San Juan Bautista is Tenerife’s midsummer festival and bonfire night Saturday 23 June

Update 22 June: In the Costa Adeje area, Fañabé Beach Club is hosting a BBQ, mojitos, cocktails, champagne and strawberries, balinese beds … all with live music between 11pm and 3am.

Update 21 June: Apart from the ever most popular bonfire and beach celebration in the fiesta’s namesake beach, Playa San Juan, El Médano will be host to a full event to celebrate the night on the beach and in the plaza. Los Cristianos, too, is having a bonfire on the beach and a dance in the Plaza de la Pescadora outside the Cultural Centre from 9.30pm. Wherever you celebrate La Noche de San Juan, I hope you have a great and safe time.

Original post 17 June:  Tenerife has its own bonfire night, on the Eve of the annual midsummer fiesta of San Juan Bautista (St John the Baptist). On St John’s Eve, 23 June, Tenerife is lit up with bonfires and fireworks, and many visitors often think that a summer fire has started early. It will be no different this year, so expect to see plenty of smoke swirling above the hills throughout today.

The celebrations are far from restricted to the inland villages, however, and very many places on the coast will have bonfires on the beaches and in the harbours. If you are near one, you might even see some people jumping over the flames three times. This is considered to be purifying and lucky, representing a burning away of their problems. The largest celebration of San Juan’s Day itself is held in Puerto de la Cruz, and involves the Baño de Cabras (bathing of the goats), with goat keepers from the hills above the town bringing their flocks down to the coast to bathe them in the sea in the early morning of the 24th … literally traditional scapegoats whose purification will bring good fortune on their keepers and the local community.

For more information in English see Don Quijote.org