Tenerife By Bus

 My sister was out visiting for a week and, just to prove that Titsa buses can be used by all we went to Santa Cruz, Los Cristianos and El Medano. The final trip was up to Garachico through Iod de Vinos so that she could see the mountains and the forests too. After looking around the fort and the old town and lunch of course we hopped on the bus to Buenavista del Norte before returning to Icod and still had time to look around the church and its museum (which I missed last time) before catching the bus back home. Quite a day! No photos - she's shy. Back in Los Abrigos the Mariachi 'Chasna' entertained us all tonight (Saturday) courtesy of the council. I have added the photos to the Los Abrigos album and attached them here.

Bus routes: 470 [Los Cristianos] to Las Chafiras, 111 [Santa Cruz]. Return: 111 [Las Americas] to Las Chafiras then taxi to Los Abrigos. The year is 1797, the date is 25th July, it is the Feast of Santiago. The wooden houses of the town of Santa Cruz protected by a few small forts along the seafront are besieged by Admiral Nelson's fleet. A small contingent of local militias, civilians and 300 soldiers managed to ward off and defeat over 3000 trained seamen and marines of Admiral Nelson fleet as he attempted to take the city. It is the battle where he lost his arm and his (I believe) his only defeat. General Gutierrez treated wounded sailors and marines in the town hospital and, in honour of the fair and 

You may have seen on the news that large swathes of forest in southern Tenerife have been destroyed by fire which has been fought on the ground and in the air over the last week and, over the last couple of days, from the air. The skill and courage of these crews is to be admired as they fly continuously through the smoke just above the flames to help extinguish these fires. There were two planes performing circuits then landing at airport south to reload and refuel avoiding the scheduled flights as they went about their business. Several villages including Vilaflor, the highest village in Spain - see blog, have been evacuated and I hope that they can return to their home with minimum of damage soon. I took these photos from the end of the village near my apartment as the sun was setting. There are large tracts of smoke rather than cloud across the skyline and the aircraft lights can be seen as they circuit the fires. Probably best viewed as a slideshow. View my 'Fore...

Bus Routes: To Los Abrigos and fishing villages all over the island. There have been festivities taking place in fishing communities all over the island this weekend celebrating the 'Virgin del Carmen', patron saint of mariners. In Las Galletas down the coast it was celebrated in conjunction with their annual fiesta whilst here in Los Abrigos the weekend started on Friday evening with a 'Spectacular' including a magic show in the plaza. Over two hours of entertainment for the young and not so young! This was followed by 'Fiesta de la espuma', a foam party and games for the children on Saturday afternoon (no photos, I spent the afternoon in Las Galletas but it turned out that things didn't happen till the evening).

Bus Routes: 470[Granadilla] to El Medano, 116[Santa Cruz], 920 [Circum] to Military Museum stop ID 9355. Return: Any back to the bus station, 116[El Medano, Granadilla] to El Medano, 470[Los Cristianos] to Los Abrigos. Another interesting day out but again one which did not go quite according to plan. I caught the 470 in the direction of Granadilla with the intention of catching the 111 to Santa Cruz from San Isidro however; as we pulled up at the stop opposite the church in El Medano I could see the 116[Santa Cruz] coming up to the stop on the other side of the road. I hopped off and caught that one, another advantage of the 'Bono' ticket no extra charge. I arrived in Santa Cruz at about 11:40 and went down to the lower deck to catch the 920 round to the museum. As there wasn't a bus in the stand and I was feeling hungry I decided to visit the station cafe for brunch. A very tasty half a 'Tortilla Rellen' a potato omlete filled with cheese and ham, bread r...

Bus Routes: 470 from Granadilla or Los Cristianos, 480 from Las Americas or El Medano. No need for me to travel to this event, a gentle pounding heard during the morning proved to be the testing for the sound system being set up in the Los Abrigos plaza.

Bus Routes: 483[Los Cristianos, Las Americas Est], 460 [Guía Isora, Icod] to Icod, 363 [Buenavista]. Return: 383 [Icod, Puerto Cruz] to Icod, 460[Guía Isora, Las Americas Est] to Las Americas, 483[El Medano] to Los Abrigos. We are still having some rough seas around here so I hopped out for the 08:41 483 to Estación Las Americas having decided to complete another bus journey to see what is there, this time completing the route to the extreme north-west of the island, namely Buenavista del Norte. Because of the way the island lies we are at the south, Santa Cruz is way up the east coast then we have the north-east (which to me always seemed north) which we visited a while ago, the north is approximately where Puerto de La Cruz is which we have also visited then we have Buenavista del Norte at the extreme north-west. We have been on the bus journey as far as Garachico last November so this takes us up to the end of the line. Whilst passing through Santiago del Teide the 355 was wai...