Folly and Bravado's Tenerife Tour

The Journey

It was an uneventful journey to Tenerife as it turned out. The draconian levels of security we'd anticipated and the countless explanations of why we were carrying so much technology on a package holiday we thought we'd have to give, all failed to materialise. It became clear why once we were on board the plane however.

The sardine can seating arrangements of these charter flights, with their Douglas Barder leg room allocation, made rushing the cockpit a complete physical impossibility. It took several minutes and a couple of dislocated bones just getting in and out, ample time for any would be highjacker to be hand-bagged by the nearest Rambo-Granny.

On arrival though, and by now in need of serious physiotherapy, our difficulties soon began. The hire car we'd pre-booked was indeed waiting for us, only at the airport at the other end of the island, the one that's closed to tourist flights, thank you Hertz. Nearly an hour later a substitute expedition vehicle was finally made available to us and we started to make our way through the surprisingly picturesque country side to our base camp in Puerto de la Cruz. Weary and just wanting to relax, it took no less than four attempts to get an acceptable room. Allegedly this is Spanish honeymoon season so all the twin rooms have had their beds joined so as to facilitate their nuptuals. Feigning indignation, after the third attempt we retired to the bar and told the manager to fetch us once he had organised something more appropriate. By way of compensation though and in this land of machismo, no doubt fearing a duel or some such at this slur on our good names, he was gallant enough to send us a bottle of bubbly to soothe our wrath. An excess of delicious Spanish brandy in lieu of the medical attention we needed eased our pain and helped us to sleep.

To the pyramids

Awakening dehydrated and feeling like we'd been wrestling with a grizzly bear, it was time to head to Güímar and to the pyramids. Armed with global satellite positioning equipment capable of telling us exactly where we were in the world to within a few feet, we were completely confident in taking the back roads over the Teide volcano to the other side of the island but as soon as we were off the beaten track we soon realised that the map provided bore very little resemblance to the actual roads ahead of us, thank you Hertz. Rummaging around, a map on a tourist leaflet handed to us at the airport and promoting Europe's largest parrot collection actually proved a little more accurate, helping us to extricate ourselves back out onto the main road that runs around the coast which we then stuck to.

But eventually we reached our intended destination and it wasn't what we'd expected at all. Unbeknown to us this was national children's day and the place was crawling with them. Amongst these allegedly ancient stone structures, inflatable bouncy castles had been installed for their amusement, shattering any ambiance that may have existed. The whole place was a kindergarten, with the little mites taking full advantage of their special day and running amok everywhere.

Rising above this intrusive distraction, we ventured on to appraise the pyramids we'd come all this way to see. What struck us immediately was their almost perfect condition, in fact just too good with hardly a pebble out of place. We've seen quite a few and they vary from almost indistinguishable piles of rubble to the enduring magnificence of those on the Giza plateau. All though, clearly bear the scars of time whereas those at Guimar on appearances alone, could just as well have been made last year. Trying to remain as open minded as possible and having followed the carefully layed out pathway around the pyramids that denied us any opportunity to get very close, let alone on any of the structures, we returned to the visitors centre not entirely convinced. What we were also having great difficulty accepting was the claim that the two principle pyramids were celestially aligned, in this case with the sunset on the summer solstice.

This is a common feature with ancient pyramids as their builders worshipped the stars in varying ways. Our problem was a simple one, being on the east coast of the island and with mountains behind them, there is simply no view of the sunset.

Hoping to find some clarification of this and a display of any archeological finds made on site to support its claimed antiquity we were only to be disappointed. Plenty of souvenirs, gifts and tourist paraphernalia but not much on the way of hard information or actual evidence. Enquiries with the staff didn't get us much further, all the artefacts that have been found are now in the museum in Santa Cruz which we've ascertained is shut until December. But we're going to go back again and maybe, with all of the children out of the way, we'll be able to get a better understanding of the place.