Tuesday night the town of Santa Cruz was full of happy locals. After a few days of nothing but TV (or whatever Spaniards do on a bank holiday) they all wanted to go out and do their Christmas shopping. In Spain presents are exchanged on 6th January to commemorate the gifts of the three Kings who were late to the party, so the shops were doing a brisk pre Christmas trade except of course the Aloe Vera shop opposite us.
Yesterday the streets were again full but this time with Brits, there were two cruise ships in town depositing a few thousand people - one comment we heard from a Liverpudlian “The town centre looks lovely but there is not much there”! The itinerary of the 14 day Christmas cruise he was on is as follows:
16th December Tenerife
19th December Madeira
21st December Gran Canaria
22nd December Lanzarote
23rd & 24th December Tenerife
26th December Madeira
28th December La Palma
29th December Fuerteventura
30th December Tenerife
All these islands are Ok in their own way, why switch between them and visit Madeira twice and Tenerife three times? Will the passengers be able to distinguish between the islands when they return home?
Today was going to be hell, there are four cruise ships here today (pictured above Queen Victoria, Borealis, La Belle des Oceans and Marella Explorer) with 7,000 passengers between them. They are all doing the same Canary Islands Christmas cruise.
The population of Santa Cruz is 16,000 so to say the place would be overrun might be an understatement especially when the visitors all discover “The town centre looks lovely but there is not much there” so we got in the car and headed north for a nice walk in the shade and lunch in the sunshine away from the mayhem. Most of the visitors stop for a beer or coffee and walk in and out of the shops but very few actually buy anything, we did notice one group of customers trapped in the Aloe Vera shop by Vera (she stood by the door to prevent escape) and after 20 minutes they emerged with two small bags, probably the worst £40 they have ever spent. I presume the cruise ships provide free soap so there is little reason to stock up
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