Outdoor Discoveries

Exchanging years while on Tenerife

Like my earlier Galway and Clare trip, I also split up the Tenerife trip report into several sections. This then is an overview piece that collects what I already have written, adding details of urban strolling that accompanied the various escapades.

The first big hike was on New Year’s Eve 2018 that was an incursion into Parque Rural Anaga from the heart of Santa Cruz. That was a tame encounter compared to what followed on New Year’s Day when I found adventure around Igueste de San Andrés and Antequera. Things felt more dramatic in Parque Nacional del Teide after that, though I contained my wanderings due to time and altitude considerations.

All in all, this was a trip that brought a lot more than many visitors to Tenerife might expect here. It is not for nothing that the island is a well known hiking destination. Guidebooks from Cicerone and Rother offer ideas that can be followed faithfully or customised like I did. Mapping is tricky, though, and I found myself switching between different maps while pottering about. Nevertheless, everything worked well without any sense of being lost at any point.

There were urban explorations too, though these were put on hold because of an after-dark arrival into Tenerife Sud. A shuttle coach got me to Santa Cruz, where I remained in the hotel that night without any explorations. When I went to Mallorca in 2016, I did potter about Palma, so this was a different approach.

There was a need to go to Puerto de la Cruz the following morning as well. This might have encouraged an early night because I fancied getting going early. The bus interchange was a significant walking distance away too, so I was leaving myself plenty of time to get there. After all, this was my first real introduction to Santa Cruz.

It so happens that Puerto de la Cruz is another of the island’s popular tourist bases, and most on the shuttle from Tenerife Sud airport were going there rather than Santa Cruz (I might have been the only passenger for Tenerife’s island capital). On this trip, I was intent on avoiding tourist fleshpots, but Puerto de la Cruz felt reasonably authentic to me as I wandered about the place in the sunshine aside from doing what I needed to do. When I arrived, I got off the bus a little early to photographically capture my first sighting of El Teide since I missed out on one the day before because of where I was sitting on the plane.

There was a lot more distance covered along the island’s northern shoreline than my memory had credited me with doing. The western terminus was Loro Parque, even if I opted not to go into this zoo. They may not have tempted me, but the little yellow street trains were unmissable as I wandered about Puerto de la Cruz. When I returned to the town centre, I opted for an al fresco meal before going back to Santa Cruz.

Once back in Santa Cruz, there was some shopping to do, and I found a good shopping centre where I could get it done. Batteries were acquired for my GPS receiver (which is heavy on them). These days, I might rely solely on a phone app with added backup from paper mapping. Garmin mapping is expensive, when an annual subscription is cheaper and offers more.

Skies went grey overhead for possibly the only time during my stay in Tenerife, though there was some cloudiness around Antequera too. The cloud cover over Santa Cruz meant that I was encouraged to return to the hotel for a quiet night after following a round-the-houses way there. My bearings were being found, and I was not overdoing things at the start. The strange mid-winter mix of restricted hours of daylight and summer temperatures need acclimatisation for someone like me.

There was to be much more wandering in following days, as well as navigation of local New Year celebrations. Buses conveyed me hither and thither in search of hiking opportunities and occasional quieter spots. Everything was unusual in its own way, as befits a subtropical island of volcanic origin.

The last day was devoted to getting to the airport and flying home. Bus connections between Santa Cruz and Tenerife Sud are not clearly timetabled, but all worked well regardless of this. On the plane, I wanted to see El Teide, but the routing and my seating position granted me views of other islands instead. Later on, there were views of Portugal, mainland Spain, France and England in the gloaming as I returned from a satisfying trip.

Fatigue stymied any mid-winter sunshine getaways this year. Until this realisation hit me, the Azores and Madeira were being lined up as possibilities when I spotted the cost of fares and infrequency of flights from Manchester Airport. That was just as well, given the strikes on the railways and in airports over the Christmas and New Year period. Resting at home was what I needed anyway. If I had realised that Tenerife offers more, maybe my mind might have been changed. The place does offer more, and I am not ruling out the chances of a return now.

Travel Arrangements

This section is more than it might be on other posts, since there already is a post on using buses to get around Tenerife elsewhere. Some of the content overlaps with what is here, so I am referring to it instead.