What better way to celebrate the 30 th birthday of TITSA, the Tenerife government owned public bus company, than with a trip on one of their trusty steeds to the main bus station in the capital, Santa Cruz, to join in the party.

The name TITSA is derived from Transportes Interurbanos de Tenerife and in their 30 year history their buses have covered 1,000 million kms, that’s 36.5 million kms a year, and while I’m wheeling out the stats, they have 1,700 staff and 604 buses.

Gripping my Bono, multi journey ticket, I caught the 110 direct bus from Los Cristianos to Santa Cruz, and just an hour and 4.45 euros later, we glided into the top tier of the main station, caught between the shadow of the high rise Corte Ingles super store, and the hook nosed auditorium. If you are not already aware, I’m a big fan of the Tenerife bus service, pretty reliable and at your service 365 days a year, it is my magic carpet to many remote and bizarre places. Not only do they run on christmas day and all Canarian holidays, they also put on specail extras for events like Carnaval and last Fridays Gloria Estafan concert, on the outskirts of the capital.

The bus station had a big revamp a few years ago to allow the front to house one terminal of the new tram service. The top tier now has the stops for the island wide services, the second is home to those serving the capital and it’s outlying district, and the ground floor is split between a large underground car park and the main concourse. This main area is bright and airy due to high glass windows on all sides, and has a pretty decent cafe area that does tapas and main meals. In the centre of the open area I found the promised birthday exhibition.

Not quite what I expected, a series of large stacked cubes with scenes of the companies history depicted on all the faces, no birthday cake or champers - shame, maybe they are just modest. The Tenerife government are weighing in with their own birthday present, 150 million euros between now and 2012. It will be used for new buses, new routes, increased frequencies, new stops and new bus lanes, this Wednesday 45 new environmentally friendly buses will be presented to TITSA - pity the councillor that has to gift wrap that lot.

With no sign of any party hats or jelly and ice cream, I thought it best to head off exploring, then I remembered a sculpture exhibition at Casa de la Cultura, that I had intended to look at earlier in its September long run. After taking the tram to Teatro Guimera for some food and drink, I sussed out that 2 streets back and just up Calle Miraflores, I could catch a 026 bus up to the north of Santa Cruz to Parque la Granja and the library cum exhibition hall on the corner. Built in 1995, said the plaque, but the building looked old and a bit neglected, after a quick look in the vast and well equipped library I followed the signs down the stairs to the Sala La Granja and the large plain white room where Vision de Genero (vision of gender) by local sculptor Rosa Hernandez was on display.

The 12 female figures splayed in their death throes on the floor, oozed small pools of sand to represent blood and were certainly haunting and different. With my culture quota satisfied, I headed back down into the heart of Santa Cruz, past the altogether more cheery Parque la Granja, well kept and speckled with joggers and students. Passing the heart warming sight of CD Tenerife’s ground below me, and crossing Barranco Santos, I was soon at La Paz for a quick snack before heading down to the Plaza de España and back to the bus station.

The new trams struck a nice contrast with the TITSA buses swarming into the station, and there is even a specially decorated tram for the TITSA birthday. Maybe in just under 29 years, the trams will have their own 30th birthday to mark, in the meantime I shall raise a beer to the jolly green buses, many happy returns.

If you don’t like young, fit, nubile bodies, you best skip this posting, if however you do, DING DONG, as Leslie Phillips would say. The beautiful people are getting ready to take centre stage in Santa Cruz for the 2008 editions of Mr and Miss Tenerife, 68 of the finest and fittest, and top live music too including Spain’s 2007 Eurovision boy band D’Nash.

The shows take place on Friday September 26, for Mr Tenerife, and Saturday 27 September, for Miss Tenerife, both starting at 9pm at Castillo Negro, the old sea fort next to the hook nosed auditorium, a 4,000 plus crowd is expected each night.

Friday sees the 34 men strut their stuff, and as with the ladies the following night, they have 3 chances to impress, in swim wear, casual and evening wear. The music will be supplied by Danyssel and D’Nash, who were elected to fly the colours for Spain at Helsinki in Eurovision 2007. The 4 piece, singing I Love You Mi Vida, finished 20th, just behind a tap dancing ferret and a group of monks that had taken a vow of silence. Despite, or maybe because of that, they have prospered and it will be an emotional return for one of the boys, Mikel, who is from Santa Cruz.

On to Saturday and the chaps may be tempted out of the bars to see who is crowned Miss Tenerife. There should be strong competition for this one, as last years winner, Patricia Rodriquez (pic) , went on to become Miss Spain this March, and in November she jets off to South Africa hoping to add the Miss World title to her collection. Music will be provided by Nicky and Pignoise, if you bear in mind that each night the 34 contestants appear 3 times and there are 2 acts to perform, you will realise that the shows will go on into the early hours. Good luck to all the hopefuls, may your smiles never fade.

Would it ever open? Well Siam Park, the water kingdom in Costa Adeje, Tenerife had its official inauguration tonight, and opens to the public on Wednesday at 10 am. So was it worth the wait? the short answer is yes, as long as you want to get involved , there are no shows or vast displays of animals to watch like in Loro Park, but It will definately appeal to the younger visitor looking for some wet and wild fun.

It was 6 months since my tour of the unfinished park so it was good to see the parking areas all surfaced and in use. The approach road from Las Americas, over the TF1 motorway was heavily manned by police and even arriving early, I could see a crowd had built up outside the entrance. The frontage is very imposing, with grand towers, and lions on plinths, the attention to detail comes through in the form of cracks in the wall for an aged effect.

The 4 open topped double deckers, painted in the Siam Park livery, were ferrying dignitaries and well heeled guests in at regular intervals as we all waited around the red carpet for the Princess of Thailand to arrive. Nearly an hour later the Bishop of Tenerife blessed the park, the Princess cut the floral ribbon and we surged through the gates to be met by a large display of flowers and the sea lion pool beyond it. The wave of suits and evening dresses set off around the park, some of the ladies soon regretted those high heels on the first slatted bridge.

The park is visually stunning from the lazy river burbling along, to the bright and vibrant designs of the 14 water rides, particularly the dragon, the 28 metre high tower of power and the giant. A group of local youngsters had been invited in to try some of the rides and they dutifully screamed, as they hurled themselves down the slides to emerge in splash pools with a lifeguard waiting to ensure their safe landing.

There have been compromises over the last few months, the slide from the tower of power was originally going to send the rider through a pool of crocodiles, in a sealed plastic tube, the pool now has fish which you can view through the glass windows as the human torpedo whizzes through. Also the lazy river was to have had a series of boats allowing a leisurely cruise around the park, but it is now for swimming, with a series of flotation aids for swimmers and non swimmers to go with the flow. This removes the main attraction for parents etc who don’t want to get a soaking, there are of course 5 bars and restaurants, but they aint included in the price.

Dragging myself out of bed every morning for my 9 am pool swim is sometimes hard going, depending on the night befores Dorada intake. Now I have a new inspiration to put my efforts into perspective. Jose Brito and Miguel Cruz set off from El Medano yesterday, to swim around the coast of Tenerife, covering 250 kms in 10 daily stages. The mammoth swim is to promote sport on behalf of Granadilla de Abona and to draw attention to the councils Costa Limpia, cosatal clean up campaign.

The 2 men are doing this unpaid, and have put in months of training, averaging 15 kms per day. Both have a strong swimming pedigree which should serve them well in the challenging days ahead. Jose Brito swam from San Sebastian, La Gomera to Los Cristianos in 2004, and also that year he swam from Lanzarote to Fuerteventura. Cruz has won gold 3 times at 800 metres freestyle in the Spanish national championships, has been in the World top ten for 1,500 metres.

The dolphin like pair set off from El Medano at 10am yesterday with a 5pm scheduled arrival 25kms later at Los Cristianos. They will be shadowed on their swim by 2 boats taking turns, each with 2 crew. The full schedule is as below.

Fri. 12 El Medano to Los Cristianos, 25 kms, 6.25 hours

Sat.13 Los Cristianos to Punta de Teno, Buenavista, 38 kms, 9.50 hours

Sun.14 Punta de Teno to Garachico, 25 kms, 6.25 hours

Mon.15 Garachico to Puerto de la Cruz, 24 kms, 6.30 hours

Tues.16 Puerto de la Cruz to El Pris, Tacaronte, 17 kms, 4.50 hours

Weds.17 El Pris to Taganana, 26 kms, 7.25 hours

Thurs.18 Taganana to Las Teresitas, Santa Cruz, 23 kms, 6.30 hours

Fri.19 Las Teresitas to Candelaria, 25 kms, 6.25 hours

Sat.20 Candelaria to Fasnia, 18 kms, 4.10 hours

Sun.21 Fasnia to El Medano, 26 kms, 7.10 hours

I don’t know about you, but i’m knackered just looking at the route. God speed to both of them and please let them have calm seas and helpful currents.

Well the good news is that Los Cristianos old beach is open again for swimming, after a 2 day E-Coli scare, the bad news is it’s the latest in a running series of possible health  problems around Tenerife beaches.

The sea by the old beach tends to be a bit oily due to the amount of boats moored up just outside the line of marker buoys, but on Monday a routine public health check on water quality, found a raised level of E-Coli bacteria in the water, and on Thursday the shoreline was closed to the public. E-Coli is a fecal (that’s pooh to you and me)  bacteria that can cause sickness, several beaches around Tenerife have suffered from what the authorities politely call Aqua Fecales or Aqua Negra, basically sewage in the water. Only a week ago, the Varadero beach at Las Galletas was closed due to leaks from a broken old sewage pipe, this resulted in several dead fish. 

Swimming at the Los Cristianos old beach was to be suspended until next Monday, but yesterday, after a lot of complaints from local business’s, the water was declared safe again and the warning signs taken down. Further tests will hopefully show what caused the raised levels of bacteria, but in the meantime, the political row continues.

I went down to take some pics of the re-opened beach today and further round by the ferry port, I noticed a lovely stream of brown liquid dribbling out of a pipe, just near where the fisihng boats gather, it may well have been harmless, but i wasn’t tempted to take a taste.

Switch your thoughts to Santa Cruz in the north, and  all eyes the last few days have been on some leaking Cepsa oil pipes by the old Castillo Negro, just along from the auditorium and more worryingly just by the Parque Maritimo lido. Critics say the liquid has traces of petrol but Cepsa maintain that it is a harmless mix of salt and water. APNUM, the environmental protection agency for urban and national areas, is looking into the leak and intends to make a full report about the exact content of the liquid.

Seperate cases in seperate areas but they all highlight a concern about what is being pumped out into the sea. For publicity purposes, many would prefer to just ignore these all too frequent worries, but every year Greenpeace Spain mentions the black spots around Tenerife, maybe one day someone will tackle the problem. Personally, I still swim in the sea every day, and normally it is lovely, but I will give a wide berth to any brown fish heading for me.

March 17, that was the day I was shown around Siam Park, the water kingdom theme park in Costa Adeje, that was already well over a year late to open. There was clearly quite a bit left to do, none of the rides were ready to board, although I did get to go to the top of the Tower of Power, where a workman was still on all fours cementing the tower edging. I was quite happy to report the stated May 1 opening date, but that soon came and went.

Now the headlines in the local press are proudly announcing the September 15 official inauguration of the park, complete with guest of honour, the Princess of Thailand. Sadly it’s another false dawn, the inauguration is behind closed doors for dignitaries, politicians etc and it will not signal the opening to the public. Given the usual vague nature of the latest press release, I contacted the press department to clarify things and got a reply saying “We are planning on doing a soft opening after the inauguration ceremony and then open to the public. We will notify when we have an exact date.”

The soft opening is the vital testing period by invited parties of people, ticket sales agents, tour operators etc, to try out the facilities. No matter how good any plans are, there are always practical problems once in use, in the building trade they always have to deal with a “snagging list” of such problems, once a place is in use.Until that hurdle is jumped, there can be no proper opening date, if the soft opening discovers problems, then there could be even more delay.

It’s not good for the image of Tenerife, holiday makers that felt let down at not being able to visit Siam Park, are now coming back for their next holiday and finding it still “nearly ready” you would think someone might be keen to recoup some of the 55 million euros (Siam Parks figure) it has cost to build.Oh well, roll on christmas.

You can tell the year has sped by, when the annual Pinolere craft show gears up for three days of tasty history, high up above Puerto de la Cruz, in the foothills of the La Orotava valley. This year will be the 23rd annual show and it runs from Friday September 5 to Sunday September 7.

So what’s the big attraction, I have been to 4 of the last 5, basically its a combination of the setting and the large concentration of every food, craft and ancient art that the Canary Islands can muster. The village has about 700 inhabitants and all year they keep alive the old skills and trade the cereals and products they make, but the annual show is a chance to throw open the doors to around 40,000 people over the 3 days.

One of the big regular events of the show, is the International Cestoria competition, thats basket weaving to you and me. Last year this and the other stalls attracted entrants from 30 countries among the 128 exhibitors. I always find it a challenge to see how much home made cheese, biscuits, cake, wine and sweets I can get through, well it’s all cheap and cheerful. Follow that up with some beer and traditional meat and potatoes or sweetcorn, and the day flows nicely. My only dissapointment was finding that the making of the famous La Palma cigars didn’t involve rolling them on the thighs of young Canarian women.

The showground covers 10,000 square metres in several layers of terraced hillside below the majestic pine forest, topped with low cloud. If the sun breaks through, it can be gorgeous, but otherwise a spare layer of clothing is a good idea. Good news this year, Titsa, the green national bus company, are running shuttle buses from La Orotava bus station. As is the way out here, timings are a bit flaky, sort of every hour, but be a bit flexible, at least there are some nice cafes at the bus station. As for driving, it is sign posted up from Puerto de la Cruz, and you can’t argue at 2.50 euros to get in.

Even out here in the land of sunshine the credit crunch is biting, and coupled with the dwindling number of tourists, the euro is under pressure. But hold on, who is that wrinkly looking savior, leaping to the rescue? it’s our old friend the pesata, gone but not forgotten, it is now being used to prop up struggling business’s.

A dry cleaners, Tintoreria Avenida,  in Las Palmas, Gran Canaria has started accepting pesatas, and customers are taking the bait. The Euro was brought in just over 6 years ago, amid a lot of wailing and gnashing of teeth, but Banco España will still convert pesatas into euros, but you have to have a decent amount. The bank estimates that there is still a staggering 1,778 million euros worth of pesatas out there, made up of 950 million in notes and the rest in coins.

Even now, quite a few Spanish products and services have the euro and pesata price shown, and many older citizens refer back to pesatas to guage how much something is in “real money”. A lot of people blame the introduction of the euro for prices going up, but some business owners chose to round up prices out of greed, while others did a straight conversion.

All this could be to come for the UK one day, then maybe spending a penny will become known as euro-nating. Although there are a few other places in mainland Spain that will take the pesata, it’s a gimmick and the Pios of Gran Canaria seem to have embraced the euro, they don’t mind using them as missiles to throw at Tenerife fans in the derby games.

Still, it might be worth while diving down the back of your sofa, to see if you can find a Fistful Of Pesatas, someone must have the missing ones. Just a thought, if shops are going to open up to other currency, I have some UK change I can try and pass off, and maybe those 1970 Esso World Cup coins could buy me a few bottles of Dorada.

It must be a good sign that big companies are ready and willing to plough large sums of money into Tenerife developments, I wonder if they allow a few extra months as standard for delays here, or do they have supreme faith, only to end up pulling their hair out with the rest of us.

Yesterday I went to see the new Tenerife Top Training sports centre just above La Caleta, according to the website, open in June. I trekked up the hill at the side of Golf Costa Adeje, into a heartland of building sites for various projects. Director Carlos Paulsen gave me a thorough guided tour of the site, with our hard hats on, and although the main parts are finished, there is still a lot of work to do before the late August opening of the doors to the public.

The 2 outdoor pools and surrounding area are not only finished but have the lane dividers and blocks in place. The main pool is the Olympic size 50 metres, and the other is half that size, down below, indoors is a therapy and training pool where cameras film swimmers going against a water flow, treadmill style, to be analysed for state of the art bio mechanics.

The football pitches are floodlit, one is grass and the other artificial, they look about ready, but the walkways down to them are a bit of an assault course at the moment, until all the cement work is done. Inside the main building, there are various gyms, changing rooms and physio facilities. It looks good, i just hope they can complete it pretty quick, we don’t need another Siam Park type delay. For a more detailed report, see www.discovercostaadeje.com another of the Sorted Sites commercial websites I copy write for.

As I was in the area, I decided it was time for another visit to the fishing village of La Caleta. It’s a very lovely place where a range of tasty fish reataurants hug the coastline, and large slabs of eroded rock form great surfaces for sun bathing, and launch points into the sea, if you choose not to use the metal ladders provided.

To the west a prominent point has a very enticing pathway leading over to the next bay, I will try that one some time. I have been just off shore there on a boat trip and it looked pretty deserted, but i’m told it is a haven for hippies and nudists, or even nude hippies. La Caleta seemed very quiet, it was 1pm by now but hardly any of the little bars and restaurants had customers, seems a shame seeing the huge 4 and 5 star hotels further to the east, are usually bulging, but I suppose they are all inclusive and seldom venture out of the gardens. It must be particularly cruel if these small family business’s are struggling to survive with all the wealth and oppulence swilling about a short hop away.

The worst sight of my trip was the state of the Playa de la Enramada, former home to the Chirinquito beach bar and chill out area. I knew they were demolishing the bar and “improving” the stretch of beach, but it looks like a war zone at the moment with huge hills of sand and JCB’s ploughing up and down. We can only hope that the finished product isn’t a complete mess.

Can you guess what I’m wearing?  It’s an anorak, and I have a thermos flask of cold fruit drink and some sandwiches, yes I’m ready to go tram spotting. Let’s go to Santa Cruz and see what exciting finds I can tick off in my little book.

First up, it’s the CD Tenerife tram, decorated in club colours and logo, to promote the sale of season tickets for the new season. It’s fantastic, but how many of them can they fit in the official CDT merchandise shop.?

Next into the station is the Nelson tram, specially produced to mark the 211 th anniversary of Nelsons defeated attempt to invade Tenerife. That time the Briits were armed with muskets and bayonets and wearing uniforms, but they failed, however barely 200 years later the Brits invaded in much larger numbers, coming in through the front door, armed with sun cream, bottles of Daddies sauce and wearing string vests.

And finally for this spotting trip, we have the Dorada tram, sadly not of the lesser spotted Especial variety, but it still rings my bell. I could spend hours chasing this one up and down the city, and I wonder how much you get back on that size bottle?

These brightly coloured liveries have certainly made the trams even more noticeable and they are constantly changing. If you want to splash out on your own customised tram, it’s just 14,000 euros per month or 20,000 euros for 2 months.

Coming soon on hobby corner, Lighthouse bagging.