Travelling to the Canary Islands?
DOs and DON'Ts
On September 2006 I went to Tenerife Isl. and La Gomera Isl. (see map) with my wife. We don't like arranged travels and we prefer to travel on our own, because we think is the only way you can get in touch with the real country and its people. This way of travelling is harder and more expensive than others, but also more pleasant, relaxing and, that's the best, gives you a different point of view on the culture and way of life.
After my experience here you have my advice if you
plan to travel on your own to these areas. You have to understand that
this is MY PERSONAL POINT OF VIEW and that it is not my intention to
criticize the people or culture of any of the mentioned places. You also must take into
account that these observations are from year 2006. Things might have
changed (either in the right or in the wrong way) since then. You must
also bear in mind that this is not a travel guide, but just the description
of my own journey and my own impressions. If you don't agree with
some of the opinions below just write your own WEB page with you own opinions,
but don't bother me.
| Legend: | ||
Excellent / Specially interesting |
Very good / Very interesting |
Good / Interesting |
Mediocre / Not very interesting |
 Very
bad / Not interesting |
Click on it for pictures of the area |
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,
one of the main Islands, but we also planned a two-day visit to the La
Gomera ,
that is very close to Tenerife.
with Air-Europa .
There are two airports in Tenerife, one in the south of the island (Reina
Sofia), near San Isidro, and another in the north (Los Rodeos), near
La Laguna
. Taking into account the small size of the island (about 90
km along) and the short distance between the two airports (about 60 km)
it's usually not important the airport you are taken to, but of course that
depends on the way you plan to leave the airport (car, bus, etc.) and travel
by the island.,
and drove by the motorway to Puerto de La Cruz, about 100 km away from the
airport (I wish we had been taken to the northern airport, which was much
closer, but....). It's important to mention that, in general, car rental
companies don't allow to move their cars between islands by ferry.
However, as my intention was to stay some days in La Gomera I wanted to take
the car with me (I wanted to avoid having to leave one car in the port, load
the baggage in the ferry, hire a new car in the arrival port, etc....) and
CICAR kindly gave me permission to do so. we stayed at Hotel Las Aguilas ,
located on top of a restful hill and all surrounded by gardens. It has an
excellent view above Puerto de la Cruz
and also towards El Teide, rooms are
extremely spacious (in fact they are two-room apartments, including a
kitchen and a large balcony) and the only drawback is that, being so
isolated, you need to take the car to go anywhere (shopping, dining, etc.).
(Parrot park), an impressive and well designed modern Zoo that not only has
hundreds of species of parrots but also gorillas, monkeys, jaguars,
tigers, penguins, etc. The visit also includes several spectacular
shows of sea lions, dolphins, birds and orcas. You will need to spend a
whole day to visit the park, so start your visit as early as possible
(and pray it's not a hot day :-). Apart from the basic ticket there is also
the possibility to pay an extra for what they call the "Discovery tour" ,
a guided visit to some of the installations not accessible by everyone, but
that disappointed a little to me (and furthermore made the day much more
stressing due to the need to match the visit time slot they assign you to).
is basically a tourist city, that however keeps an interesting old
town, so it's a good idea to spend some time visiting it and walking by its
promenade. There are many shops and plenty of restaurants, however due to
the last-minute decision to visit Loro Parque we didn't have much time left
to visit Puerto de la Cruz, just some hours to have a first impression of
it., 3718 m. high, which slopes go down to
the sea. Because of this the northern coast is relatively humid and green
(the humid air coming from the north is trapped by the mountain) while
the southern coast is almost a desert. I have no doubt that the southern
coast has its own charm, but for me the most interesting was the northern
coast, so we concentrated our journeys in that area. On the other hand, as
far as the vegetation is concerned, it also very influenced by the mountain.
Between sea level and about 1000 m. high there are very few trees and
basically you can only find bushes and cactus. Above 1000 m and up to
about 2000 m, all around the mountain, there are beautiful forests,
mainly of pine trees (Natural Park of the Corona Forestal
[Forest Crown]).
And above 2000 m. high almost no vegetation can be found (it's the
domain of the volcano, in the National Park of El Teide). There is an
exception to this rule, in the north-eastern part of the Island you can find
the Monte de las Merdedes
, a beautiful, although small, primitive forest of
bay trees.
is a small town with some examples of old Colonial-style houses in
some of its streets, the church of San Marcos (first part of the XVI
century) and the well know Drago Milenario (a millennial and 15m high Drago,
a very curious tree endemic of the Canary Islands.). From there we continued
towards Garachicho and Buenavista towards Punta de Teno
, the most western
cape of the island and from where you have a nice view of the the cliffs of
Los Gigantes. After going back to Buenavista we drove to El Palmar
, Las
Portelas and Masca
by road
crosses the massif of Teno
and that offers spectacular views of the
gorges of the area. After some km. we got to Santiago del Teide, where we
had a typical local dinner, Conejo [Rabbit] al salmorejo and Papas Arrugadas [Boiled
potatoes] with Mojo in the restaurant of Bodegas Chinyer .
by the western coast of the Island. The excursion
,
takes about five hours and takes you from Los Cristianos
to Playa
de Masca
, where the boat stops for a while, just enough to have a quick
lunch and swim if you wish. The best of the excursion are the absolutely
impressive views of the cliffs of Los Gigantes
and the dolphins and small whales that can be watched quite
often from the boat.
,
then we took the road to Tegueste and to the park of Monte de las
Mercedes
,
a small but beautiful humid forest, that contrasts with the desolate lands
that surround it. It's specially interesting to stop in the view point know
as Pico del Ingles [Peak of the English man]
that offers excellent views of Santa Cruz de Tenerife, La Laguna and,
of course, the omnipresent Teide. All this area is know as the peninsula de
Anaga
. and took the
Fred Olsen
ferry that in 45 minutes left us in San Sebastian
, the capital city
of La Gomera. It was already late so we went directly to the hotel,
the excellent Parador Nacional de Turismo ,
located on top of a cliff, just above the city, had dinner in its restaurant
(I had a delicious grouper cooked the local style and a bottle of the
excellent local white wine Asocado) is really small but moving from one town to another is not so easy as it
could seem because of its orographic particularities. The island is a high
circular plateau with several gorges at which end the coastal towns
are located. So moving from one town to the other means almost always having
to go up about 1000 m. by a gorge and down by another. Up to about 800
m. high the landscape is mainly desert-like (with some exceptions in the
valleys) and isolated palms are the only trees, but above that height
there are pine tree forests and a little higher the Laurisilva (a
tertiary forest of bay trees and ferns), within the limits of the
National Park of Garajonay . Hermigua
,
Lepe
, Agulo
,
Vallehermoso
, Arure
and finally Valle Gran Rey
,
that is one of the most tourist areas of the Island. I should have say it
before, but one of the charms of La Gomera is that you don't find those
ugly, huge buildings that populate most coasts of the tourist
towns. They have managed to keep a balance between tourism and nature, and
that makes this island so special. From Valle Gran Rey we took the road that
crosses the National Park of Garajonay
and then back to San
Sebastian, passing near the Roque de Agando
. We still had some time left in the afternoon to have a walk by
the small old town and promenade of San Sebastian
.
).
My wife decided that it was too difficult for her and preferred to stay at
the swimming pool of the Parador (great!, I would be free for some hours...
;-). I drove towards the Park and left the car in a place know as Alto
del Contadero (about 1400 m. high). From there the footpath goes down,
initially amongst heathers and later by a tertiary forest (know as
Laurisilva), with 30 m. high bay trees, 15 m. high heathers and 2 m.
high ferns! After a while the path goes along the Arroyo del Cedro, a
stream of water that is very welcome in the warm days (as it was that
day...). Continuing the descend by the forest you get to the Ermita de
Nuestra Seņora de Lourdes, a small hermitage, and then to the hamlet of
El Cedro, right in the boundaries of the Park and about 800 m. high.
From there you still can go a little more down to the close waterfall (the
biggest of the island) by a very, very steep footpath that continues towards Hermigua.
was over. Just the minimum time to get a first impression of the island, but
enough to be one of the best memories of our travel to the Canary Islands.
Early in the morning we took the ferry to Tenerife and in less than
one hour we were back in Los Cristianos, from where we had to go to
the National Park of El Teide
,
the next step of our travel. and just a little later we got to the Llanos de Ucanca
, the
door to the domains of god Vulcan, with an absolute astonishing
landscape of rocks, solidified lava and wild nature. Here you enter the
National Park of El Teide and following the road that crosses the
Park you soon get to Los Azulejos
, a group
of blue rocks result of an hydrothermal process, and a few Km later on the
left you have Los Roques
,
a group of rocks of curious shapes which provide a beautiful contrast with
the slope of the close Teide, impressively raising in the background. Right
at the opposite side of the road there is the
Parador Nacional de Las
Caņadas del Teide
, the only
hotel of the park, at 2300 m. above sea level in the area know as Las
Caņadas
. This hotel is somehow not as
luxurious as one could expect from the Paradores Nacionales group, but
offers the special opportunity to stay overnight comfortably in this really remote, wild
and unique location. In fact it's the only building in the Park, with the
exception of the building of the cable car. (not for
gourmets, but dishes are huge, prices are reasonable and the Potaje Canario
is very good). The landscape from Llano de Udanca up to El Portillo de la
Villa is a continuous succession of absolutely impressive volcanic
landscapes
that invite you to stop everywhere to take photos and admire the power of
nature in its wildest dimension. We went back to the hotel right before
sunset, and I took the chance to go walking to the close rocks of Los
Roques
to take some photos with that special soft and reddish light I
love so much.
(3718 m high), so we went quite early to the
cable car
building (in order to avoid the long queues that are usual at later times).
The fare is quite expensive, but the matter is that it takes you in minutes
up to 3550 m high, from where you can go walking by a good although quite
steep footpath up to the highest point of the mountain (it only takes about
30 to 40 minutes of walking). From there, if you are lucky with the weather
you have a fantastic view of the whole Tenerife island and the near islands
of La Gomera, La Palma and Gran Canaria (it was not our case, as the
visibility was reduced that day by the dust in suspension, coming from the
Sahara desert). In order to use this path, know as path of Telesforo Bravo,
you need a special permission that can be obtained for free from the
Parques Nacionales administration (you are required to show it at the
beginning of the path). Right at the top of the mountain there is
still some residual volcanic activity, with some fumaroles expelling very
hot sulphuric gases, which intense smell accompanies you the last meters of
the ascension. ,
unless you want to pay a lot for nothing. You had better go, for instance to
the restaurant of the Parador
and eat some local speciality, like the stew of goat. WARNING, the
custard (natillas) was served in a soup dish and although it was
delicious you are warned that eating more than half a litter of custard can
be dangerous for your health!
going down
by a good, although curved road that crosses the bushy Valley of La Orotava
.
of both the northern and the southern parts of the island. Then we stopped
at La Laguna
,
that to my point of view is the most beautiful town of Tenerife. We just had
time for a short walk by its charming old town and had lunch a the excellent
Tasca El Obispo .
Right after we drove to the close airport of Los Rodeos (Tenerife North),
returned the car to CICAR and flight back home via Madrid.
Click on the links of the map below to see some photos of the area in my photo album.
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