Tenerife Magazine’s round up of the most interesting news stories of the week in Tenerife
Company Directors Are Getting Younger…
In an innovative scheme to raise animal conservation awareness amongst the youngest members of society, Loro Parque are recruiting two directors aged between 8 and 12 for a period of 6 months. During that time the young directors will be encouraged to work closely with the park’s management team and furry residents to contribute proposals about how children especially can do more to help wildlife conservation. The lucky two and their families will have unlimited free access to Spain’s premier wildlife park for a year. The closing date for the scheme is the end of this month and applications should be made through Loro Parque’s website. So far 50 children have applied. Only 50…who says the young here have no ambition?
Cho Vito Hunger Strike Called Off
Cho Vito’s six hunger strikers have ended their protest after 11 days following the Spanish government’s decision to postpone making a ruling about the fate of the remaining houses in Cho Vito in Candelaria until the end of November. Whilst Tenerife President, Ricardo Melchior argued the case for Cho Vito at the meeting in Madrid, Candilaria’s mayor was noticeably absent prompting accusations that he wasn’t interested in the plight of his little coastal community. Although the postponement of any decision about Cho Vito isn’t a victory, it does allow the residents more time to argue their case. It might seem like cynical thinking, but it also seems a convenient way of getting the hunger strikers to stop their protest without anyone actually doing anything to move the situation forward. Cue a case of déjà vu come November.
It Really is the End of Summer in Santa Cruz
After being partially open for three months over the summer, Parque MarÃtimo in Santa Cruz is closed once again. With work to the swimming pool complex still to be completed, political shenanigans getting in the way, legal disputes unsettled and questions over who will be responsible for managing it, it is unlikely that it will re-open in the next six months. Back to Las Teresitas it is then for the poor old Santa Cruceros.
Hands Up, Who’s Heard of the Centre for Intepretación del Teide?
Stumped? It’s a huge exhibition centre dedicated to Teide National Park with interactive exhibitions and botanical gardens. Ringing any bells yet? Well it exists, in fact it was completed two years ago and it sits in the middle of the La Orotava Valley…unopened. A couple of weeks ago we reported about the Humboldt Mirador in La Orotava ““ a tourist attraction that had taken so long to complete that it needed renovation work even before it opened. La Orotava council seem to be making a habit of building tourist attractions that never seem to open. The work in this case began seven years ago with the Spanish government ploughing 8 million Euros into its construction. And the reason it hasn’t opened yet? The gardens are fields of weeds and the electrical systems aren’t working properly. 8 million Euros invested and you get dodgy wiring and weeds. Somebody, somewhere is chortling all the way to the bank.
Spain’s Best Chef is from Tenerife
The title’s a bit misleading as Chef Andrea Bernardi originally hails from Italy. Andrea, chef at the elegant SinfonÃa Restaurant in Santa Cruz was chosen as Spain’s number one at the Adecco Best Chef competition in Madrid, wowing judges with a selection of chic dishes which included smoked duck and caviar. Andrea will represent Spain at the finals of the competition to find Europe’s top chef in Luxembourg on 27 September. Buena suerte Andrea
The Interactive Generation
A survey of 800 young Canarios revealed that 71% of them used social networks like Facebook and Twitter, preferring spending time on the net to watching TV. The report found that young Canarios were increasingly becoming an interactive generation, using the web to communicate and find out information. And yet businesses with websites on Tenerife remain in the minority. One day the penny just has to drop.
And finally the TIT (This Is Tenerife) of the week award goes to…those involved with the restoration of La Laguna’s Cathedral.
In an incredible piece of news that raises disturbing questions about Tenerife’s ability to be protector of its own heritage, residents in Tegueste alerted the Guardia Civil to some quite unique rubbish dumped in a ravine near the town.
Sections of elaborately sculpted stone pillars that looked as though they should be in a museum turned out to be from La Laguna Cathedral. The discovery that important parts of the city’s heritage were being treated like common or garden rubbish caused uproar. The real worry is the mentality of those who sanctioned the dumping of the pillars. Didn’t it occur to them that a) people were always likely to spot huge sections of historic columns amongst the ubiquitous wrecked fridges and washing machines and b) they shouldn’t be destroying important historical artifacts in the first place.
An embarrassing situation was made worse by the Dean of the Cathedral who, after the story broke, seemed to suggest that the columns were just being ‘stored’ in the ravine for the time being. ‘storing’ historical pieces of architecture under a ton of a rubbish is certainly unconventional at the very least.
The pillars have now been retrieved from the ravine and placed in gardens in La Laguna. However, it does make you wonder what other remnants of Tenerife’s history have been lost because of the actions of unenlightened (diplomatic term) people like this.
