Walking on Tenerife – Those Boots Were Made For Walking

My favourite boots are a pair of old Camel boots that I've probably worn about twenty times. I was completely seduced by an advert in a travel magazine which basically showed a foot resting on a log in a clearing in the jungle. On the foot was a gleaming Camel boot which looked about as at home in that exotic setting as a piece of leather, not actually on an animal, could be. I couldn't resist them.

Their first outing was to Kenya where they seemed just the ticket for exploring Tsavo East on foot. The reality though was that, as walking boots go, they turned out to be a complete bust. They might have looked the part, but just walking from the safari lodge bar to a table overlooking a watering hole with a G&T (don't actually drink the stuff, but it did seem appropriate) to enjoy sunset was enough to bring up a blister. In the end I carried them around Kenya instead of them carrying me.

Since then I've learned to choose my footwear carefully when it comes to buying shoes for practical reasons; something that when you're tackling Tenerife's diverse range of landscapes is a far more sensible approach.

Footwear for Walking on Tenerife

My number one walking boots for donkey's years have been a trusty pair of brasher's, similar to their current Hillmaster boot. I brought them from Britain with me and they've proved equal to the task of tackling all of Tenerife's terrains from the sliding volcanic scree on the way to the summit of Mount Teide to pine covered forest floors in the forests of the Orotava Valley and icy slopes in Las Cañadas del Teide.

These sort of sturdy boots are good all rounders for exploring the island on foot. But mine can feel quite heavy in the summer months when the temperature rises off the scale and boots like the brasher can make my feet feel as though they're a wee bit overdressed.

So when the temperatures rise, and the terrain permits, I tend to switch to a walking sandal. For a long time I wore a pair of Merrells when walking in summer months (between May and the end October) in areas where the ascents weren't too steep or slippery (good for coastal walks). They struggled a bit with some of the terrain, especially in the upper La Orotava Valley where a bit of dry floor ski-ing can add some excitement to trails when the forest floor is thick with pine needles. It was on one such walk that one of them fell apart mid-walk (to be fair I'd had them for a few years and they'd seen some action).
I couldn't find a suitable replacement until I spotted what looked like an almost identical pair of sandals in my local supermarket at a fraction of the price. To be honest I didn't expect much of them and tried them out on a short coastal walk around Las Ramblas in Los Realejos to see how they'd hold up. It turned out they felt no different from my old Merrells and two years later they're still going strong. They were an incredible bargain considering they cost me €2.99.

Recently I added another addition to my walking footwear stable, a pair of Quechua lightweight walking shoes. I could feel my feet sigh with joy as I tried them out for the first time on a trek last week. The temperature was hovering around 30 degrees and the terrain was more uneven than I'd expected with a couple of steep ascent/descents but the shoes stuck to the path as though they had solvent on them. After 15 kilometres my feet and the shoes were still best of mates.

The only downside was that they were so comfortable that at the end of the walk I was denied that delicious pleasure of peeling off my boots and walking socks and slipping them into an airy pair of sandals to let them breathe a sigh of relief.

It was only their first outing, they'll get the second tomorrow, so it'll be interesting to see how they hold up over the long term.

They won't be sturdy enough for the most serious walks like climbing Teide, or even the muddy Anaga paths after the winter rains, but it looks as though the brashers are going to get a well earned rest over the summer.