Last Christmas, I was on the other side of the world in the Canary Islands, and I spent Christmas Eve and Christmas Day in Santa Cruz de Tenerife, the largest city on Tenerife Island.

The Canary Islands is an autonomous territory of Spain and lies about 300 kilometres from the troubled area of Western Sahara in Africa, and over 2000 kilometres from Spain, with at least a three hour flight.

It is a wealthy European enclave, which gets much of its economy from tourism, especially in Summer and during Carnivale, where the main parade on Shrove Tuesday takes over the whole city.

In late December, Tenerife is still quite warm but not crowded at all, and the accommodation is quite cheap, sometimes ridiculously cheap. The Canaries are noted for their mild temperatures around the 20’s Celsius throughout Winter.

I arrived off the ferry at Tenerife for Las Palmas on Christmas Eve at 4pm. The ferry is operated by a Swedish company called Fred Olsen, and the trip was effortless and comfortable from Las Palmas in Gran Canaris. It was the same company I travelled with over nearly three days by ferry from Huelva in Spain to reach Las Palmas in Gran Canaris.

Walking around Santa Cruz, I was impressed by the great light displays along all the streets but puzzled by how quiet it was. In Spanish culture, Christmas Eve is not traditionally for gift-giving, but for family dinners. The gift-giving, especially to children, is held on 6 January as part of the Three Kings Festival, and many of the shops hold sales from Christmas to Three Kings.

One remarkable event that occurred while in Tenerife was the arrival of the Calima, a sandstorm blown all the way from the Sahara, which is closer than one might think. It can obscure vision, shut down airports and even cause breathing difficulties as the sand is like fine dust hanging in the air.

Santa Cruz divides into a tourist precinct along the sea, notably, the giant water park called Parque Maritimo Cesar Manrique with the nearby botanical gardens, the Palmetum. The Palmetum is a 12-hectare property built on a former garbage dump and specialises in palms, including many from Australia, Papua New Guinea and the Pacific.  It is a fascinating botanical experience.

Like in the rest of Spain, it is always best and polite to use a tourist-level of Spanish for ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ and so on.

The street life in Santa Cruz, I much enjoyed the busking of an up-and-coming pop-rock group called Postcode at night, since very little entertainment outside the casinos or drinking bars seemed on offer. 

Street life during the day was also colourful, especially the bird whistle man of Santa Cruz, who was very skilled and entertaining. I bought one of his clay whistles which I still have, but on reflection, I dumped the syringe it came with to fill with water before my next flight.

The place I recommend visitors explore and even stay in is the old city of San Cristobal de La Laguna which is where the University of La Laguna is located, and has much more vibrancy, and activity than actual Santa Cruz. It has the most interesting art galleries dedicated to highly talented local artists, local museums and a general sense of a town full of life.

As a tip if you visit Tenerife on the cheap backpacking trail, San Cristobal is a must-see. There are numerous ads in Tenerife for huge water parks and even zoos, but they could be anywhere in the world really.

I would recommend Gran Canaria much more than Tenerife, especially the north of the island around places such as Galdar. The south of the island has many resort towns where foreigners stay in garish concrete blocks in order to bake themselves in the sun. The north of Gran Canaria is much more authentic, cheap and fun and full of a variety of activities. For example, I got a trip on a tourist submarine at Playa de Mogan which turned out to be free as they had overbooked my first ride by three and offered us a refund to wait for the next trip in a few hours.

Happy to head back to the Canary Island but be aware it’s much more expensive in the busy seasons!