Karen had been to the Apartmentos Poblado in Los Gigantes a few months before with Al, a resident of Duton Hill and a guy she'd been seeing. She thought it was perfect for our first girlie holiday so she booked it and we paid her our share.
We were supposed to fly out on the evening of Friday 9th May but on arriving at Stansted airport our flight wasn't showing on any screens "this does not bode well" were the immortal words uttered by Karen, and she was right. Due to a technical fault our plane hadn't returned from Tenerife and wouldn't until the early hours of tomorrow. It was terribly disappointing as I had almost made myself sick with excitement and now we had to go home and come back tomorrow.
However, the good thing with living 10 minutes from the airport meant we didn't have to find a hotel, we just got a cab back to Duton Hill. The look of panic on Derek's face when the taxi pulled up outside the pub was priceless (and almost worth the delay!), he looked panicked thinking he'd got shut of me for a week. He came rushing out, shoved £60 in my hand and told us to go into Dunmow and have a meal, so we off loaded our suitcases and didn't give him a second thought as we went off for a slap up meal in Kim's, the Chinese in Dunmow. Cheers!
Early the next day we were back at the airport and this time all was well, and we flew out of Stansted on time and landed in Tenerife late morning. Karen had organised a hire-car and drove us to the resort. We had a very speedy look round the apartment (which over-looked the harbour & gorgeous blue sea), opened our cases, changed into cossies, or in Karen's case a banana-skin doubling as a thong, (honestly, I had never seen anything so small!), grabbed sarongs & suncream and headed over the road to the pool where we stayed for the next few hours!
The next day we sunbathed again around the pool. Karen told me to put suncream on everything including the soles of my feet, she reckoned that as I couldn't feel the bottoms of my feet I wouldn't know if they were getting hot so putting cream on them would stop them burning, it sounded like a good plan to me so I slapped it on.
A while later Mel and I headed round the fixed gravel path surrounding the pool and got in to cool off. I lay on my back and floated along, staring at the gorgeous blue sky listening to the kids playing and people laughing, imagining the cocktails when Mel suddenly screamed "Jesus Christ Gill. What have you done to your feet?!" I splashed & flailed about trying to get up and on close inspection there appeared to be no skin on the soles of both my feet!
The suncream & heat must have softened the skin and the walk on the gravel had rubbed the skin clean off. Mel looked horrified, Karen came running and they both hoiked me out of the pool and bought a Spanish first-aider over to see me.
As I can't feel my feet (as has been mentioned), it didn't hurt and I found the whole situation and the amount of flappery that Mel & Karen were doing quite comical, Karen just gave me a withering look. The lovely Spanish man patched me up and gave me some dressings and that was that. I hobbled off arm in arm with the others in search of much needed cocktails!
The next couple of days were taken up with shopping, lazing and eating, and this was when I discovered my absolute love for garlic prawns! We went on a drive up to Mount Teide and also on a dolphin watching trip out at sea, where the crew took a bit of a shine to Karen and let her drive the boat (she didn't really but she doesn't know that!!)
So, sitting on a packed beach with typical 'Brits' and eating a McDonald's for lunch having spent the week eating gorgeous Spanish food wasn't my idea of a good laugh and I was feeling decidedly grumpy!
Our flight wasn't until late so come evening time we managed to find a Spanish restaurant to eat in which made for a happier & less grumpy Gill! Everything was groovy until my bag started to leak so I rushed off to find the loo. And find it I did. It was a pokey, dirty room the size of a wardrobe with a toilet but no sink.
I looked around, the toilet was disgustingly dirty as was the floor, so much so that I didn't want to sit down or touch anything, if I'd been able to hover I would have done.
But time was against me and I had to get my bag changed so I somehow managed to prop myself against the corner of the wall and the door putting as little of my being on any surface as I could and once balanced I changed my bag standing on tip-toes (not easy with my feet). I was like some sort of crazed ninja, hands going everywhere and as little as possible touching the surfaces, then I got out of there as quickly as possible before I actually stuck to the floor - eeeuuuurrrgggghhh **shudder**
Tenerife-ey 1999
On 11th June 1999 the 3 of us again headed of to the Apartmentos Poblado in Los Gigantes on Tenerife. Our apartment was in the main block this time and didn't overlook the harbour - booooo. The views of the harbour and the pool/natural pool were as lovely as last year though and we spent the first few days sunbathing, eating, drinking & having a good old laugh.This year Melanie had brought along her driving licence as Karen really just liked lying in the sun and didn't really want to be off doing day trips, I couldn't drive the hire car as it wasn't an automatic so it fell to Mel to be chauffeur.
So on our 4th day Mel and I went off in the car armed with a map and my blue parking badge. We had a lovely couple of hours driving round the island, stopping for something to eat and eventually parking up in the town of La Oratava, where everyone seemed to be preparing for the festival of Corpus Christi tomorrow.
The town hall in La Oratava where they were getting ready for the festival. That 'drawing' on the floor was made of sand, we watched some of the artists creating floor art, verrrry clever.
Back on the road and with me navigating Mel thought herself brave enough to try a Tenerifian motorway and we approached the slip road. We discovered that Tenerife slip roads are roughly about the length of a car (eeeeeekk!) and a small car at that, which we weren't expecting at all. Neither was the lorry which we almost disappeared under as we entered the motorway. He wasn't for moving over and we didn't have the time to stop. With a fair bit of eventually breaking by him and Mel's clever swerving we eventually arrived on the motorway snugly positioned behind him; just. Mel looked at me and I looked at her. "How far to the next exit, I don't like this" she said and we came off the motorway never to darken another one during our stay!
Mel having a well deserved rest and drink after her motorway ordeal!!
A couple of days later with Karen still glued to the sunbed and browning nicely Mel and I booked ourselves on another dolphin watching trip which was leaving from the harbour not far from our apartment. The little boat was full with excited people and as it motored out sea (quite far out as it happened) dolphins were spotted and quite a bit of time was spent 'watching' them. On the way back to Los Gigantes the boat stopped in Masca Bay so people could get off and swim in the gorgeous blue sea which Mel did. As it came time to set off again it became apparent that something was wrong and our Captain announced that the boat wouldn't start but it was ok as another boat was coming to tow us. It became very hot very quickly as when moving the sea breeze cools the heat of the sun but sitting out here in the middle of the ocean we were very quickly aware of the heat.
The rescue boat arrived in due course and towed us back to the harbour.
Back in Los Gigantes as we pulled up along side the harbour wall I realised we had a problem. When we'd got on the boat it had been level with the harbour but now as we'd been severely delayed getting back the tides had changed and the boat was about 1 foot lower than the path. I told Mel that I wasn't sure how I was going to get off so we decided to hang back til last.
Look how far down the boat is!!!
We watched two strapping Spanish men reaching down and helping the passengers by hoiking them out. I knew I wouldn't be able to do the same as I didn't have the leg power to help & thought myself too heavy to be 'hoiked' and I'd be mortified if someone had to wedge their hands under my bottom and push me!
When it came to our turn, I went first and told Mel that under no circumstances was anyone to push from below. I explained best I could to the Spaniards and I think they understood so they ushered another man over, a very, very good looking younger man with shoulder length hair and lovely looks.
Great now I had to ungainly get off a boat with a stunning bloke watching. He instructed me through a kind of broken Spang-Lish to hold the backs of his upper arms tightly which I did and he held the back of mine too and the other 2 guys held on to him. I was mortified to see we were attracting a little crowd of people, most of whom were offering help but I bet were secretly itching to see us all land in a heap in the boat. The gorgeous Spaniard looked right into my eyes, tightened his grip on my arms and said "1, 2, 3 - aley! aley!" and started to pull me and up I went.
Oh no! Half way up my hands started to slip down his arms so I did the only thing I could, I dug my nails into the backs of his arms to keep a grip and he finally pulled me out but he had a sort of twisted, pained expression on his face although he was trying to smile politely as I thanked him for his help. He couldn't speak, bless 'im, he just kept nodding and backing away!
Mel & I laughed all the way back to Karen who said she hadn't realised we'd been gone so long and when we explained all about our excellent adventures, she just lay back down, put her sunglasses on and called us a 'bloody shower'. We ordered cocktails!
That night we had a last gorgeous meal at one of our favourite restaurants down on the harbour and then Karen drove us to the airport for our late flight home.
The next installment... I start my love affair with Greece....
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