Read part 1 here
DAY 2
Not having yet bought any local trade goods, Brenda and myself decided to return to the little place of ‘Refrescos’ near the harbour and try to barter with the locals. I accordingly struggled Brenda into a comfortable position and mounted her quickly getting a leg up from the native doorman. The journey was pleasant and greatly eased by the liberal application of buttock cream most generously sponsored by Eye on Spain. (It has a most appetising aroma).
This time I did not even ask the proprietor if Brenda could join me as I had decided that I would blend in better if I simply accepted their religious bigotry, so to keep them happy this time I chained Brenda securely to the nearest lamppost. As well as keeping her in one place and stopping the wretched natives running off with her it enabled her to remain in an upright position and not sprawl about the footpath as she had a tendency to do if I did not keep a firm grip on her.
As I sat contemplating the difficulties ahead I spied “Jesus” a vision of white, floating along the route to my base camp. To say I was stunned would not describe my feelings. He was trailed by an obvious female worshipper who seemed to float along the route with no apparent need to move her legs. I could only therefore conclude that she in fact must be his guardian angel, as she also had a very substantial halo which, from a distance, might be construed as a peroxide blond wig but that had not been invented by the Americans until 1940, so was not likely.
He was quite a tall man with a flowing white robe, long straggly brown hair, a dark beard and leather thong type sandals and a rather explicit purple tattoo of a snake winding up his leg disappearing into his manly regions. I was a bit disappointed that he did not have a halo as well as his guardian angel. However I smiled shyly at him as he glided up to me. He stopped beside me and his calm brown right eye looked down on me in a patronising way, while his left eye admired my Brenda securely chained to the lamppost beside my little table. I asked him if he would like some ‘Refrescos’.
He raised his arms high above his head and leaning back blessed me and fell over a small wall behind him in his religious fervour. When I raised him up again, which I really thought was more his style then mine, and leant him against Brenda’s lamp post he blessed us again by loudly confirming that his name was Jesus. He blessed me twice, though he might have been blessing my sturdy little companion Brenda who was still chained to the lamp post. I was not used to such religious fervour.
I ordered him a glass of water, a loaf of dry bread and a few fish, but he expressed no interest in them at all which I felt was a bit churlish, after all this was his speciality. It was only after he spoke to me in tongues, that I realised that he did not actually speak English. Well in the circumstances what should I expect? Not everyone has had the benefit of a strict, British boarding school education with late night whipping and early morning cold baths, which braces a man in later life when dealing with “Chaps”.
I could not but help noticing that when he stopped puffing at his foul smelling magic herb he spoke with a somewhat Americanised accent. I put this down to his wishing to be understood when he was half way across the Atlantic. I made a note of this as when Brenda and myself make our attempt on Teide with the tide out, you never know what type of chap you might meet half way across the Atlantic.
After a few more libations to combat the ferocious heat, I began to get suspicions that perhaps this was not Jesus and his guardian angel after all. Between puffs of his magic herbs, to keep the flies away he assured me, he told me that he in fact was from “Gud O’L US of A”. I asked him if he might be from NASA leading the advanced space mission bound for Mars. Alas no. He informed me that he was from some place called Silicone Valley on the west coast and had decided that computers were ‘doing my head in man’ and he had just come here to find himself. He had appeared to me to have now found a rather stupider version of himself which was probably no better than the one he had lost in Silicone Valley in the first place.
At that moment a tall skinny woman with blonde hair and a whiney nasal voice, who I had mistaken as his guardian angel, arrived on what appeared to be ice skates with wheels. She too had a coloured expedition band around her head and rather than wear leather patches on her clothes she appeared to have had them stuck to her elbows and knees.
How she intended to take them off to put on her night attire I do not know unless they served some other purpose whilst kneeling in bed. She again was another person who seemed to take great pleasure wandering about nearly naked. Exposing her white dangly ‘ladies bits’ to the dangerous rays of the sun. I asked her if she was also from Silicone Valley. She was amazed at my acute observation but as she seemed to have most of the silicone from the Valley on her chest it was more than an educated guess on my part. The silicone also appears to have slipped slightly as her hips and thighs were full of the stuff. In fact on closer examination she seemed to be generally full of wobbly silicone like stuff all over.
They both then decided it was time for them to continue their mission and the blond woman screamed “Gi me face baby” She then opened her huge red mouth and tried to eat the Jesus look alike chap, and disappeared with high pitched shouts of “Right on” and “Boogy on down man” toward the notoriously dangerous area of Club Nautico Arenal with all its earthly temptations and chaps dressed in white, shouting things like. “Mines a G and T” and “Suns over the yardarm” and similar complex nautical terms.
They were in for a shock when Brenda and I lead a victorious assault across the Atlantic on Tenerife without the benefit of either a sail an engine or even a boat. By Jove! The whole thing is so exciting. When we succeed it will teach them to doubt British ingenuity and true grit.
. Brenda, being a bit old fashioned did not really approve of such blatant nakedness and hedonism and, as we stiff upper lip chaps say, “Held her own counsel”.
This chit chat was not progressing the jolly old expedition much so without further ado I mounted Brenda again. I must say she did seem much more comfortable now as I suppose we were both getting used to each other, and headed off to the local market place to mingle unobtrusively. By this stage the heat was building and a discrete head covering was required. I retrieved my best linen handkerchief from by pocket and by tying a cunning knot in each corner, I produced an amazing piece of head gear which even though I say so myself, drew admiring longing glances from many of the natives.
Eye on Spain would be proud of my money saving ingenuity with regard to my equipment. The beauty of this piece of head gear is it is dual purpose. After you have blown your nose on it, it can be returned to one’s head where it will dry quickly in the sun. Another benefit is as it dries it sticks to your scalp and hair which stops it blowing away if it becomes windy. Is it any wonder we Brits ruled the known world at one time?
The next problem encountered in the confines of the local market is the proximity of the buildings and the fountains. This traps the humidity that can be only controlled by the consumption of copious amounts of liquid. Of course the ideal liquid is water but the source of this water cannot be trusted in these foreign climes, so the local beer is recommended. At first it is a burden to consume any quantity of this drink at all, but the true Brit must persevere and overcome his distaste of the whole business.
If it is of any help to chaps, it is a bit like sex with women, A chap must force himself to indulge in this unnatural practise and surprisingly soon, despite what your form master will have told you at boarding school, a chap will become quite used to how quickly he begins to enjoy the practise and in a most unusual way finds it quite addictive, which is known here apparently as ‘going native’.
As the pain of dehydration subsided, and with Brenda firmly beside me at my table, I observed the natives very closely. I must admit that they are fiendishly clever people. In my day back in “Blighty”, we have highly trained ‘young gels’ who sit at massive mahogany complex switchboards and when telephone calls come in they connect them up, one at a time, with their complex wires and bells. Over here they are very advanced. The dark skinned woman who sat with her daughter at the table beside me, whilst drinking something called ‘skinylatys’, some form of diet drink I assume, took a telephone call on her “Mobile Phone” no doubt in itself wonder of the age. It must have been a very good one as everyone in the whole ‘Refrescos’ establishment was able to share every intimacy of her call from her sister with the terrible skin disease and infected children.
Shortly after she started that call another call came through for her on another phone her daughter was carrying in her bag for her. She lifted it to her other ear and started to describe what absolutely disgusting things she was going to do to her husband when she got home if he did not mop up his mess. The entire ensemble was fascinated by this and it got even better when another phone went. This time it was her boyfriend to whom she also started to describe the most disgusting practises she would inflict on him involving cold water and mustard for his pleasure. Poor chap must have gone to boarding school as well. We all found her private life quite tiring and wondered when she had time to drink her diet drinks.
These natives are cunning. They do not make do with one telephone like us. No!! They can carry hundreds of phones with them and talk on them all at once if they have there own telephone operator with them. What advances in civilisation there have been recently. By the time she had finished her calls the whole establishment felt part of the family.
To be continued...