It’s 1am on the Playa de las Americas strip in Tenerife and the Brits are out in force.
A drunk woman in a mini-skirt stumbles ahead of her friends and collapses on the kerb. As her head rolls back on the concrete the rest of the group catch-up and pull her away from the floor.
It’s just in the nick of time because the place she’d fallen was actually a parking spot and a blindsided driver manoeuvring into the bay avoids a collision by inches.
She’s far from the only one looking worse for wear.
Across the road in a packed-out bar a man in his 40s runs in circles with his exposed beer gut jiggling, by the wall a young man’s arms flounder as he attempts to stay upright while relieving himself and walking off into the distance a couple sway shoulder to shoulder.
I’m watching the chaos unfold from a spot that overlooks the row of bars and clubs with a notorious reputation for British tourists’ antics. Venturing down into the carnage itself, a more sinister edge to the revelry is revealed.
Like most strips in resorts targeting Brits, club promoters touting for business are quick to approach for business on the main drag. Some are friendly, others a bit too intense as they jostle for attention and quote offers on cocktails.
Single measures don’t exist in this place. The most popular drink for a fiver is a generous glass of house vodka combined with the energy drink Red Bull. Those sinking beers pay even less, at £2-per-pint lager drinkers can get themselves well oiled for less than the cost of 12 first class stamps.
Standing between the bars are men selling nitrous oxide balloons. Their approach to sales is considerably more aggressive. I see one jump into a blonde girl’s face scanning her body from head to toe, as her heavy set boyfriend pushes by and the balloon seller hops around him tapping his shoulders.
She’s far from the only woman to receive male attention bordering on harassment. A middle-aged man is grasping the arms of a girl no older than 21 to shout something in her ear. It takes two friends to pull her from his arms.
The charged atmosphere is intensified by the fact every bar has at least a couple of stag and hen parties, all of them wasted.
They are clearly prized customers and when one group decides to move, they spark a flurry of activity. The strip club promoters are the most keen, sensing a payday.
“Look” one says, gesturing with his right hand to the women who have been brought outside in tight-fitting outfits to entice men into the neon-lit venue. Their weak smiles suggest they’d rather not be paraded on the street.
But it’s not just strippers or hard liquor being pushed, there are also drugs.
As I exit the strip I’m approached by a man in a white tracksuit selling sunglasses, except it turns out that in addition to eyewear he is also flogging cocaine.
“Do you need something else brother?” he asks me. “I’ve got coke, Charlie. It’s €100 for a gram.”
Escaping his persistent attempts to get me to buy, I make it back to the vantage point where I watched the chaos to find a police car parked up. I wonder who or what they are coming to crack down on and watch with interest when they enter one of the bars with purpose.
But after a brief conversation with a member of staff they walk off. To be fair most of what was happening isn’t illegal, just unpleasant for the people that call this island home.
I wondered how the locals must feel about all this sleaze being served up on their doorstep and have a new understanding of demands for limits and rules. Nobody wants this where they live, especially in a place that used to be a family destination.
There was little surprise therefore that in the days which followed I heard how young women avoid certain parts of the island to stay safe and have in the most extreme cases chosen to live in isolation.
Even the Brits on holiday can understand why the Canarians might object to the mayhem.
Whether this month’s huge protests will change any of this remains to be seen because as off-putting as seedy strips might be, they are also very lucrative.
Tyler Mitchell