Where Does All The Plastic Go? is now a song

Where Does All The Plastic Go? is now a song

Where Does All The Plastic Go? started life as a poem I blogged about here, back in December 2015. Since then I have been watching the situation getting worse with plastic pollution continuing, and it appears from news reports that plastic is now found in every environment on the planet, from the frozen Arctic to the highest mountains, and even at the deepest parts of the ocean. This is insane! This is an ongoing tragedy!

I have been waiting in vain to hear protest songs being written about this subject, which affects us all and is a great danger to life on Earth. I say, “in vain” because as far as I know there are no well-known singer-songwriters or rock bands talking about plastic pollution in their lyrics. This motivated me to create a song from my poem. I recorded Where Does All The Plastic Go? at Northstone Studios in Bridgend, with the help of Jayce Lewis as my producer. I knew I would get a really professional recording by working with Jayce, who has recently been touring with Gary Numan, and who has worked with Brian May and Roger Taylor of Queen, as well as the late great Steve Strange (Visage).

I am happy to say that Where Does All The Plastic Go? has been trending on Reverb Nation, and you can stream and download the song here: Where Does All The Plastic Go?  I want my song to get heard as widely as possible. Please share it any way you can!

The Problem's Been Getting Worse

Plastic is constantly entering our oceans via rivers and streams and drains. Our cities and countryside are littered with plastic trash, landfills are full of the stuff and it is everywhere! Most disturbingly, plastic is in the food chain, and as micro particles has even been detected in bottled water. The number of marine creatures that have eaten plastic is truly alarming, and they get eaten in turn by other predators, including humans! Plastic is often in the seafood and fish we eat.

Turtles, whales and seabirds are swallowing floating plastic rubbish. They cannot digest it, they cannot excrete it, and it builds up inside, eventually killing many of them. Albatross parent birds mistakenly feed the trash to their chicks, which then die as their bellies fill with the toxic garbage.

And it isn’t going to go away unless we do something to solve this. Plastic does not breakdown like other forms of rubbish. It does not decompose and go back into the natural environment. Animals cannot digest it. Plastic breaks into smaller and smaller pieces. It can be here for 500 years or more. Most of the plastic ever made is still on this planet somewhere! Plastic also has another hidden danger because it absorbs toxins and then carries them, so it is also poisonous if ingested. Plastic itself becomes hidden. Tiny particles of hard plastic get mixed with the sand of beaches. In some places the number of particles of plastic to the number of natural sand is truly alarming. Same goes for floating plastic particles that outnumber plankton in many parts of the sea. Marine creatures that feed on plankton are feeding on plastic as well now.

Sir David Attenborough

Fortunately for us all, Sir David Attenborough, in his TV broadcasts, has captured the world’s attention with regard to the dangers of plastic pollution, and at last the problem is getting widely reported in the media. Many organisations and people worldwide are trying to stop the pollution getting worse and there are many efforts being made to clean up the oceans. One of the most important is The Ocean Cleanup, which has come about due to the pioneering ideas and determination of Dutch inventor and entrepreneur Boyan Slat. Check out his Ocean Cleanup website to see what is happening!

Ocean Aid

We need as many people as possible to do whatever they can to help stop plastic pollution getting any worse and to clean up the worldwide mess we have. Everybody can do something by applying any or all of the four Rs: ReUSE, ReDUCE, ReCYCLE and ReFUSE! A worldwide effort is needed and needed NOW! 

I have had an idea to help raise even more awareness and get more people and organisations on board. My idea is for a massive concert to be held and called OCEAN AID. It will be following in the musical footsteps of Band Aid and Live Aid. I can see big name acts wanting to be involved if such an event can happen.

Mick Jagger

By the way, a shout-out to Mick Jagger, who is a rock star who has spoken out about plastic pollution in a recent tweet. Mick @MickJagger tweeted: "I've pledged to reduce single-use plastic in my life & support @weareproject0 & @skyoceanrescue.  Refuse plastic straws & cutlery, use refillable water bottles coffee cups, & bring your own bag to the store. Together we can do this! Join me & take the challenge to #PassOnPlastic"

I am thinking BIG but it is a very BIG problem! Please help in any way you can!

Kenfig Pool and Kenfig Sand Dunes

Kenfig Pool (Photo: Public Domain)

I was thinking about places in the countryside that I remember from my childhood and thought I would like to tell you about Kenfig Pool and the sand dunes there. My parents used to take me to this amazing place when I was a boy. We used to go on lots of days out, visiting the countryside. My dad had a blue Vanguard car and this is what we would go out in. Mum and Dad were always encouraging when it came to my interest in nature and they used to buy me lots of books. I had most of the Observer’s Books.

Observer's Books (Photo: Wikipedia, Fair use for illustrative purposes)

I had the Observer’s Book of British Wild Flowers, and the book on fungi and British birds, and wild animals, and freshwater fish, and even the Observer’s Book of Mosses and Liverworts. That last book was given to me when I was only five, and I know that because it has survived and is at my Dad’s house still, I think, and it is signed to me in the front for my “Fifth birthday.”

Anyway, one place we used to go which I really used to love was Kenfig. It is near Porthcawl but much wilder. There is a big lake called Kenfig Pool and miles and miles of sand dunes.

These dunes have rough paths through them and eventually you can get to a long sandy beach by the sea. It takes well over an hour, as I remember it, to get from the carpark to the beach. But the walk is the real fun of it all. There were so many wild flowers I could look out for and insects and newts and frogs and toads, lizards too.

Kenfig Pool

There were temporary pools that formed in the dunes and they had boggy bits around them with sphagnum moss and bog myrtle. I used to love the smell of marshy ground, especially if there was water mint that added its aroma if you stepped on it or brushed by it as you were walking. In these pools there were newts and water beetles and other water insects. I was always fascinated by water, by ponds, streams and rivers, and rock pools when we went to beaches. I used to wear my Wellingtons so I could investigate the watery places without getting my feet wet, though often I did get water in my boots and my Mum used to get mad at me because of this.

Part of the fascination was I never knew what I would find. I was exploring. It was like it stirred some sort of instinct to hunt for life; I was a hunter-gatherer boy. In those days, I was forever turning stones over, looking under boards and corrugated iron on waste ground, wading around in muddy ponds, seeing what I could catch in rivers and streams, and exploring the railway bank behind where we lived. Nature was my world. It meant much more to me than people and the human world and I hated school.

Viper's Bugloss (Photo: Public Domain)

But getting back to Kenfig, one of the reasons I was so excited by the place was because there were rare wild flowers to be found there. I used to like looking up plants in my wild-flower books. I used to always be on the lookout for new species and hoping I would discover something really rare. Wintergreen, hound’s tongue and many types of orchids were some of the rare plants that grew at Kenfig Dunes. I used to find blue viper’s bugloss and pink centaury and also we used to look out for dewberries, a type of blackberry that grew in the dunes. We used to collect them and take them home so Mum could make pie which we used to have with custard. I used to love eating blackberry pie and custard or just stewed blackberries and custard.

Often I used to go on ahead of my family, or be lagging behind them, as we made our way over the dunes. I was always investigating some marshy ground, turning over any boulders or rubbish I found or searching in the vegetation. I remember there were some parts where you could find common lizards. They would bask on bits of discarded iron sheeting and on boards and other rubbish that littered the dunes even then….this was back in the early 1960s.

Great Green Grasshopper (Photo: Pixabay/Public Domain)

I used to try and spot great green grasshoppers too. These insects are, as their name suggests, very big, the size of locusts. They lived in some parts of the dunes and you could hear them singing but they are really difficult to find. The insects blend in so well with the vegetation and they stop singing as soon as you get anywhere near them. Most frustrating!

Often I found young toads and they seemed happy in the sandy soil. I remember thinking about natterjack toads I had read about in my books. They liked habitats like this but were very rare and didn’t live in South Wales but that didn’t stop me dreaming I would find them there.

Six-Spot Burnet (Photo: Pixabay/Public Domain)

There were lots of butterflies too. Wall butterflies, meadow browns, common blues, small coppers, small heaths and the colourful day-flying moths known as burnet moths. Many of these types of butterfly you hardly ever see in Britain today. It has always depressed me to watch wildlife vanishing. I never thought it would happen when I was younger. I mean, you don’t think about these things. You think everything will always be there somehow.

In spring though it was amazing because that is when there were most wild-flowers in bloom and the ponds were full of water. At this time too, if you happened to get there at the right time, it was possible to see thousands of adult toads making their way to Kenfig Pool. They used to use the lake to breed in and I remember seeing these amphibians all over the ground on the shores of the lake and in the water around the edges. many of them were mated pairs, in what naturalists call amplexus, where the male toad grasps the female with his arms round her and rides on her back.

Common Toad (Photo: Public Domain)

I used to like the idea of how wild it felt once you got away from the road and ‘civilisation.’ It was just miles of sand dunes covered in marram grass and other plants that tolerated the sandy soil, the sky above and hardly a soul ever in sight. Most people stayed in the car-park, few ventured into the dunes and were prepared to make the long trek.

When we were getting near the beach area you could tell. There were visible signs if you knew what to look out for. The sand got more so, less covered in vegetation, and new plants appeared.  The weird and prickly sea holly and sea spurge, food-plant for the rare spurge hawk moth. It was a moth I always hoped to someday see but never did. It is funny how we can live in expectation of some dream coming true, even though it is very much against the odds. It seems easier to do this when you are younger.

Gatekeeper on Sea Holly (Photo: Pixabay/Public Domain)

In this part of Kenfig it was like a zone, a border between the dunes and the beach, a place where different plants would grow. Then there was the top of the beach proper with rotting seaweed, bladderwrack with sandhoppers underneath it. I always used to enjoy moving the weed and seeing the hundreds of little crustaceans jumping about and seeking cover. It fascinated me how they all lived under these piles of seaweed.

Sandhoppers

So Kenfig was very much a part of my childhood and early teens. I don’t know what it is like today, probably spoiled to some degree. Most of my life and growing up I bore witness to seeing places I loved in the countryside getting ruined. I am sure you know what I mean, I mean watching places get built all over, ponds drained, roads built etc etc. Reminds me of the Joni Mitchell song: “They paved paradise and put up a parking lot.” But the wild places are still there in my head, in my memories, and are very much a part of what has made me as I am.

Footnote: This is the slightly edited first chapter of an unpublished book I began writing. More chapters will appear in future blogs.

Where does all the plastic go?

Plastic trash (Photo: Public Domain)

Where does all the plastic go? 

Into the sea, into the sea.

How does it get there, who threw it away?

Was it you or was it me?

Oceanic Gyres of Trash (Photo: Public Domain)

Plastic houseplants, why not real plants?

I saw the fake ones at the store,

Shoppers must want them, people must buy them;

I don't want to see any more.

It's not just hunting that'll kill the last whale,

Plastic will do it and it's a very sad tale.

What about the albatrosses?

They are dying out too,

They keep on fishing in the ocean's plastic stew.

These birds mate for life, only to watch their babies die,

From the plastic trash they feed them,

But they cannot understand why.

Remains of an albatross chick (Photo: Public Domain)

The plastic bag I bought, it very quickly broke,

If it ever gets burned there'll be poisonous smoke.

Plastic kills the turtles,

Plastic's eaten by the fish,

It is in the food chain,

And in the dinner on your dish.

Where does all the plastic go? 

Into the sea, into the sea.

How does it get there, who threw it away?

Was it you or was it me?

A Silent Spring for Seabirds

Rachel Carson's Silent Spring

Rachel Carson (Photo: Public Domain)

Rachel Carson's best-selling book Silent Spring gave a grim warning about the dangers of pesticides when it was published in 1962. It correctly predicted that DDT and other pesticides would take a terrible toll on wildlife, and in particular birds. Without birds singing it would be a Silent Spring, and hence the title.  Her book spurred on the environmental movement in a massive way, caused many changes and became a modern classic but it couldn't predict the extreme danger from plastic pollution that was fast approaching. In the 1960s when Carson's book came out less than 5% of seabirds had plastic inside them but by the 1980s it had increased dramatically to 80%.

90% of seabirds have eaten plastic

National Geographic has recently revealed in a shocking report by Laura Parker that today as many as 90% of marine birds have eaten plastic. That means most seagulls, gannets, shearwaters, terns, albatrosses, frigate birds, petrels, kittiwakes, razorbills, boobies, penguins and puffins are likely to have swallowed plastic. The birds mistake plastic for sea creatures and fish with dire results. They are unable to digest plastic, unable to excrete it and so the toxic material accumulates somewhere inside them. As the plastic builds up with each plastic item swallowed so the room for real food gets less. Plastic also contains toxins that can gradually poison a bird to various degrees and lead to its reproductive failure. Sharp-edged plastic items can puncture internal organs and lead to bleeding and death.

Washed up plastic trash (Photo: Public Domain)

This is happening worldwide because waste plastic is being carried down rivers, streams and sewers into the oceans, in addition to the discarded plastic rubbish from ships and left carelessly littering beaches and coastlines. Plastic is washing up on beaches and looks almost like dead fish. Plastic items including bottles, bottle-caps, cups, bags, straws, lighters, spoons, toys and pieces of plastic packaging are floating around or washed onto beaches and look like food to a hungry seabird. 

It is not just at sea because gulls that are so well-suited as scavengers, and which are increasingly colonising our cities and feeding from rubbish dumps are mistaking plastic for food too with disastrous results as can be seen in this video.

Seagull eating a plastic bag

It is estimated that by 2050 every seabird will have eaten plastic!

Albatrosses

Remains of a Laysan albatross chick (Photo: Forest & Kim Starr)

The magnificent albatross, in all of the species, is a type of seabird in which plastic pollution is causing widespread fatalities among the chicks. Parent birds are feeding all sorts of plastic items to their hungry babies not knowing that they are actually killing their young ones. The baby birds cannot regurgitate the plastic trash and cannot digest it either. The rubbish accumulates inside them and they become undernourished, stressed and eventually die.  The helpless parent birds can only look on in horror!

The following video shows how bad the situation really is:

Plastic in albatross chicks at Midway Atoll

All types of albatross are recognised as endangered species. Can you imagine a world without these birds? Can you imagine a world without seabirds where we can no longer hear the cry of the seagull?

Seagulls in flight (Photo: Public Domain)

 Can you picture rocky cliffs and islands no longer used as breeding sites for seabird colonies?  Plastic is one of the many serious threats to seabirds of all types and, the way things are going, it looks as if these birds are heading for extinction unless something can be done to halt their decline. 

Whales and turtles

Footage of whale who died after eating plastic bags

And it is not just the seabirds that are in danger because of plastic trash that they eat. Whales and turtles, as well as many other types of marine life are eating the material. Beached and dead whales are being found with masses of plastic bags and other rubbish inside them and turtles too are suffering the same fate of dying after consuming plastic. These marine reptiles eat the material after mistaking it for jellyfish.

Sea turtle eating plastic

Edible wild plants found near the sea: Tree Mallow

Tree Mallow in Santiago del Teide, Tenerife. Photo by Steve Andrews

The tree mallow is a very tall species of mallow, hence its name, and is often found growing on cliffs and at the tops of beaches. It has attractive pinkish-purple flowers and blooms in summer.

Known to botanists as Malva arborea or Lavatera arborea the tree mallow is a biennial or short-lived perennial. It can grow to as much as 3 metres in height and forms a very thick stem like a small trunk. It is a handsome plant that stands out in its natural habitat.

The seeds are tiny nutlets and are edible and known in Jersey as “petit pains” or little breads. The leaves and flowers can also be eaten The leaves have a lot of mucilage and this is good for combating inflammation.

In herbal medicine the tree mallow´s leaves are steeped in hot water and used to make a poultice for treating sprains. Like other mallow species the tree mallow has a lot of mucilage in its leaves.

The tree mallow is listed in the book Food For Free which is Richard Mabey´s classic guide for foragers. It is a wild flower to look out for when on a coastal walk.

The tree mallow grows on coasts in the UK but is also found in Europe and the Mediterranean, as well as Libya, Algeria and the Canary Islands. It is resistant to salty spray from the sea and is often found on the coasts of islands.

The tree mallow makes an attractive garden plant and will grow happily away from the sea. It will self-seed and is easy to maintain year after year. 

Edible wild plants found by the sea – Fennel

Fennel flowers. Photo by Steve Andrews

The fennel (Foeniculum vulgare) is a common medicinal and culinary herb often found growing wild by the sea. It is a tall plant with umbels of yellowish flowers and produces finely divided feathery foliage that is very aromatic and smells like anise.

Fennel is native to the Mediterranean, parts of Europe and the UK but is found in many other parts of the world, including America, Canada and Australia. It is a perennial plant and likes to grow in grassy areas and on waste-ground near the sea and is often to be found when foraging in coastal areas. It is very common in the north of Tenerife in the Canary Islands and can be found on the other islands.

Fennel is included and recommended in Richard Mabey’s Food For Free, which is an excellent book on edible plants that can be found while foraging and that has been republished over and over and is now in its fortieth year after its first publication.

The aniseed aroma that fennel produces is a very good way to identify this herb which is in the Apiaceae or parsley family, a group of plants that also has several very poisonous species such as the hemlock.

Fennel, from Koehler's Medicinal-plants (1887) in Public Domain

Fennel seeds are good in curries and other spicy dishes and can be used to make fennel tea. In Spanish the herb is known as hinojo and teabags are commonly sold in grocery stores and supermarkets under this name.

Fresh fennel leaves can be eaten in salad, used as a garnish or made into sauces which are very good with oily fish. Fennel is actually very good for indigestion so using it in your cooking makes a lot of sense.

There is a variety of fennel known as Florence fennel or finnochio that has a bulb at the base and this is popular as a vegetable to be eaten raw or cooked.

In herbal medicine fennel is recommended for digestive problems and is said to improve the vision. It is also said to be an aid to slimming.

Fennel can be grown easily in the herb garden and will produce large clumps. There is a bronze fennel too with attractively coloured foliage.

Edible wild plants found by the sea – Rock Samphire

Rock Samphire growing at Swanbridge, South Wales. Photo by Steve Andrews

The rock samphire, samphire or sea fennel is a commonly found edible plant that grows in rocks at the top of beaches, growing amongst the shingle and on cliffs. It is found in the UK and along coasts of parts of Europe and the Mediterranean area, as well as on the Canary Islands.

Known to botanists as Crithmum maritimum, the rock samphire is in the Apiaceae or parsley family. It has succulent divided leaves and umbels of greenish-yellow flowers.  It is aromatic if bruised and has quite a strong smell and taste. The herbalist Nicholas Culpeper described rock samphire as having a “pleasant, hot and spicy taste.”

Richard Mabey gives some recipes for rock samphire in his classic book for foragers entitled Food For Free.  This book has proved so popular that it has been republished over and over and is now in its fortieth year. 

Rock Samphire in Portugal Photo by Steve Andrews

Rock samphire can be found all year round and can be eaten sparingly raw in salads, pickled in vinegar or cooked as a green vegetable. It was once so popular that it was mentioned by Shakespeare who describing the dangerous practice of gathering it from high on cliffs, wrote, "Half-way down, Hangs one that gathers samphire; dreadful trade!”  It was collected too in the Isle of Wight and shipped to London in vats of seawater to keep it fresh.

These days it is illegal to remove plants of samphire from their natural habitat.  Nevertheless the rock samphire is an interesting edible plant to look out for when walking by the sea.

Edible wild plants found by the sea – Sea Beet or Wild Spinach

Sea Beet amongst seaweed and rocks. Photo by Steve Andrews

Sea beet is a common edible plant found at the top of beaches and near the sea in the UK and Europe.

Its leaves are very good cooked as greens and taste very much like spinach. This is not surprising because the plant is an ancestor of cultivated spinach beet and beetroot. In fact, the sea beet is also known as wild spinach.

It produces masses of glossy dark green oval or diamond-shaped leaves in rosettes that can be found all year around. Its flowers are small and greenish and form in summer and autumn.

Sea beet can be found growing amongst pebbles and rocks at the top of a beach and on coastal land and is easy to recognise. You are not likely to find anything else looking like poking its greenery through the pebbles. It can be found growing where seaweed and other floating rubbish has been washed up by the tide.

The leaves of Sea Beet. Photo by Steve Andrews

The stems of sea beet and the leaf stalks sometimes have a purplish-red colouration which shows their link with beetroots.

The leaves of sea beet can be eaten raw in salads as well as being cooked like spinach. Many people think their flavour is actually better than spinach we grow and buy.

Richard Mabey recommends it strongly in Food For Free his classic book on foraging which is now in its fortieth year and contains info with illustrations for some 200 types of edible plant and wild mushroom.

The sea beet is known to botanists as Beta vulgaris ssp. maritma and used to be classed as in the Chenopodiaceae but it is now in the Amaranthaceae. Many other plants in this family, such as the goosefoot (Chenopodium album), are also edible.

Las Galletas means the biscuits

One of the Las Galletas beaches

Las Galletas may well mean “The Biscuits” when translated from the Spanish but I am thinking of a charming fishing village turned resort town in Tenerife South that bears the same name. Las Galletas is not far from Los Cristianos and the Reina Sofia Airport as well.

Las Galletas has become a really popular seaside town with a good range of varied shopping, plenty of bars and restaurants and an attractive seafront promenade. It also has its own harbour and new marina where cruises operate from. It is possible to go diving from Las Galletas which has a dive centre as well.

Las Galletas is the neighbour of Costa del Silencio with its many housing complexes and large community of British ex-pats and other visitors to the island. Part of Costa del Silencio is known as Ten-Bel, and this was one of the first specially built self-catering resort developments. There are many Tenerife apartments for rental in Costa del Silencio and Las Galletas itself, and this is why so many people end up staying there after they have discovered these places when looking for Tenerife accommodation.

Because Las Galletas is in the extreme south of Tenerife it usually has excellent weather and plenty of sunshine. This makes it just the sort of place holiday-makers are looking for. Its proximity to the resorts of Los Cristianos and Las Americas goes in its favour too, as does the fact that it is very near to the Reina Sofia Airport for Tenerife South.

Las Galletas has two long beaches and one of these is very popular with sun-bathers and swimmers even though it has a lot of pebbles on it and it is right in front of the road. Its sunshine, calm waters and view over the marina with the many boats there more than make up for any disadvantages! 

Why Tenerife South is the holiday-maker's first choice?

Tenerife South Airport

Tenerife’s Reina Sofia Airport is situated in the south of the island and that makes it the point of arrival for most tourists who are taking their holidays there. Tenerife South is the first choice of very many holiday-makers, and with good reason.

The south of the island is very different to the cooler and cloudier north. Tenerife’s south gets the best of the weather all year around, so if it is sunshine you want then this is where you are likely to find it.

This has led to the main tourist resorts being created in the south of Tenerife. Los Cristianos and Playa de Las Americas are neighbours on the coast of Tenerife South with other resort developments and seaside towns further along the coastline.

Of course all tourists visiting the island will need to find suitable Tenerife accommodation. Although there are hotels in the resorts, many holiday-makers prefer to book self-catering holidays in Tenerife apartments. There are countless such apartments available for rent in the south of Tenerife, and all are within easy reach of the beach.

Tenerife’s south has plenty of long sandy beaches, as well as loads of bars and restaurants. Everything the typical holiday-maker can want is found in this part of the island. There are theme parks too such as Siam Park and Aqualand.

El Medano is on the southern coast of Tenerife and this is where all the wind-surfing enthusiasts gather. This seaside town has one of the best beaches on the island and is also very near the airport. Los Abrigos, famous for its restaurants where you can get some of the best fish dishes on the island, is next to El Medano and both places are very near Golf del Sur where golfers can enjoy their sport whilst on a holiday in the sun.


Copyright © 2012 Steve Andrews. All Rights Reserved.

Los Cristianos is one of the most popular resorts in Tenerife

Los Cristianos harbour photo by David Parkes

Los Cristianos in the south of Tenerife is one of the most well known and popular tourist resorts on the island. In fact for many people it is the only part of Tenerife they really know. Los Cristianos is where countless holiday-makers go and find it has all they are looking for.

Los Cristianos has the sandy beaches, the warm subtropical sunshine, the bars and restaurants and an excellent range of shops and local businesses. It is also within easy reach of the Tenerife South Airport.

There are hotels in Los Cristianos but many visitors to the island who are looking for Tenerife accommodation chose self-catering holidays in rented apartments. There are plenty of short-term lets as well as long-term rentals available for Tenerife apartments.

Apartment blocks and community complexes usually have their own swimming pools for residents and are not far from shops and bars. It is easy to get to the beach too in Los Cristianos, which is where most holiday-makers like to spend a lot of their time.

There are two large sandy beaches and a smaller one. The main beaches are Playa de los Cristianos, which is near the resort’s harbour, and Playa de las Vistas, which has been awarded a Blue Flag of excellence. The beaches provide long expanses of golden sand and are ideal for sunbathers. Sun-beds are readily available and WC and shower facilities are provided.

Los Cristianos runs right into and merges with the resort of Las Americas, and it is easy to walk along the seafront that joins the two.

Los Cristianos harbour is a focal point of the seaside town and also where ferries travel to the neighbouring island of La Gomera from.

Los Cristianos has an excellent regular bus service that enables travellers to get to many parts of the island from or for shorter journeys in the south.

Los Cristianos started life as a fishing village but in the late 1960s it began to develop fast into the thriving tourist town it has become today.


Copyright © 2012 Steve Andrews. All Rights Reserved.