THE POWER OF "THE GAME"

LAS GALLETAS  seafront road is too narrow for the traffic that uses it. There isn't really room for the cars that park by the beach, and meeting a Titsa bus coming the other way can be nerve-wracking.

A couple of years ago the road was closed sporadically for months while the Cabildo installed vast pipes to take the local sewage out to sea. They even used gravel and stones from the beach to create a very dodgy-looking temporary pier on which the heavy diggers teetered dangerously.
When the pipes had gone beyond the harbour the beach was reformed, but Man cannot match Nature.

Last year's floods washed the beach back into the sea and destabilised the sea wall. They repaired it.

Then last week we had big seas, even inside the harbour, and the beach vanished again, along with some of the pavement and a bit of road. We had to drive the long way round or park in El Fraile and walk.

 This was the scene on Thursday morning - you can see El Fraile beyond the palm trees in the background of the second photograph. It looked to me as if workmen needed to drive pilings into the beach to shore the road up safely, which would mean months more work at Tenerife speed. 

But yesterday the traffic was flowing smoothly again and a neat patch of tarmac covered everything. This was unprecedented! What had happened? I came home and looked up Arona's calendar of events and the answer was staring me in the face. 

A football match - today at 6pm - in the Sports Centre in El Fraile. 

PARQUE ROADS - the saga continues!

When the Cabildo improved the TF-655 road from Guaza to Chafiras a few years ago, they levelled out the highs and lows and straightened the bends, but one fifty-metre stretch in Parque de la Reina was left untouched - the houses whose front doors open onto the road would probably collapse if disturbed.

This stretch is a blind hump from both directions with a 40K speed limit that isn't low enough - but drivers ignore that anyway. The only relatively safe place to cross is actually on the brow where your silhouette would be easier to see, but people walk - or run - over on one side to go to Maxcoop supermarket, and on the other side the little old ladies from the little old houses wander across, presumably putting their faith in the Almighty.

Then this week we saw machinery nearby. Was it possible the Cabildo weas about to level it out?

Between downpours, the machine dug out the rough ground at the edge, a metre wide and two metres deep. A man with a stop/go sign stood on the brow of the hill all day, causing even more delays to traffic already diverted away from the collapsed autopista slip road (see earlier posts)

And then at nine o'clock this morning I watched as they began to fill it in again! With picon - small gravel from the volcanic store which comprises Tenerife.


So presumably all they're going to do is cover it with tarmac and go.
Leaving an extra metre for the cars that already zoom over it so fast that their wheels leave the road, and for the cyclists who struggle over it three abreast to spread out even further.

Nice one, Cabildo!

AVALANCHE!

These two pictures appeared on the website www.newsinthesun.com this week - the young couple just escaped being crushed when tons of rock fell from a vertical cliff-face on the road from our village - Parque de la Reina - to the motorway on Monday 11th. Luckily the driver reacted quickly enough to swerve onto the other side of the road.

The Cabildo put a barrier across the tunnel, but failed to warn drivers leaving the roundabout in Parque de la Reina that they couldn't get through -

a Men Working sign and a Falling Rocks sign is not enough information. The traffic during the rush hours since has been chaotic. Cars wanting to access the southbound carriageway of the TF1 drive up, stop and look, and then do a three-point turn in the road and go back to find another route.

Cars wanting the northbound carriageway have to wait until the 3-point-turn is completed, and cars rushing OFF the northbound carriageway have to slam on their brakes to avoid hitting them.

I walked up there again this morning and in five minutes I counted 23 cars, one truck and three motorbikes maneouvering to turn round.
Oh yes - and three near-collisions.

There were workmen clearing more of the rubble, but they couldn't tell me when the road would be re-opened - presumably the cliff must be made safe first, although the banana plantation worker on top of it didn't seem concerned as he chopped back cacti within inches of the edge.

ONE MAN'S RUBBISH IS ......

One thing the local government has got right in Tenerife is rubbish collection.
In a hot climate the last thing we need is stuff hanging around to rot and smell, so there are communal basura bins within reach of every home, and they're emptied every day including Sundays.
We also have separate recycling bins for glass, paper and "envases", which translates as milk and fruit juice cartons, drinks cans and the like.
And in our village the Cabildo also delivers this structure on Tuesday mornings - it's there till midday. Round the other side are several ramps up which you walk to deposit, in separate containers, batteries, electrical goods, cardboard boxes, plastic bottles, and the cooking oil that, if poured down the drain, can clog a sewage system in no time.
And there's one more container for household linen and clothing. This week I asked the supervisor what happens to the clothes etc, thinking perhaps they were chewed up to make newsprint.
"They go to people who need them," he told me. I went home and had a sort out.

THE GUAZA STRIP

THE CABILDO have been up-grading the road through Guaza for over a year, taking the opportunity to put in better drains at the same time.
They did have the sense to finish the bypass first. This is unusual in Tenerife, where it is not unknown for roads to have their directionality changed overnight. If someone gets it wrong - also a not infrequent occurrence - all the traffic ends up in a bottleneck from which there is no legal escape, and the Policia have to sort it out.

Those businesses that somehow managed to survive the upheaval - the lack of any road at all, the cuts in electricity, water, telephone and internet access for often weeks at a time - now have a proper tarmac dual carriageway. There are more parking spaces in front of the shops, a 30K speed limit to allow cars to back out into the traffic, just enough room for a bus to get through if no-one double-parks and disappears for half an hour, and after weeks of slow work the gardeners have almost finished the centre strip.

There are palm trees and palm type shrubs, most of which survived being planted weeks before the watering system was installed under alternating stretches of brown and white rocks. The rocks are very pretty, and although they will make a superb home for cockroaches they should discourage dogs from using the area as a toilet and stick to the pavements they are accustomed to using.
Then after a few weeks of nothing, this week we see Cabildo workmen rolling the last, wider bit flat, hosing the edges clean, putting down a layer of black plastic and then....

installing artificial grass! Metres and metres of the stuff, held in place by more white rocks. How much does that cost? Aren't we in the middle of a financial crisis? No wonder people are asking which Councillor had a surplus of Astroturf. ....And bets are being taken on how long before it disappears one night.