It took a while to get there, but eventually the lady behind the desk at the car rental office in San Juan, Tenerife and I come to an agreement and I am now the proud, albeit temporary owner of a newly-acquired vehicle. Manual. The fruitless on-line search for that elusive automatic transmission which never materialised is over (see post Automatic Transmission), and so is the story of my life which I shared with her as she tapped away on her computer (see post Cars With Memories). And what a story! Five decades of living impressively compacted into one short hour. I think she is secretly relieved to finally see the back of me. She only wants to rent cars, not to forcefully ingest an audio version of a client’s autobiography, even when it is as interesting as mine. I am now officially a Woman with Wheels.
I am no stranger to driving having survived countless demanding Finnish winters, but Tenerife’s meandering mountain roads present a completely different challenge and I am accordingly feeling rather wobbly. But there is a first time for everything, and today is the first time for this feat. Slowly, I pull out of San Juan and turn right onto the main road taking me to the nearby town of Adeje. There is no other choice, turning left and driving in the other direction towards Los Gigantes is even scarier, and I am gripped by terror as curves cascade down on me like relentless waves, one after another as the zig-zag road hugs the erratic coastline. My knees are trembling from the enormous ordeal and I am soaked with sweat. For the seasoned local driver, the curves I have just negotiated are a mere trifle. Not for me. As far as I am concerned, I am dicing with death as I inch along the most terrifying cliff-face with a sheer drop down to oblivion and death if I get just one tiny movement wrong. How do the locals do it? I think to myself. Look at them as they pass me from the other direction, they seem to not have a care in the world. Some are even smiling and laughing with their passengers! Impressive. How can they not be soaked with perspiration like me? If I had to negotiate these serpentine roads every day, I would need to take a spare set of underwear to change into, as the ones I left the house with would most certainly be drenched with sweat by the time I had reached my destination.
All I think about is staying alive and I want to go straight back to the village and hand the car keys back to the woman behind the counter and ask for my money back. But in order to do that, I will have to drive back. On the other side of the winding road. With the same twisting curves that brought me this far. Why did she not warn me how dangerous it was? Perhaps, because I was too busy sharing my life story with her. These thoughts are soon cut short, because I now look in the mirror and see to my horror a long tail of vehicles stretching out behind me as far as the eye can see. It’s been all of fifteen minutes since I set out on this Journey of Death, but I sensibly decide that it’s already time for a break and accordingly pull over at a nearby bus stop to let the long line of impatient drivers pass by. And what a feast passes by my window.
Now, this is not any old line of drivers that pass by me, it is a line of Spanish drivers. And every single person that drives by my vehicle takes a moment to slow down, wind down their window and share with me their valued opinion on my driving skills or lack thereof by hurling an insult, shaking their fist, or both. Never one to forget my manners, I politely smile at every comment which I receive, nodding my head in acknowledgement, accompanied by a smile, a wave or even a thumbs-up. Surely, they do not behave this way with poor helpless tourists, I think to myself. How distasteful. Then, the penny drops; the gravity of my infraction was made all the worse because I looked local. They thought I was one of them. I am impressed. If they indeed thought that I looked like one of them, then they expected me to drive like one of them. And gradually, it begins to dawn on me that I can probably do this.
After this long line passes and I am somehow recuperated, I venture out again on the road, just a bit farther and after another fifteen minutes I have my next stop in the next lay-by once again to let the long line of cars pass by. Only this time, the line is not so long and now only every other driver slows down to hurl an insult. I am doing well. After a few more sessions on the road, my speed is becoming aligned with that of everyone else around me and I am getting the hang of negotiating even the most demanding of the hairpin bends. The waves of perspiration have receded and after a couple of hours, I have blended in with everyone driving around me. Now I not only look local, but I drive local. Comfort zone surpassed and mission accomplished. I even calculate that I can leave the house without spare underwear, for my waves of nervous perspiration have all but vanished. Driving back to the village and Mama’s apartment, I am exhilarated and ready to face whatever the ubiquitous winding roads on this island care to throw at me. But before I do that, I must break the fantastic news to Zara and Mama.
Zara is already at home, having just returned from her early morning shift at the undisputed King of the Island’s five-star hotels, the iconic Laguna Azul, or in English, The Blue Lagoon. Rooms start at a mere EUR 600 a night and my nineteen-year-old old English niece is working there as a receptionist and loving her job, her time on the Island with her Spanish grandma and the opportunity to learn Spanish. And at the Blue Lagoon, they all love her back. I walk into the apartment, straight into the living room and dangle a set of car keys deliciously in front of her. She understands what it means, shrieks with joy and we hug one another and jump up and down with happiness like adolescents. At least one of us can still lay claim to that title, and I inform my teenage niece that the local TITSA bus (it really is called that) is now history, for from this moment onwards we are officially Women with Wheels. ‘Have you told Nanny?’ Zara cautiously enquires after the first flush of excitement has receded. Absolutely not! I respond. She would be horrified with the whole idea, and even more terrified than me of the dangers involved. Had she had any inkling of my intentions, I would have probably been locked away in my bedroom all morning until this whole driving madness idea had passed.
Zara tells me that I am absolutely right not to have told Mama, or Nanny as she calls her, anything about the rental car plan and she elaborates on this; last month she went diving with some friends and a few days later proudly showed Nanny the underwater Facebook photographs. There she was, capture for eternity complete with wet suit, oxygen bottle and a myriad of turtles, fish and the rest of the what-have-you's that inhabit the watery world. Now, most Nannies would captivatingly look at the pictures, and qualify this enthusiasm with appropriately encouraging comments such as, ‘How exciting. Lovely dear. What an adventure! Be sure to tell your Mother when you next talk’. Not this Nanny. As she studied the photographs in closer detail she makes no attempt to conceal the look of horror on her face. Indeed, the piece of apple that Mama has just neatly sliced with a knife and is about to pop into her mouth suddenly drops from her hand and falls gently onto the floor, instantaneously consigned to oblivion in the turmoil of the moment.
She grabs Zara by both arms and proceeds to shake her vigorously as if to awaken her from the most harrowing of nightmares. ‘Have you gone out of your mind? Are you mad? Promise me you will never do such a dangerous thing again! Do you want to die? What will I then tell your Mother? Never, ever do this again!’ She passionately tells her granddaughter. Zara may as well as have told her Grandma that on her day off she had climbed the 3.7-kilometre peak of the nearby Teide volcano, that she had avoided falling over a precipice and to certain death by sheer inches, that a few companions were lost on the way down. But that she was lucky and made it back to work at the Blue Lagoon the following day with just one chipped nail. And that nobody noticed a thing until they read the obituary to the lost friends in the following day’s local newspaper. Yes, we both agree that it is better Mama does not know that I have rented a car until I am certain that I can drive it. She would only worry. We will surprise her when she comes back from church with excellent driving skills, I wisely tell Zara. In the meantime, let’s go out and have a spin. And as we shut the door behind us, we take along only our bags and phones, for our mutual bus tickets have been relegated to the kitchen counter as superfluous. After all, we are now Women with Wheels.
To be continued...
Next post 8th September: Dark Side Of The Moon
Note: All written content is the intellectual property of this Author. Image material is drawn from a combination of Pixabay with additions from private family archives.
