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A TASTE OF SALSA - SANTA CRUZ |
| SPAIN By Joe Cawley |
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A nun with a thick black moustache held in his stomach and lifted his arms to allow me to pass. From one hand, the contents of a plastic glass rained onto the hood of his devotional partner bringing forth a burst of slurred Spanish that I suspected contained very few sacred references.
The crowd around the brightly-lit refreshment kiosk was four deep and from behind a pungent leg of cured ham I tried in vain to get the attention of the sunken-eyed barmen, their white shirts completely drenched from serving endless Cubatas (Pampero rum and coke) and churros (deep fried doughnuts) in the heavy heat of the Canarian night.
Taped music from over 100 outdoor bars competed against the many bands dotted around the Plaza de España and adjoining Plaza de la Candelaria.
The ensuing cacophony provided a head-spinning riot of salsa rhythms that were hard to follow even for the more experienced dancers. The small contingent of non-hispanic tourists that had travelled to Tenerife from all over the globe to participate in what is the third largest carnival in the world were clearly conspicuous amongst the crowds of lithe, hip-swaying locals. Unable to synchronise their bodies with the unfamiliar Latin metre, they found themselves awkwardly trapped between the mechanical movements of a school barn dance and jigging up and down in the manner of a desperate person finding himself at the wrong end of a distressingly lengthy toilet queue.
I had left my girlfriend, Joy, near the row of delightfully named pipís moviles (mobile toilets) and returned with drinks in hand just in time to see her being whisked into the mêlée by an old man with an uncanny resemblance to the late Walter Matthau. She waved a not altogether happy greeting as her surprisingly athletic companion tossed her from side to side. I raised a glass to toast her newfound friendship. It was also returned by the most exquisite female form that I have ever had the boldness to raise a glass to, purposefully or inadvertently. She was some three feet beyond Joy and Walter, her tall slender body provocatively curved and arched under the spell of Latin fever. I realised that I may have been standing with my mouth ajar for several minutes and snapped it shut, swallowing hard as the girl shimmered towards me. "Quieres bailar?" I nodded that I would indeed like to dance and set the two glasses at the foot of a short but expansive silver laurel whose glossy green canopy had been gaily festooned with several strings of coloured light bulbs.
After many hazy minutes of inhaling pheromone-flooded perfume and being face to face with a perfect blend of doe-eyed innocence and deep-tanned allure whilst performing intimate gyrations that, but for the absence of a wispy bed sheet and the presence of 100,000 onlookers, could have plausibly been called sex, I realised that Joy must have been tiring of the windscreen-wiper choreography of Mr. Matthau and was probably in some danger of suffering from whiplash. I motioned apologetically that I had to leave and went to rescue her but not before the girl clasped the back of my head, pressed soft lips onto mine and thrust a probing tongue deeply into my lungs. Startled, to say the least, I backed away, grabbing her hands and lowered them to a safer level. It was at this point that words "what the..." were hastily passed from brain to mouth.
What unmistakably was a carpet of hair furnished the back of her, or as I now alarmingly realised, his hands. The salsa became slurry; a 100,000 people turned to stare and visions of hairy legs of cured ham filled my mind. Quickly I sidled off into the masses and without a word grabbed Joy by the wrist and shouldered my way through the crowd to the nearest provider of steadying cubatas. You just can't tell what's in a salsa.
Joe Cawley visited Santa Cruz in February 2001
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