BEAUTY queens in fantastical costumes, adorned with leaping dolphins or a life-size Japanese cherry tree, pass through the crowded streets on floats. They are grinning bravely despite the weight of their feathered headdresses and the chill of wearing a sequined bikini on a winter's night. Carnival time has arrived in Santa Cruz de Tenerife.
Two nights ago, the Carnival Queen was elected by a panel of celebrity judges in a grand pageant televised across Spain. Crowds line the pavements to clap and cheer their friends in the parade. For the Canary Islands, Carnival is something very speci
al. It is a tradition that managed to survive the hardest years of General Franco's oppressive regime. Back on the mainland it was stamped out, but on this remote outpost the dictator never managed to suppress the Carnival spirit.
The city of Santa Cruz is worth exploring even when it isn't Carnival. It attracted international attention when Santiago Calatrava's Auditorio de Tenerife was built on the seafront. With a huge while-tiled roof - known to locals as the Wave - curving over a prow-shaped base, this stunning building serves as an opera house, a venue for the Santa Cruz symphony orchestra and a conference centre.
Another new arts project, the Oscar Dominguez Centre for International Culture and Contemporary Art, is under construction. Designed by architects Herzog & De Meuron, who were responsible for London's Tate Modern, it is part of Tenerife's move to develop cultural tourism.
For the moment, however, it is as a historical city that Santa Cruz charms its visitors. The streets are lined with beautiful baroque and art-nouveau buildings, the product of a colonial-era boom when the island had a role as a trading post between Europe and the Americas. In the local markets you can buy small, black-skinned potatoes, which are closely related to the first potatoes that Columbus brought back from South America.
Even in winter purple bougainvillaea blooms sprawl up walls and the sun is pleasantly warm. By day, people sit by sparkling fountains to eat churros, deep-fried doughnut-like pastries. In the evening you can move from bar to bar to drink beer, cava or sherry and snack on a selection of tapas, including local cheeses and the island's deliciously sweet black pudding, which is seasoned with cinnamon.
In the days running up to Carnival, funfairs fill the plazas and shops display costumes so that visitors can join in the celebrations. To really get into the mood, a mask of some sort is essential - that way you can behave as badly as you wish with total anonymity. Most of the masks are sequined butterflies in tropical shades of pink, yellow and green, but there's also a strong element of surrealism. I bought an owl mask made of real feathers, which, coupled with a brown winter coat, made me a dead ringer for a giant tawny owl. But in a town where grown men are walking around dressed as girlish goatherds, complete with milk pail, pinny and plaits, a giant owl doesn't stand out too much.
By Saturday afternoon, the shops and cafés have gone quiet. Clearly most people have gone home to get themselves into costume and make-up ready for the big event. The streets start to fill up again at dusk. Sturdy ladies in flamenco outfits, with elaborate wigs and huge false eyelashes, are strolling around, fanning themselves coquettishly. Nuns with habits split up the sides to reveal garters and suspenders are pouting with scarlet-painted lips. The broad shoulders and stubble give the game away. Children are chasing each other, dressed as Spider-Man or fairies or furry animals, playing with new toys bought at the funfair stalls. The strings of fairylights draped everywhere are switched on, and the mood starts to pick up.
With the first distant echoes of beating drums, it's time to grab a space along the parade route, preferably close to a bar - for both sustenance and relief during the several hours of partying ahead. First comes the Carnival Queen, in a spectacular costume that must have cost thousands. On stage for the gala, she could move only because the whole 'dress' is on wheels; tonight she's strapped into place on the back of a lorry.
The other contenders follow, each one a vision of glamour. Then come marching bands and troupes of clowns; men and women of all shapes, sizes and ages dancing, singing and playing instruments. For a Catholic celebration, the mood is mightily pagan. Although many of the men are in drag, this is a family event, with children both in the parade and in the audience.
Some of the costumes seem to have started from the idea of a flamenco dress, then mutated and expanded into weird and wonderful shapes. Groups of dancers have matching outfits with themes as diverse as aquatic life and a flock of turkeys, and there are also women in Inca-inspired costumes, their huge skirts flaring out to two or three yards in diameter. A group of men pass by in fluorescent 1950s housewives' outfits, followed by knights in armour and a gang of cats in stripy, furry romper suits. Then there are clowns in lime-green suits, giant striped hats and purple wigs.
The clowns are not merely a bunch of mates who get together and dress up. Each troupe is like a working men's social club, with a building where members meet all year round. In one of these clubhouses I caught a rehearsal of about 40 men, all singing and playing with gusto. The walls were decorated with Carnival posters dating back to the 1940s, although the celebration itself is much older. Hanging from the rafters were drums, cymbals and trumpets.
With my very limited Spanish, I couldn't understand most of the words, but by gestures and faces I could tell that one song had the chorus, 'Who pays? We do!', a reference to the cost local taxpayers are bearing for a new tram line. On parade night they were transformed from men in sensible jumpers to charismatic clowns in bright pink baggy shorts with stripy socks and flowers wobbling out of their hats.
As the parade moves past and the night progresses, the scene loses some of its sparkle, becoming a bit more ragged. The costumes and the music get more disco and less traditional, and the dancing goes from cheerleader co-ordination to beer-drinker inebriation. When the parade is finished, around midnight, it's time to wander the streets following the party noise and admiring the costumes.
Three men wearing dresses made only of flipflops loom into view, their pink beehive wigs adding an extra foot to their already formidable height. Someone is asleep on a bench: an ambulance medic tries to wake him, but clearly there is nothing serious to attend to. The mood is jovial, with people dancing in the squares or buying balloons and hotdogs for wide-eyed children.
For the next 40 days the people of Tenerife will be observing Lent, but they'll have the memories of this night of dancing and music to keep them smiling.
Fact
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nta Cruz de tenerife
Globespan (www.
flyglobespan.com, 0870 556 1522) offers flights from Glasgow and Edinburgh to Tenerife from £129 return. Santa Cruz de Tenerife is a 45-minute drive from the airport. The five-star Sheraton Mencey (www.
sheratonmencey.com, 00 34 922 609900) has double rooms from Û170. The three-star Hotel Taburiente (00 34 922 276000) has doubles from Û89. For more about the island, see www.
webtenerife.com. This year's carnival is from February 15 to 17.
