The "Zona Wifi Drago Centro" will be available to the public 24 hrs a day, allowing up to 30 users to connect simultaneously at a speed of roughly 128 kb. It'll be necessary to sign up for a free account in the town hall, which makes it less than friendly to most visiting tourists, but it's an advance.
Web access, POP and SMTP for email, will be available, but P2P protocols and the download of multimedia files will be blocked. Another area where internet access will be available in Icod is in the Plaza Andrés de Lorenzo Cáceres (that's the one by the church, with the nice bandstand cafe.)
However, 77% of hotels in the Canary Islands had internet connections at the end of 2008, around 10 points higher than the national average of 67.3%, according to data collected by the National Statistics Institute.
Downed plane was second from same school
A couple of further pieces of data to come out of the news of yesterday's air accident in Tenerife. One is that the 112 emergency operations room had been able to make contact with the occupants of the plane after it came down, which is what had enabled rescuers to locate them. Also, the pilot was evacuated by helicopter and not by road, as previously reported, although the emergency services helicopters weren't able to put down due to the craggy terrain.
The plane was being used by Aerotec, pilot training school, who share the hangar with the Real Aeroclub de Tenerife. In July 2006, a Cesna 172 from the same school had crashed in El Rosario, killing the pilot and two trainees.
Plane spotters and photographers of all stripes ...
Seriously devoid of trains (just the odd tram), the anorak wearing types in Tenerife needed to find another suitable hobby and with two airports, it's no surprise that plane spotting is pretty popular. Canary Islands Spotting announced late last year that the Asociación de Spotters de Canarias had become a reality, formalizing the groups' relationship, which has the aim of generating them respect.
Apparently, the public in Spain too, see plane spotters as "seres raros" (rare beings - a tad strange.) Had it not been for such very observant spotters, of course, those nasty illegal CIA flights might have been able to remain under the radar, so I think we have to be thankful that someone has the dedication.
Also, I spotted (sic) on their website, something that might be useful information, no matter what you're photographing in Tenerife (or the rest of Spanish territory) ... and there've been odd stories of security guards getting uppity about people taking photos. The query was raised,"Can law enforcement make us erase images from our memory card or destroy the reel of film?"
And the response was, "NO. Under no circumstances." The only person who can order such destruction is a judge (and then only after a formal case has been brought and some jolly good reason has been demonstrated.)
Their Historia de la Aviación en Canarias (History of Aviation in the Canaries), tells us that it used to be the custom to have balloons - originally unmanned - rising above the Plaza de Weyler in Santa Cruz as part of fiestas in the city. It wasn't until 1894 that the first manned balloon ascension (not even a flight) took place over the Plaza de Toros (Bull Ring) in Santa Cruz.
The first airplane flight to take place from Tenerife was on May 10th, 1913.
Other news and links of interest
Port of Granadilla: Spain has to send information to Brussels. Last December 1 the EU executive in Brussels sent the Spanish authorities - Brussels deals with the Member States and not the regions - a letter requesting more data on three issues. Madrid had two months to respond, therefore, still have until early February. Could this mean that work cannot, imminently, start?
Canaries, 2nd place in number of foreign, self-employed workers. The number of foreign self-employed went down by 1.3 percent last year in the Canaries, which, nevertheless, remained the region with the second highest proportion of these workers, 14.5 percent of the total, surpassed only by the Balearic Islands, with 16.2 per cent. (Foreign self-employed, we note, requires a hard hat! :)
Puerto de La Cruz Carnaval
There are no apparent changes to the main events we've already listed here, but for those of you who're super keen on getting your money's worth out of all the (free) carnaval events, here is the full Programa del Carnaval de Puerto de la Cruz 2009.
(Hmmm ... interesting choice of photo that Tinerguia used to illustrate their post. Another one I need to remind that the Creative Commons licence under which my photos are available, Attribution 3.0 License, requires that I'm credited.)
Photos from the festivities of San Sebastián - the culmination of which is taking your horse to the beach for a ducking in the sea - that took place in Adeje on January 20th. (And, if you were visiting and missed it, shame on you, because this took place within strolling distance from the resorts.)
Photos from the pilgrimage of animals from La Laguna to La Matanza
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