Tenerife 2022

Tenerife arrival from Lisbon. The day started at the Saldhana Ibis hotel in Lisbon and we were drinking coffee and loading our plates at the hotel breakfast buffet at 6:25 am. After a short trip on the metro, we were through airport security, and we boarded the TAP aircraft for our seats 5A & 5B. There was a half hour delay, apparently awaiting a landing slot at TFS. Tenerife was clear and we had beautiful views of the island on the approach.

Once on Spanish soil, we collected our rental at Top Car. Our Citroën C3 didn’t measure up to the earlier rental cars of the trip; it was a well worn, base model so we called it the “crap car”. It took us a while to find our way out of the maze-like rental car area, but before long, we were out on the southern freeway TF-1, heading for Santa Cruz. In Madeira, I mostly drove in 2nd gear, but on Tenerife, I was in 5th gear almost right away. We made stops at Decathalon (another 6 Euro trekking pole for Sheila) and then at Lidl for groceries.

I had asked our host for the check-in procedure earlier, and we got the instructions 5 minutes before our scheduled arrival.  We collected the keys from a lock box at a different address on a busy street without available parking and then we arrived outside the bunker-like apartment complex. We drove down into the underground parking to complete an “expert-only” parking, and then we navigated through the handful of keys and eventually got into the comfortable apartment.  Getting there had the vibe of some sort of a puzzle or “Amazing Race” sequence, so it felt like an achievement.

The apartment was on the edge of old San Cristóbal de La Laguna  (aka La Laguna) and we made a couple of walks (by day and night) of the old town and added to our grocery provisions for our three night stay. The Portugese SIM card was about to expire and was non-extendable, so I purchased another 20 Euro Vodafone SIM card.

Anaga Mountains. We extricated the car from the parking garage and were quickly heading for Santa Cruz. We missed a counter-intuitive turn off the highway and became embroiled in rush hour traffic. My blood pressure improved once  we got through it and then we drove up steeply on a narrow road into clouds and the Anaga mountains. Visibility was minimal at times in cloud forest and then we dropped down onto the north coast.

The last road section into Benijo was along the coast. We found a place to park and started along a road and then a trail above the sea. We had originally planned to do a loop but the clouds were so low, that if we had climbed up, we’d be in thick clouds. We walked past El Draguillo onto Las Palmas and returned the same way. The coastline was stunning.

We drove back up to main road TF12 that winds along the top of the Anaga mountains and then dropped steeply down to Taborno. We found parking and we went for a 3km walk to get views of the coastline with a different perspective. Traffic was busy on the return to La Laguna and I was getting a little better at parking the C3 in the tight underground parking.

Anaga mountains & La Laguna. Still in the Anaga mountains we drove north to the coast and did a walk from Punta del Hidalgo to Chinamada (10km return)  with more impressive coastal views and of the rugged terrain. We then moved the car down to the town waterfront and took a dip in the natural swimming pool at Punta del Hidalgo. There were free changing rooms and showers with a lifeguard on duty. It wasn't very busy. We stopped at  SuperDino supermarket on the way back to our apartment. 

That afternoon, we wandered Laguna; it was quite busy as locals were out for their Saturday lunches. La Laguna was one of the first non-fortified cities in Spain and it provided a template for a number of colonial cities in the Americas (such as Campeche, Havana as Cartagena). It has UNESCO World Heritage status.

North shore of Tenerife and onto Masca. We drove the Tenerife north coast along the Autopista del Norte on a Sunday. We stopped at La Orotava which has a well preserved historic, colonial centre. We drove through the busy city of Puerto Cruz and didn't see an obvious parking spots, so continued driving and stopped at a Lidl to stock up for our upcoming cottage stay. We pulled off the autopista for a 3km walk from the Mirador de San Pedro. Continuing west, we parked in a city underground parking lot and had a look around Icod de los Vinos and then continued west for a further stop at Garachico. There is no shortage of colonial old towns on the Tenerife north shore.

We drove up through foggy hills and down  to Masca for the night and settled into our cottage for two nights. The clouds created a dramatic, magical atmosphere in Masca at sunset.

Temo mountains hike. We made a 10km day hike in the Temo mountains from Santiago del Teide back to our cottage in Masca. We left our rental car behind and hitched a ride with a French-Chilean couple into Santiago del Teide (we didn't therefore wait for the bus). We had a 1-2km road walk as a tunnel construction project had obliterated the original trail head. We climbed steadily to a pass and a short detour up to Pico Verde (1300m) for views down into Masca. The Atlantic was far below and our next island destination of La Gomera was in the distance. The trail followed a ridge, providing views of both sides, sometimes ducking into small patches of cloud forest. The views were big. We gained 400m and  descended 700m. We were back at the cottage for lunch and relaxed in Masca for the remainder of the day. 

Teide National Park. We drove up from Masca to Teide National Park. We were anticipating a European gong show and we were not disappointed: the shortage of parking made it much crazier than expected. We did a few short day walks totalling 14km and checked into the Parador for the night. The north side of the park reminded us of the country near Flagstaff Arizona while the south side of the volcano was more like parts of Utah.

Teide National Park. We skipped the breakfast buffet (served later) had an early breakfast in the room and we were at the trail head just after sunrise and had some difficulty finding parking. We later discovered that many people hike the volcano (starting between 2:00 & 3:00 am) for sunrise at  the summit. We had intended to avoid the crowds and hike up Montaña Blanca, but we were lured by the volcano and the excellent trail, and ended up walking to the refuge somewhere up around 3,200m and a 16km return walk (900m ascent). We enjoyed the walk down as much as the ascent. If were to do it again, we could have booked the free permits for the summit a month earlier and then taken the cable car down.

We drove down to Vilaflor and stayed in an excellent boutique hotel. Clouds swirled in and out of Vilaflor. We ate at the hotel (good but a little salty).

Roque del Conde and transfer to La Gomera. Fortified with a full breakfast, we drove to the base of Roque del Conde on the SE part of Tenerife. It was incredibly warm right away and with limited time, went to the saddle. We talked to another couple at the saddle and he said the hike up to the summit was very difficult, so we were happy to be short on time. We drove to the airport, dropped off the rental car and took a bus ( Covid masks mandatory) to Los Christianos which seemed to cater to British sun seekers.. We then went by ferry to La Gomera.

Return to Tenerife from La Gomera. We returned to Tenerife from La Gomera. We walked through part of the Los Christianos beach front and then onto the central bus stop. The #470 bus was ready to go, so we hopped on for the one hour bus ride to El Médano. We had a menu-of-the-day at a Restaurante Superpollo and then walked over to our central apartment overlooking the town beach  that we had booked for two nights. The cleaning woman was just finishing up. We then wandered back to the SuperDino supermarket for food supplies. We had a well equipped kitchen and a nice balcony overlooking the action; we had no need to eat out.

Montaña Roja. We had an extra/contingency day at El Médano. We walked for a couple of hours back and forth to reach the top of Montaña Roja and later strolled in the opposite direction. It was showery that afternoon but that didn't stop Sheila from going for a swim.

Last morning on Tenerife. We had the morning in El Médano and we went for another beach walk. We took a taxi to the nearby TFS Airport and  an afternoon flight from Tenerife to Lisbon, that was delayed for a little over an hour, due to poor weather in Lisbon.