Tenerife Holiday. Chapter 1. Week in Hell.

I knew when I booked the flights that there'd be an argument about how early we got to the airport, but the information said be there 2 hours beforehand. In the past I would have added in some extra time for our bus to break down and for Peter to have a seizure, but these days I'm incredibly laid-back and I worked out from Google travel the absolute latest we could leave the house and still get there. Peter goes for diving out the door at the last moment but I like a bit of time so my alarm was set for way early - 4.30am. Unfortunately I woke up at 2am and stayed awake - so it was going to be a long day.

Everything worked. All our buses worked. Our tickets worked. Security was only 5 minutes. Peter grumbled as we had too much time to kick about in the pointless half-way world between security and the plane. Our flight was on time. We were off. About 4 and a half hours later we stepped off the plane into the heat.

Getting out of the airport took more time and effort than it should have. For a while we were being herded about pointlessly as a few planes seemed to have landed all at the same time and there were huge queues for passport control. It was hot and the security staff were asking for families with children to come to the front and a Canadian that had a voice that wasn't new to complaining growled on about how it was stoopid and pointless. It was tempting to get in a fight with him, just to release some tension.
Then there was a long wait in the heat for our airport transfer bus to arrive. We were getting surrounded by complaining old ladies and Peter was getting antsy. But then we got on the bus and our driver Angel put on a Jet2 welcome recording. There was a bit of preamble and then the voice said "but let's get to the important part...your week in hell". We looked at each other and burst out laughing. "That's very honest of them." After some reflection I think it was "how we can help".

We had a long bus drive up to the North but it was captivating seeing desert, palm trees, cacti, funny houses, spanish signs - as we got further North things got greener. We arrived at our hotel and went out for a walk in the warm evening. There was a huge swell coming into the harbour and areas of walk-way were cordoned off for safety. We wondered if there had been some especially large storm, but over the next few days we realised there are always large waves rolling into the harbour.

-------------------------OMG, I have work tomorrow and I am sitting in my running gear from hours ago, so I'm going to go. Meet me back here for Chapter 2. "There are butterflies!".