Walking Tenerife

You’d think that after 4½ years of traversing this island from coast to peak that I’d have pretty much seen it all by now. After all, it’s hardly Australia size. And in terms of driving around the island, that’s probably true.

But when it comes to exploring on foot, there are still multitudinous places I have yet to discover and if I continue to use walking maps and guides produced by staff working in the local tourism office of a municipality who have clearly never walked further than the distance from their car to the office, it may at best be many years before I can truly say I’ve walked Tenerife. At worst, I may not survive to ever make that statement.

So far supposed paths in guides produced within the last 3 years have either succumbed to road planning or erosion or have been reclaimed by the forest. Some I suspect may never have existed in the first place. During my hikes, I have at various times been left inching my way Lara Croft style (allow a little self delusion here) across a narrow ledge overhanging a precipice, clinging to a fallen pine tree in an attempt not to fall into the endless abyss of a 1 in 1 sloped ancient forest and torn to shreds trying to negotiate my way past brambles the thickness of a man’s leg.
This month I run the gauntlet of a busy mountain road with no pavement and a series of blind bends, when I should simply have been strolling my way through the tranquil beauty of the Santiago del Teide valley.

Luckily, I survived to tell the tale which you can read in Living Tenerife’s April issue.
Next month it’s the Güímar Valley with a map produced by the Planning Department…Dio Mio!