Spring: A Magical Time for Walking in Tenerife

If you happen to be staying on Tenerife at the moment, take my advice and head into the hills at the first opportunity, the landscape is ablaze with a spectacular display of wild flowers. Possibly one of the best areas to experience nature’s artistic hand is in the northwest hills around Santiago del Teide, El Tanque and above Garachico.

It’s a few weeks since we walked in that area and at that point the hedgerows and borders of the little agricultural allotments were just beginning to fill with profusions of scarlet, violet and buttercup yellows.When we travelled the road the other day there were stretches where carpets of vividly coloured wild poppies covered the verge; it was stunning and I wished I’d had my walking boots in the car so I could just park up and head off along the first path I saw.

Walking on Tenerife - San Miguel to Mirador Centinela

One of the factors which makes Tenerife ideal for walkers is that, within reason, you can pretty much walk everywhere. You don’t tend to get red faced farmers jumping up and down waving sticks at you.

Camino Reales (old trading routes) and goat trails from past centuries have left a network of paths across the whole of Tenerife. Some are quite short and perfect when you want to stretch the legs, but aren’t in the mood for a 20 kilometre hike.

One of these is the camino real linking San Miguel de Abona and the Centinela Mirador in the south of Tenerife.

Armed with a route guide we picked up free from a tourist office we headed up hill to the starting point at San Miguel.

I’ve got a soft spot for San Miguel. It was the subject of our first location report for Living Tenerife Magazine and it was the place that made me realise that even in the main tourist areas in the south, you don’t have to travel far to find the Real Tenerife.

What happened next highlighted something we’d been saying ever since we started exploring this island on foot. Many of the officially produced guides are nice enough to look at, but are little more than guidelines in practice.

We couldn’t find the start of the route. There were no signpost and the directions in the guide didn’t match reality. We saw a postman so decided to ask him where the camino real was. You’ll never guess his reply…

“Hmmm, sorry…I don’t know where it is,” then he added a classic. “I don’t know this area very well.”

Talk about instilling confidence. We searched the area and eventually, after exploring a couple of back streets, settled on a road which looked promising. Within a few minutes we knew we’d chosen well. A tell tale cobbled path led into a barranco and soon we left the town behind and had descended into a barranco where the only sounds were the haunting cries of a pair of kestrels.

It was fascinating to think of the traders who had treaded this path in the past. Despite being able to see the airport and some of the modern coastal resorts like El Médano way below us, it felt as though very little had changed up here in 100 years. The path snaked past old jablé terraces and rundown cottages emerging onto a tarmac road with no signs. It took a bit of searching to find where the camino real started again near a place called La Hoya where there was a small, mostly abandoned, settlement of traditional agricultural architecture and an old tile kiln.

Just past La Hoya there was a wonderful little rural hotel. It was in a beautiful location, but we wondered how much business it would get out here. However, when you think about it though it might be ideally placed; feeling as though it’s in the middle of nowhere, yet it’s only short drive from Tenerife’s modern resorts of Los Cristianos and Playa de Las Americas.

We continued along the path until we emerged just below the Centinela Mirador. If you were starting the walk from the mirador, you’d be hard pressed to notice where it started as whoever landscaped the area around Centinela had completely obscured the path.

Conveniently placed benches below the main building were ideal for having a rest and some lunch. We tucked into our bocadillos whilst also feasting on some of the best views of the south coast you’re likely to find.

It’s a great little walk and opens up a very different face of the south of Tenerife. One note of warning; the Centinela Mirador is a wonderfully scenic spot for lunch, but the second you unwrap the bocadillos you’ll find yourself starring in a lizard version of Hitchcock’s ‘The Birds’.
The San Miguel to Centinela walk is part of The Old South Island Walks, delivered to your email within 24 hours.

Coasting Along

When most people talk about going walking it usually involves lacing up the hiking boots and heading into the hills. Walking on Tenerife you don’t need to head inland to find great walks with views which will have your camera in a clicking frenzy.

We like to intersperse venturing deep into the hills with more leisurely strolls along the coast listening to the soothing sound of the surf breaking against the shore and breathing in the smell of the sea.

Thanks to the original Guanche inhabitants and then the post conquest settlers there are old trading routes along the north coast linking a lot of the historic towns and communities. In the south and east, more recent trails are testament to man’s determination to make a living out of even the most inhospitable places and amongst the malpaís and volcanic terrain are salt flats and fishing communities.

Personally we prefer the northern coastal walks, but then we like lush scenery and sprawling old haciendas of which there are far more in the north of Tenerife. All the prize lands were in the north, so the noblemen lived there, hence the existence of charming towns like La Orotava and Garachico and the wonderful old colonial buildings dotted all along the coast. Saying that, there are some really interesting coastal walks with wonderful scenery and surreal landscapes in the south and east as well, especially around El Médano and Güímar.

Some walks are well signposted; some don’t have any…that’s Tenerife for you. Most are in places which aren’t particularly coach friendly, which keeps them free from hordes of people and helps retain an element of seclusion and discovery.

Coastal walks are generally easy to navigate by their very nature (i.e. you follow the coastline) so detailed directions aren’t really necessary. Knowing where they begin and end, what the highlights are and what interesting curios to look out for is a different matter which is why we’ve put together a mini guide to our five favourite coastal walks on Tenerife which comes FREE with any purchase of Island Walks or Island Drives. There’s still a lot of Tenerife out there which many visitors never see.

Real Tenerife Island Walks

Whenever we travel to a new country we always buy a guidebook. Some have been good, some have been so-so and some have been written by people who have clearly never set foot in the place. But whatever, I like to wander about with a guidebook in my hand to be able to refer to whenever I want.

The same applies to walking. Where possible I like directions to follow and, as we mention on our walking page of our Real Tenerife website, an AA walking guide to Britain was a perfect example of a great route guide. Not only was it interesting, you could detach individual routes whenever you wanted to use them.

I was reminded of this during one of the first times we went walking on Tenerife. We’d purchased a guidebook and whilst it was thoroughly researched and decently written, it was a real pain trying to get it in and out of my pocket in between checking directions and then I’d have to re-read a number of pages to find the relevant spot as routes weren’t broken down into stages.

Five years down the line we thought about this again when designing Real Tenerife Island Walks. Guidebooks are great to look at, but for the reasons mentioned, I don’t find walking guidebooks always practical, so we decided against printing a book and went for a version which people could print off themselves instead.

We believe there are a number of advantages in this design, the main ones being:

1. That you only ever have to carry the route you’re following.
2. They don’t add extra weight.
3. Routes are broken down into stages, so reference to where you are at any one time is quick and easy.
4. Sometimes up in these hills it does rain, so if your Island Walks gets rain sodden and filthy, you can simply sling it and print off another.
5. They’re really nice to look at (okay we’re biased), so don't take our word for it, see for yourself.

Real Tenerife FREE OFFER

Buy a copy of the guidebook, Real Tenerife Island Drives, any Single Routes or Island Walks and receive a free copy of ‘A Captivating Coastline’ – a twelve page guide to five of the most interesting and beautiful coastal walks on Tenerife.


See Real Tenerife Island Drives for more details

Walking on Tenerife – Organised hikes

Between February and October, the Tenerife Cabildo have included a series of guided hikes ranging from easy peasy to muscle torturing difficult in their ‘Nature and Adventure Program’. These are open to residents and visitors and cost around €12. Each walk has a maximum of 30 places. See our Tenerife Matters page for more info.

Into the Valley - a Tenerife Walk

I’m waiting on the path for Jack to re-appear.
In the distance I can hear a great deal of rustling and the occasional muttered expletive.

Five minutes ago a large bird ran across the path in front of us and disappeared into the undergrowth, hotly pursued by Jack, camera in hand. Now I have a funny feeling that the distinct lack of stealth I can hear emanating from Jack’s traverse through the bushes is not exactly working in his favour.
Eventually he emerges.
“It was too fast for me” he sighs. “What do you think it was; a grouse, a Barbery Partridge?”
“I’m fairly sure it was Roadrunner” I reply.

Climbing out of the little hamlet of Arguayo we emerge onto a ledge which skirts Montaña de la Hoya.
8oo or so metres below us the Santiago Valley spreads its green, undulating mantle all the way to the Teno Mountain Range beyond it. Down the valley wall the road zigzags its way past the settlements of Tamaimo, El Retamar and El Molledo, while out to the west the sun is shimmering on the ocean’s surface at the resort of Playa de la Arena.
Up here, we feel like Gods. We’re standing on the edge of the world looking down on the painfully slow snake of Dinky-sized cars that are threading their way up the TF 82 behind a banana truck, and we’re smiling to ourselves at the sheer beauty of our surroundings.

All the way around the mountain the breathtaking views accompany us and we stop frequently to drink them in.

We’ve still got at least a couple of hours walking ahead of us, some of it involving hot, uphill slogs, but the memory of those views stay with us all the way, augmented by quaint villages, starkly contrasting black volcanic lava fields and meadows bursting with wild flowers, an ascent through Tenerife’s version of Helm’s Deep and the occasional fleeting glimpse of cartoon wildlife in the bushes.

This is a big walk through BIG country high above Tenerife’s southwest coast. The trail takes you through great swathes of fertile valley, the site of Tenerife’s last volcanic eruption, dense pine forests and deserted quarries, some of which now form natural pools which are a haven for wildlife and all the while, Mount Teide gazes benignly down on you while the islands of La Gomera and La Palma float on the horizon. Walks don’t come much better than this.

The Erjos to Arguayo walk is now available on PDF download for €2 and comes with your FREE copy of the best of Tenerife’s coastal walks.