Last weekend was what was known as a ‘puente’ in Tenerife. Literally meaning a bridge, it’s the name given to the extended holiday that most people take when the Monday is a public holiday and this one, the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, is a particularly popular one which heralds the start of the Christmas and New Year festivities.

All the fun of the fair in Puerto de la Cruz

In many towns across the island it’s the trigger for the switching on of Christmas lights and in Puerto de la Cruz it’s time for the traditional annual fair ground to occupy the lower car park beside the harbour.

Wondering through the funfair after dark is like going back in time to a traditional British seaside resort. Each ride has its own music blaring and you can hear the occasional strains of ‘Hound Dog’ and ‘Tiger Feet’ competing for airspace with Latino rhythms. There are stalls where you throw darts at a wall of balloons or shoot pyramids of tin cans with an air rifle and neon coloured giant cuddly tows wait patiently in line to be won. There are baby dodgems, trampolines and a Disney runaway train for the tots while the ever popular Waltzers and the Viking Boat send waves of screams over the harbour from the teenagers who ride them.

But this year they’ve added something rather special; a giant, luminous green Ferris wheel which is a cross between a Big Wheel and the Puerto Eye. While the last of the sun’s rays catch it, it gives aerial views over the resort and the surrounding La Orotava Valley. By night, it transforms into a neon kaleidoscope flying above the twinkling illuminations that reflect off the harbour waters.

The fair is teeming with families, visitors and groups of friends clutching cuddly toy prizes and eating candy-floss, sugared almonds, cream and chocolate covered waffles and bags of churros (doughnut-like fingers sprinkled in sugar). It’s an infectious atmosphere of fun that insists you get into the Christmas spirit and it’ll be here all the way through to January 6th 2009.

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