Teide

12-18-2008

I woke up at 6:30 this morning and took the 477 bus to Los Cristianos. After an hour of walking and wave watching there I took the 342 up La Teide, the highest mountain of the Canary Islands.

This island is extremely unique. Due to the differing altitudes as you climb/drive up the montain, there are differing micro-climates. There are completely different plants growing below the clouds, from where the clouds sit, to above the clouds where nothing grows. Once you get above the town of Vilafor, about a fifth of the way up the mountain, everything is part of the Parque Nacional del Teide.

I got off the bus above the clouds at a basecamp/hotel, Parador de Turismo. From there I hiked four hours, eight kilometers, along the sunny, windly, and beautifully serene Siete Cañadas route. While windy at times, every so often I would be surrounded by cliffs and rocks that completely blocked the wind. When they did, I heard a silence like I've never heard.

That eight kilometers led me to one of the other two basecamps on the mountain, El Portillo. From there, I had another four hours of bus journey to get back to Puerto de Santiago, but again. Worth it’s weight in credit crunch.

The Splendor of Tenerife

12-17-2008

Today I took another tour with Manfred. The first one rocked so hard, I couldn’t resist another. This tour went in the opposite direction of the first to the north east side of the island towards La Laguna. There were ocho of us in this little beat up mini-van this time, filled to capacity. I actually had to plead with Manfred to let me go along. But totally worth it.

This tour involved a bit more driving and stopping but we saw some amazing views as we drove high into the Monte de las Mercedes region. Every half an hour or so, we’d stop and take another breathtaking look at the island that lay beneath us.

We took a walk around a cave village, a town in which everyone builds their homes into the sides of the mountains around them. Since these villages are so far removed from the more civilized parts of the island, they are mostly self-sufficient. They farm on terraces built into the sides of the mountains and most homes ran solely on solar power until three years ago when the island government brought electricity and street lights to the village. Manfred was puzzled as to why they would do this, as the inhabitants of these little villages are mostly elderly and sleep early. The government even built a lovely community center six years ago that is rarely used. Manfred assumes they are trying to beautify the area to attract people to live there. Because with the average age of the inhabitants around 55, the area may die out soon.

I could see a huge market for people wanting to live there, perhaps even monthly time-shares. Many people I know from Point would jump at the opportunity to live in a secluded village and sustain themselves for a number of years. I’m going to look at investing in this place….

After another short drive, we ended up in another mountain village where we met with an old shop owner who supplied us with the most delicious goat cheese I’ve ever eaten, some bread, and vino rojo.

He had the most ecliptic collection of random alcohol bottles I’ve ever seen. His collection of extremely old products also made me giggle. Emmet, the Irish guy on the tour, bought some batteries from the shop keeper. Upon putting them in his camera, he quickly realized that they had lost all their charge. To support the old guy, I purchased a Kinder Bueno candy bar. The visit to this little mountain shop was definitely one of the highlights of the day.

From there we drove further up the Monte de las Mercedes and took a hike through the “magic forest.” The vegetation here was quite unique.

And we got some more incredible views.

Our last stop was one of the only white sand beach on Tenerife.

The sand was shipped over from the Sahara desert to create a lovely holiday stop for locals and tourists alike. I was hungry so ordered what looked like onion rings on a bun. A British guy walked up next to me and asked what I had ordered. I said, “clamarie, it looks like onion rings on a bun.” He replied, “yeah, that’s not onion rings, that’s squid.” And sure enough it was, but it was also delicious.

Once I got back to the guesthouse, I grabbed my backpack and Manfred gave me a ride down to the bus station in Puerto de la Cruz where I took a bus to Los Gigantes and met up with Rachel at our next amazing accommodation, Hi! Tamaimo Tropical.

While the place was incredible and had much to do, I have a long day of hiking ahead of me tomorrow. So sleep took priority.

Around Tenerife

12-16-2008

After doing some interneting at a café in La Orotava, we decided to find a beach that actually had some sun. That meant heading to the west coast towards Los Gigantes, which just so happen to be where our next stay was in Puerto de Santiago.

We arrived in Puerto de la Cruz, which is were we needed to catch the bus, but soon found out that the next bus to Santiago didn't leave for another 2 hours. So we spent some more time in la Cruz, walking along the surf side, and listening to the waves crashing against the shore. There were some amazing resorts and public pools. We tried to imagine what this place would look like in the summer, with more sun and figured it must be more lively.

Puerto de Santiago was lovely after we took our hour and a half bus ride there. But before too long, we headed back to La Orotava.

Masca Gorge

12-15-2008

Our guest house owner Manfred runs his own little tours. For €28, he packed four of us into his little red mini-van, drove to the northwestern side of the island, and took us on a guided tour of the Masca Gorge, probably the most beautiful area of this island.

We drove an hour to a tiny town where we met a hiking bus that took us to an even tinier town at the top of the Masca gorge. From there we hiked four hours through some absolutely breath-taking landscape. The pictures say more than I can.

We started in a rainy, misty, wet part of the gorge, but the further we hiked the dryer it got.

 

In the beginning stairs were cut into the rock to make for an easy start, but after those first 100 meters, it was rough, raw hiking. The way I like it.

Quite windy at times...

Through crevasses.

Manfred taught us about water canals that were dug in the gorge in the late 1800's to supply the surrounding villages with fresh water. 

And how their discarded tools were made into part of the trail.

As we broke into the sunlight, we were stalked by a cat who I named Senor Gato. He liked me because I fed him….and probably because I named him.

 

At the end of the gorge, was a picturesque beach, only accessible by boat or by taking the four-hour journey we just took. While a bit rocky, it was a welcome warm sight after the damp walk we just took.

It was a bit choppy, but that didn’t stop me from getting in the water. With the waves crashing against the rocky shore, walking in from the beach was not an option. I had to walk over this concrete walkway out to a round platform in the water. Manfred assured me it was safe and it more or less was. I’m always shocked at how strong currents are in the ocean. I thought I was going to get smashed upon that concrete platform a few times, but my strong swimming held out.

I dried off just in time to board our dolphin watching boat. It was really entertaining watching people attempt to board this bouncing boat as the captain carefully maneuvered the boat to keep it from drifting to far away or from crashing into the platform.

As we pulled away from the gorge a full spectrum rainbow bid us farewell.

 

We eventually pulled up to some fish nurseries where we were able to see some live dolphins pick off the fish that made it through the nets. A few even jumped out of the water for us, but mostly it was dorsal fins and blowholes. But I’d rather see that from dolphins in the wild, than a full body view of a dolphin in a tank.

After a little wait in the ocean side tourist area of Los Gigantes, we took a bus back to the little red mini-van where we drove back to La Orotava.

We walked into town that night and grabbed some dinner with Patrick and Arnita, the other two hikers on our tour today. I don’t know how I became the Spanish expert in our group of four but it was up to me to communicate with the waiter, which with Rachel was rough as she had specific wants. Poor Arnita had to have all her meals gluten free, but she had a small card with all her needs printed in Spanish, which helped a lot. The highlight from this place was the pumpkin soup, delectable.  

It's Also Winter in Tenerife

12-14-2008

We came here for the beaches and the sun, and neither really seemed to cooperate. A bus from La Orotava down the valley to Puerto de la Cruz was pretty cheap and not long so we decided this popular beach would be the way to go.

While the black sand on the beach was beautiful to walk through along the beach, the huge waves and rip-tide justified the red flag being raised which according to the signage around the beach meant “swimming and water activities are forbidden.”

We didn’t see this sign until after we ventured into the water.

Nothing dangerous though. We basically went in enough to say we went in. You could feel the strength of the rip-tide just standing in the knee deep water.  So we really didn’t dare venture too far into the rough seas. A few others dared the waters after us, but before too long the authorities arrived to rope off the beach. But hey, we got in.

Down the street from the beach we found a stadium with what looked like local futbol teams battling each other. Right next to the stadium was a small church with a public tower which we walked up to watch the game from.

Puerto de la Cruz entertained us for a few more hours as we walked. But we eventually took a bus up to La Laguna, a bus which we never actually got off due to crappy weather and took back to Puerto de la Cruz. We got to see some beautiful parts of the island though, through rain-dropped windows.

Upon our return to the guesthouse we decided to cook our dinner, which consisted of noodles, tomato sauce, and cheap wine. That is, until we invited a couple other guests to join us. Then Patrick from Germany brought in some delicious goat cheese and olives which helped to spice up the sauce. Carl, who stays free at the guesthouse and does odd jobs to keep it up, ate with us too. I felt bad not knowing German with Carl because his English was very limited and I hated leaving him out of conversations. All the more reason why I’m diving into German and Spanish when I get home. 

Settling in La Orotava

12-13-2008

The limo ride was the just the beginning of a long day of travel: limo, to plane, to bus, to taxi, then finally to 24 Calles Marques en La Orotava, Tenerife. We arrived at our guesthouse in the late afternoon. After that long day of travel, we just wanted to relax. So we walked around the typically quaint Spanish town and got to know our surroundings. We did a bit of grocery shopping so we could cook at the guesthouse and defray some eating out costs. 

We called it an early night as Rachel had not slept much the night before and I had to work on my final externship paper. 

This is the view from the roof of our little guest house, nestled right in the middle of 

La Orotava.