coast. First up was the flowering hedges along the roadside opposite the Loro Parque. One of the few places we have seen Canarian Red Admirals, although none there today. There was a monarch or 2 posing for photos. This is the main road so not the most relaxing place for a photoshoot but the yellow and pink flowers on the hedges there attract a good amount of butterflies.

Further on and the flowers outside a hotel attracted a couple of monarchs.

pollen face!

top banana

Then beyond the Hotel Maratim which feels like the far point of Puerto de la Cruz before the road heads steeply up into the next wee town. We drop down the coastal footpath and climb dirt trails next to banana plantations. This green canary was sat up on the top of a banana tree looking like king of the hill.

We followed the trail past the spot I'd seen the hoopoes in the orchard. Sadly no hoopoes there or anywhere. We continued to a road that had access into this terraced wasteland. There are several places where what was previously terraced farmland has been allowed to deteriorate into public wasteground. Some not so public. It becomes a great place for wildlife and only visited by dogwalkers and folk like us. Mary found a place to sit and do a duolingo lesson while I hiked through the grasses looking for luckies. Just as we arrived Mary spotted a hoopoe which flew up onto a cable then back down to the grass where it was hunting for grubs and insects. It didn't hang around much and flew off in the direction of one we had seen leaving the scene earlier. Kestrels regularly coasted along checking for mice and voles no doubt.

and there were dozens of speckled woods

This was one of the more bizarre things. Like a lot of terraced farmland there was a stone or concrete water channel running through the fields. Irrigation is a primary concern in such a hot dry place. This miniature canal was running along the top of a terrace and you could hear the water shushing below the stone slabs. However in a spot where one of the top slabs was missing you could see the water and to my great surprise there was a decent sized goldfish in it. There are a lot of ponds with carp and goldfish in them but I was not expecting this.

old and new

On the way back I saw this splendid Vanessa vulcania. It was neither flighty nor terribly obliging and kept wandering away from the camera, or turning its back. The contrast between fluffy white flowers and mostly black butterfly was tricky but impressive. I took dozens of photos and it eventually flew off.

We had a couple of days of hazy cooler weather. It turned out to be the calima, a fine orange dust that blows in from the sahara. Not as gritty as sand - you can't feel it on your teeth or in your breath (when running) - but in the sunlight you can see it on the tops of cars.

Back near Hotel Maritim and this monarch (the same one) flew about still interested in these orange flowers. It wasn't too bothered by us taking loads of photos quite close up. The green wall of the hotel made a fantastic background for the orange butterfly, a nearly perfect specimen.

I had noticed this shoreline walk off the main road.
The drops to the sea were mildly terrifying but made for dramatic photos.

collared dove

what???

This statue of local artist and sculptor Angel Acosta Martin (Jalo) (?)
reminded me of R Fiennes playing M Gustave H (inset) in Grand Hotel Budapest.

If there are awards for best back of a building it should go to this lovely curve. I thought it was rusting corrugated iron but as you get closer it reveals itself to be weathered slats (3 per length) of wood pinned into a graceful sail shape. (Appropriate for harbour area.) The other side is disappointingly ordinary and it is some artisinal craftsthingy shed I couldn't be bothered reading about. But hey! nice back!

We saw this bottle of red and had to get it. Over the course of 2 weeks we drank wine (and beer) every evening. Or I did, Mary slightly less. The first bottle was the complimentary bottle from the hotel and I think we noticed the price tag was about €1.8. Each bottle was slightly more expensive and the butterfly rioja (bottle number 5) was around €5.9, the most expensive and most flavourful. We were fairly moderate with eating and drinking. In fact we cooked our own meals every night and never ate dinner out once. I know this sounds a little parsimonious but we really enjoyed buying interesting stuff at the supermarket and then cooking it up "at home". We were really there for the sunshine and photographs and not to throw money at restaurants and bars. Only thing we never found was decent hot chillies. There were packs of dried spices promising to be spicy and bottles of piquant sauce but we didn't find anything to give a hot chili pepper flavour to our food.

On the last day the weather was less than fabulous so we just went for a wander locally. We also packed rain jackets. A storm blew over and we got some rain but missed any kind of downpour although it looked from the clouds that this was a possibility.

storm clouds over Mt. Teide

kestrels still flying

In the high tropical heat we thought we might be on for a storm
but it passed over fairly quickly and the cameras came back out.

we were in this area looking again for the clouded yellow seen here
but alas no sign

speckled wood at the running track

speckled woodbine

barranco de san felipe

We took a different route back to the hotel. There were plenty different streets to see and views of buildings to keep us entertained. We never tired of the flamboyant tropical trees and shrubs and even if butterflies weren't in attendance, the plants and architecture gave us plenty to point the cameras at. We chatted about the architecture of hotels and which ones were most appealing, and which colours on buildings were a success, which less so. I think the bright sunlight encourages a more dynamic or stronger colour choice for buildings. Or maybe the people are just a bit more vibrant than the dour Scots. We certainly enjoyed the variety of exterior colours used all over the island. Although there were scruffy areas most of the touristy parts were well maintained. And when it is gloriously sunny, even the scruffy areas have a certain relaxed charm.

All in all a brilliant holiday. The purpose was to escape the Scottish Winter and retreat to a friendly destination boasting t-shirts and shorts weather for a relaxing fortnight of hiking and photos. This more than ticked that box and we will almost certainly be doing the same again next year. I hated the travelling (although the return journey was easier going than the outward) but it is worth it for 2 weeks of bliss. Travelling around was easy on the excellent Titsa bus service.

We saw lots of interesting wildlife but I suspect it changes around quite a bit. Barbary Partridges; lots on the first few days then NONE for the rest of the holiday. Vanessa Vulcania appeared from time to time but rarely/never when searched for. Colin saw quite a different set of butterflies in Nov/Dec than we did in late January. There was some overlap and it is difficult to assess if it is just luck or species specific months. Certainly we had some lucky encounters. Last time I believe we saw about 9 species of butterfly in 1 week. This time it was 11 in 2, although we only saw 1 decent painted lady (+ 2 knackered ones) and only 1 small copper. It is great to have seen the complete list of all butterflies (at the mariposaria) for Tenerife although that has now sparked my interest in seeing quite a few more of the 25 species. Suspect I'd have to travel here in different months or go to specific places.

On that note there are lots of places we didn't get to this time - Masca, Los Gigantes and Mt Teide to name but three of the more spectacular. So there is plenty left to explore and dozens of routes in the Rother Guide to choose from. Mary has been idly looking at prices of flights ever since we got back. Now she is retired from the NHS she has more freedom to travel.

Meanwhile it's back to work and back to run training. I did some running but not much in Tenerife. Enough to lose some of the belly but still loads of work to do. Watch this space for progress one way or the other. And to finish this report a few pics out the compact camera which was employed when the bridge camera was not out. And when I was running at the track.