Walking on Tenerife: Using Public Transport or Hiring a Car on Tenerife

When we first travelled abroad, we used to go on all the excursions available. I loved getting to see all sorts of interesting things, but hated being herded about and eating mediocre meals.
Within a few years we dumped the excursions, bought guide books and set off on our own. If it was in Europe, we’d hire a car, if it was further afield we’d use whatever public transport was available - tuk, tuks, trains, dhows, river taxis and even the occasional elephant. Instead of simply sightseeing we started having adventures. The experience was worlds away from the world of organised excursions.

It’s probably a safe bet to assume that if you’re reading this blog and you’re interested in walking on Tenerife, you are the sort of person who enjoys setting out under their own steam whether it’s by car or by local bus (sorry, no elephant transport here, although there are camels). But which depends on personal preferences and on what areas you hope to explore when you visit Tenerife.

The bus network on Tenerife is excellent in my opinion. Although we both drive we use it regularly if we’re going into Puerto de la Cruz or Santa Cruz for a night out, or to and from the airport, or the port at Los Cristianos if we’re travelling to La Gomera. Buses are cheap and on the whole reliable and if you’re planning on walking, you can get to many good walking areas by public transport. For example, if based in Puerto de la Cruz, a regular bus service will transport you into the heart of the pine forest in the upper La Orotava Valley. If you’re in the south west around Los Gigantes, the bus to Puerto drops walkers off at the Fleytas bar where there are a number of classic routes to explore.

But, and this is a giant sized ‘but’, if you’re the sort of person who relishes exploring the most remote corners of the places you visit, the less populated an area, the less likely it is to have a regular bus service. The most spectacular route to Mount Teide isn’t on a bus route because no-one lives along most of it.

I read a post on Tripadvisor recently from someone who had been to La Gomera. He said that it was completely different from Tenerife and that it was probably what Tenerife was like before tourism. He was wrong about that. The Anaga Mountains with their tiny agricultural hamlets are exactly like La Gomera; if anything, they make La Gomera look over developed. But some of the spectacular walks there are more or less ‘out of bounds’ to someone using public transport, so for many visitors there are great swathes of Tenerife which remain ‘hidden’.

For me that’s where the car wins hands down. Hirting a car on Tenerife opens up the whole island rather than just part of it.

I Can't Buy Island Walks Because I can't Speak Spanish!

We'd like to publicly pass on a thousand 'thank you's to J in America for pointing out to us that when she tried to buy Island Walks, the Paypal page came up in Spanish.  No problem to any Spanish speakers out there, but a serious deterrent to those who aren't on best pal terms with that lovely language.

We've no idea how this happened; it was all set up in English, so some mischievous little Castilian gremlin has clearly been at work.

Anyway, thanks to J, everything is now once again in English, so anyone wishing to purchase any of the Island Walks will be able to do so without having to enrol in Spanish language courses first.

Apologies to all for any inconvenience caused by this annoying little glitch.

Guided Routes: Arico Coast and La Cueva Del Viento

Granadilla council are organising a couple of short walks this month.

The first is from Poris de Abona to Los Abades on the 12th and costs €5. The pick up point is outside the tourist office in El Médano at 9am (returning at 1pm).

And the second is into the volcanic tube, La Cueva del Viento near Icod de los Vinos. Entry to the cave and transport is included in the €12 price and the pick up point is also outside the tourist office in El Médano, but this time it’s an earlier start at 7.30am (returning at midday).

Anyone interested in joining the walks should contact José Juan Cano Delgado on 922 75 99 95 or by email at: jjcanodelgado@gmail.com

Events on Tenerife: Walk for Life in Playa de las Américas

We receive lots of queries about walking on Tenerife, well here’s the opportunity to indulge in something you enjoy and also do it for a great cause as donations made go to (AECC) “Asociación Española contra el Cáncer” (Spanish Association against Cancer) and (AMATE) “Asociación de Mujeres afectadas por Cáncer de mama” (Association of Women Affected by Breast Cancer).

Each year, thousands of people turn the promenade at Playa de las Américas into a pink parade in a colourful show of support for those who have been affected by this horrible disease.

Simply, register, make a donation, pick up your Walk for Life t-shirt, or pink cap and you can become a member of the pink parade.

Walk for Life this year takes place on Sunday the 13th December and the route runs along the promenade from the Mediterranean Palace hotel in Playa de las Américas to the Sally Tien Plaza, Costa Adeje.

Have a look at the Walk for Life website for more information

Good News for Tenerife Walkers

The press invitation had quite clearly stated that walking shoes and warm clothing should be worn but it seems that for the staff of the local Town Hall, a visit from the President of the Tenerife Council was too important an occasion not to dress up for.

18th November was the 100th anniversary of Tenerife’s last volcanic eruption which came from Mount Chinyero in the pine forests of Santiago del Teide municipality. To mark the anniversary a plaque was to be unveiled at the foot of the volcano and some doves were to be released to fly over the frozen black lava that today fills the landscape.

Heeding the advice in the invitation and wearing sensible shoes and a warm jacket, I had to stifle my giggles as I watched the ‘suits’ from the Island Council and the local Town Hall trying to walk over the lava fields to where the plaque was being unveiled. Even funnier were the women, one in little white ballet-type shoes, one in gold sandals and one in high heel knee boots.
Apart from the Dick Emery type gait that they all had to adopt as they slipped and wobbled on the pumice rocks, they all had hunched shoulders and goose-pimply flesh from the distinctly nippy breeze that was blowing around the volcano.

Still, plaque uncovered and doves released, we all trooped our way back to the Casa del Patio in Santiago del Teide for the much more sedate second part of the centenary celebration.
Casa del Patio is the 17th century former home of the Hoyo y Solórzano family who used to own Santiago del Teide and it has now been beautifully restored by the Tenerife Council. Housing a permanent exhibition to the Chinyero eruption of 1909, this was the perfect occasion to officially open the Casa to the public.

It’s in an idyllic setting just behind the church in Santiago del Teide and stepping through the gates is like stepping back in time. Apart from the assorted cockerel, ducks and geese underfoot, there’s a wine museum, a wonderfully atmospheric Tasca with cheeses, hams and local wine and a rather elegant restaurant. There are also riding stables and there are plans to open riding trails locally so everyone can enjoy the spectacular scenery on horseback, the way many locals still do.
If you’re planning a trip to Masca I recommend stopping off here for an hour to wander the grounds, browse the shop and museums and sample some local produce at the Tasca.

Best of all, there’s a small rural hotel on the site which is due to be opened shortly and which will be the perfect stopover for hikers.
The trails around Santiago del Teide valley are some of the most diverse on Tenerife with terrain moving from lush, wild flower-filled valley, to pine forest and frozen lava fields around Mount Chinyero. You even move through climate zones from the humid, cooler Erjos Pools to the arid south at Arguayo. Walking these hills and valleys is akin to walking on at least three different islands.

When Casa del Patio Rural Hotel opens we’ll be able to combine a great day’s walking with a night in a stylishly rustic hotel and lunch at the Tasca.
Now that’s something to look forward to.

Walking in the South of Tenerife

The most enquiries we get from people about walking on Tenerife are:
1) I’m staying in the south and would like some walks within easy distance and
2) do you have any walks that aren’t too long?

Well, if I was a stone, I might just have killed two birds…

This week we’ve published ‘The Old South’ which is a series of five walks set, as the name suggests, in and around the south of Tenerife.
They range from an ancient trading route which takes you through the pretty hamlet of San Miguel before heading out into idyllic rural scenery and spectacular views, to pine forests and cliff-side paths above plunging ravines with magnificent vistas over Costa Adeje.
From above barrancos to within barrancos and from village to valley, all the walks in The Old South are less than 3 hours in duration and can easily be done by any reasonably fit person without the aid of breathing apparatus!

You can buy ‘The Old South’ for just €2 or you can buy the whole Island Walks series for just €6. Every purchase gets a free copy of ‘A Captivating Coastline’ which gives you a free bonus of five beautiful Tenerife coastal walks.
Happy hiking!

Fuzzy Walking Directions – A Recipe for Disaster

The term ‘recipe’ seems quite appropriate to use when talking about walking routes, especially when talking about writing walking routes.

Let’s be honest here, most walking routes anywhere have been written out any number of times by any number of people over the years. It’s very rare to find a completely ‘new’ walking route, but that doesn’t mean to say that there’s not something fresh to say, or a different approach to take.

It’s the same with recipes. Most recipes are variations on ones which have been handed down through families or recorded in cook books over aeons. But that doesn’t mean that there’s nothing new about the recipe. A dash of cumin here, a sprinkling of fresh herbs there and you’ve got something which improves on the original.

I bet you’re wondering where I’m going with this…hang on in there, I’ll get there in the end.

The recipe analogy came into my head the other day as I surveyed a bewildering noughts and crosses grid of identical looking paths heading in all sorts of directions. I’m sure from the air it must have looked like one of those ‘landing strip for flying saucers’ images from Erich Von Däniken’s Chariots of the Gods.

I was heading up to the summit of Montaña Guaza beside Los Cristianos and had reached a crossroads of paths which had me scratching my head in confusion.

You might be thinking, ‘surely if you’re heading to the summit of a mountain, it’s pretty obvious which way to go… up’.

And normally I’d agree, but in this situation I was following instructions which very clearly told me, against my better judgement I have to add, to ignore the obvious and then held me tightly by the hand until they deserted me at the crisscross of paths at which point they ran off into the distance feebly shouting ‘I’ll meet you again when the path becomes a bit clearer.’

It was like following a recipe for a curry which, when it got to the stage of adding the exotic seasonings, told you to ‘now add some spices’ but didn’t tell you which ones.

I was pretty peed off, especially as It’s not the first time this has happened with these particular ‘walking instructions’ and decided to do what Andy and I regularly decide to do when trying to work out what we think is the best walking route – follow our instincts. More often than not this ends up being our way of adding those extra tasty spices and handfuls of aromatic fresh herbs.

As it turned out the route we would have followed, had the directions not told us otherwise, was the most direct and was much, much simpler. God knows why we were encouraged to go off on some wild goose chase.

But once again this is exactly one of the reasons we are putting together a series of walking routes for Tenerife which we think are more user friendly than… well anything we’ve come across yet.

We’ve specifically designed them so that they look great and are full of beautiful photographs and interesting snippets of information about the area and what people should look out for.

However, the most important aspect of them for us is this.

Unlike the instructions we were using which basically just ignored the fact that there were paths in all directions, we want to be there holding your hand, saying ‘don’t worry; we’ll stick with you all the way, especially when the path ahead is unclear.’

P.S. Our version of which route to take up Montaña Guaza is now available as part of our new ‘Island Walks – The Old South Routes’.