‘It was either this or the pool’: hantavirus ship becomes latest Tenerife tourist attraction

On a dusty hill overlooking the Atlantic Ocean in the south of Tenerife, groups of tourists and locals are gathered to witness one of the island’s best new attractions. Some are gazing through binoculars while others are taking photos on their phones of a vessel only a few hundreds metres away, anchored near the Granadillo commercial port. It is the MV Hondius, the small cruise ship at the centre of a giant global commotion. Christened the “rat virus boat” by the internet after three people travelling onboard died of hantavirus , a disease normally carried by rats and mice, its story has enraptured people all over the world. And now, after reaching the Canary Islands shortly before dawn on Sunday, the ship is finally being evacuated, ending the ordeal for the remaining 149 passengers and crew. Tourists Amy Byres (left) and Emma Armitage. Photograph: Robyn Vinter/The Guardian The scene is watched from the hire car of Amy Byres and Emma Armitage from Sheffield, on holiday in Tenerife for Byres’s 22nd birthday. “We’ve got some time to kill before our flight later,” Armitage said. “It was either this or lay by the pool all day,” added Byres. The pair said they had spent their holiday fascinated by the story of the passengers trapped on board and confined to cabins, in between their whale-watching and quad biking activities. “We saw this at the start of our trip – we arrived on Monday – and we’ve been following it all week on TikTok,” Byres said. …