LA TIENDA DE MANOLO-(MANOLO´S SHOP)

It is an early December morning in Puerto De La Cruz, on the Island of Tenerife. The air is crisp; the sun shining & pushing the temperatures up to 30 degrees, even though it´s only 8.am on a winter morning. The sky is bright blue & the Teide volcano is completely covered in thick white snow. The small cobbled meandering streets are garbed in a carnival of colours, fuchsias, oranges, scarlets, golden yellows & greens of emeralds & olives. The vegetation is vivid; the flora is tropical & so very lush. The little town looked dressed for the ball.

Christmas being just a week away, only added to the gaiety & garlanded colour.  Tropical birds vied with the buskers on the streets, kettle-drums, guitars, flamenco, flutes & sitars, Afro-beat, fusion, Mozart & Christmas carols. The scents were intoxicating, drifting onto the street from the bakeries, bistros & restaurants.               Hot buttery croissants, aromatic coffee, spices & salty fresh fish & as I turned unexpected corners, aromas of orange blossoms, lemon zest & frangipanis.

The cold turquoise Atlantic, crashing against the black volcanic rocks, spraying me with its icy creamy spume, refreshes my sun-kissed face but also makes me thirsty, so I go looking for a shop where I can buy a bottle of water. Tiptoeing around the trunks of tall orange-dated palms, I come across a little shop with the hand-painted sign above an old wooden door that says- “La Tienda de Manolo” ( Manolo´s shop).

I enter through the dim cavernous doorway & when my eyes had adjusted to the cool dark interior after the bright Island sunlight outside, I realized that by entering into Manolo´s shop, I had gone back in time & to another world completely removed from the world I had left, beyond those heavy wooden doors.

Walking around the big high wooden counter, I sauntered through the aisles which are divided by old hand-made wooden shelves, filled to bursting with goods of every kind & description imaginable, similar to the old far western general stores of yesteryear, a far cry from today´s super malls.

Sanitary wear next to cured ham haunches, hammers with baby´s bottles, tins & cans of everything that can be canned & tinned, alcohol, juice, milk, big glass jars of homemade jams, farm honey, pickles, olives, green, black, big & shiny, etc & on it went, shelf after shelf, aisle after aisle, everything next to everything else, piled high & higgledy-piggledy. From the high wooden rafters hung strings of green, yellow & scarlet chillies, peppers, huge onions, plaited necklaces of big creamy garlics, spicy chorizos & various dried  meats, bunches of herbs & spices, all lending pungent aromas to the saline breezes wafting into the shop from the sea across the small cobbled street.

I found a small bottle of water tucked between the knitting yarns & a pile of saffron strands in a beautiful woven basket & I made my way to the counter to pay. There was a pretty dark Spanish señorita behind the old rusty till & she was shouting over my head to folk entering the shop through the big wooden doorway. She asked an old lady if her son had arrived from afar to spend Christmas with her. To an old man she asked how he felt & what had his doctor said to him. To a small kiddy she offered a lollipop & all the while smiling, laughing, joking, a kind word here & there. I exchanged some sunny words with her, paid for my water & walked through the big wooden doorway, out of the shop & into the warm Island sunshine, into another world.

Outside under the shop´s striped awning, there was a display of beautiful fresh tropical fruit & vegetables, locally grown, vibrant colours & scents. A man was spraying the display with cold water to keep them fresh & cool & a soft breeze wafted over me from an overhanging tamarind tree on the pavement.

La Tienda de Manolo was an experience to gladden the heart & warm the soul & it is not a tourist attraction, it is a way of life for the local Islanders & it made me wish I was one of them.