Fun Facts about Tenerife

Photo: Alan Light

Tom Cruise once set foot on Tenerife, totally unannounced. Word has it, he was cruising the area (quite appropriately) in his yacht, sometime in the 1990s, stopped off at Tenerife, went to a shop and bought a roll of film. The shop in question was at the end of the strip underneath the Paloma Beach complex (next to where Rumours restaurant is now). They took a photo of him and pinned it up on their door. I was living at Paloma Beach at the time and missed it! The shop, unfortunately, is now a bar.

On the subject of movie stars and movies, it is generally thought that certain major films from the past were filmed on Tenerife, making the most of the lunar-like landscape of the area round Mount Teide. In fact, the movies The Ten Commandments, Barbarella, The Planet of the Apes and Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith were not filmed on the island. There are only two major films to date that have used Teide National Park as a backdrop:

• One Million Years BC (1966)
• Clash Of The Titans, currently on release now (2010)

In the 16th century, the Canaries were overrun with pirates far more than the Caribbean. Instead of the fictional "Captain Jack Sparrow", there was the real life Captain John Hawkins. Even the legendary eighth Canary Island, San Borondon was brought into the picture, with the pirates claiming that that was where they hid their ships. This was directly reflected in the "Isla de Muerte", featured in the "Pirates of the Caribbean" films.

One in six people on the island of Tenerife is involved in the tourist industry.

In the U.S. state of Louisiana, just east of New Orleans, there is a large community of people descended from Canary Island inhabitants. It is called St. Bernard Parish and its members continue to speak the Canarian dialect of Spanish.

The Canarian word for "potato" is "papa". Elsewhere in the Spanish speaking world, "potato" is "patata", whereas "papa" means "Pope"! So, when you're tucking into your carne con papas, you'll be eating MEAT WITH POPES!

Santa Cruz is not only the capital of Tenerife. It is, jointly with Las Palmas, the capital of the Canary Islands.

Not all that tall really, are they?

The Torres de Santa Cruz [Towers of Santa Cruz] are the tallest buildings in the Canary Islands and the tallest residential buildings in the whole of Spain.

That scourge of Tenerife, the cockroach, can live on for two weeks if its head is cut off. It only eventually dies because, without a head, it can't eat. Tenacious little beggars, aren't they?

Mount Teide is the third largest island volcano in the world. I believe the top of the list is Mauna Loa on Hawaii. If anyone knows the second largest, please let me know.

The village of Vilaflor is almost the highest in Spain, at 3800 feet. The village that holds the title is Trevelez, on the mainland, in a valley of the Sierra Nevada mountains, at almost 5000 feet. The municipality of Vilaflor, however, is the highest administrative region in Spain. So there.

The maze of underground passages beneath Icod de los Vinos, covering over 10 miles, forms one of the longest volcanic tunnels in the world.

There seems to be a fireworks display every two minutes in Tenerife. This is taken to the extreme every May 3rd, in the village of Los Realejos. Two streets compete for the best display. Each street uses a rival firework manufacturer and the display ends up lasting over three hours and burns about 6000 kilos of explosives! They don't mess about, do they?

The ancient Tenerife people, the Guanches, worshipped the god Achamán. His chief adversary was Guayota, king of the evil genies and they believed that he lived inside the Teide volcano, which was the gateway to hell. Guayota was represented in their mythology as a huge, black dog.

At 2 kilometers, the beach at El Médano is the longest in Tenerife.

A couple of questions no-one knows the answers to:
1. Why do Spanish and Canarians always leave a bit of their drink (beer, for example) at the bottom of the glass, never draining it fully? (Check it out, it's true!)
2. Why is there always loads of vegetation - plants and stuff - positioned at road junctions and roundabouts, in just the right place to obscure the view of any oncoming traffic?

In Tenerife and the rest of Spain, they consider Tuesday the 13th to be unlucky, not Friday.

The national anthem of Spain (and, therefore, Tenerife) is the only one in the world that doesn't have any words. It is always played as an instrumental.

The orchid garden Sitio Litre, in Puerto de la Cruz, boasts the first lawn ever laid in Tenerife.

Canary wine, a sweet, white variety of Malmsey, was imported to the UK back in Shakespeare's time and he refers to it in two of his plays: Twelfth Night and The Merry Wives Of Windsor. It is said that, as he himself was so fond of this drink, he received a barrel of the stuff as part of his salary. Let's hope he didn't try any of his writing while he was...under the influence!

In Spain (and, therefore, Tenerife) there were no speed limits on the roads until 1974.

More fun facts to come, promise!

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