TheTenerife of Mountains, Mists and Magical Forests

This time yesterday I was on the brink of a new island experience.  Despite the length of time I’ve lived here now, there was one part of the island which was a mystery for me – The Mountains of Anaga.

I’d been there, but only by car, and only to the outskirts of the area.  I knew it is considered to be the most beautiful part of the island.  It was almost as if I was saving it up for a time when I needed the effect I thought it might have on me, and part of me is slightly disgusted that I’ve spent so long here and not walked these velvet hillsides. Maybe it was that, as long as I hadn’t been there, I still had something new to discover.  Will I now think I’ve seen it all?  Will the urge to move on snowball now, I wonder?

I’d actually set off to walk there a couple of weeks ago, but was defeated by the weather, and ended up walking somewhere so utterly different that I still can’t take in that these totally contrasting landscapes are contained within the same 786 sq miles of island.

That day had dawned balmy and brilliant in El Médano, and it wasn’t until La Laguna that it was obvious that the weather was going to make a walk unpleasant.  There had been one of those steady drizzles which, over a time, saturate through your clothes to your skin.  Yesterday dawned equally pleasantly in El Médano, but the local tv station carried reports of a village in the mountains which had been cut off my heavy rains, which had blocked the road into the village with debris, including rocks and trees, so I was hoping that Austin had Plan B again, in case it turned out to be the same.  I arrived in La Laguna to find it bathed in the same sunshine I’d left in the south, and Austin explained that the village was on an exceptionally difficult part of road, which is often cut off, so we set off with great hopes.

I want to say that my soul soared with each kilometre we covered, but it sounds a bit over-poetic….heck, I’ll say it anyway – because that’s just how I felt, as we left behind the charismatic little city of La Laguna and familiar places like Las Mercedes and Tegueste and meandered upwards. We stopped briefly to drink in the beauty and the stretch of the valleys spread out before us – emerald-green agricultural terraces, country houses and bucolic peace. I was so captivated by this new vista that I entirely forgot to whip out my camera.  I simply drank it all in.

Once you leave behind that rich, rustic landscape it’s a typical, mountain road.  It weaves along the hillsides.  It’s narrow, with passing places and sensational views, until you get into the forest, where the views are only to be glimpsed, between the trees, and the mists drift across the road, like emaciated phantoms.

Eventually, we parked in a layby, where a couple of other cars were also parked, so reminiscent of days hiking in the English Lake District. We checked our packs, it verged on chilly and was obviously going to be damp.  Although it wasn’t raining we could see the brume hovering amongst the green.  Here cold Atlantic breezes collide with the high mountains at the tip of the island, and turn to vapour, which drifts constantly amongst the foliage providing an endless source of moisture.  The forests are lush and lichen coats the timber like green frost, hanging in picturesque clumps. Unlike the pine forests of other parts of the island, underfoot is damp and not tinder-dry.

Our path was narrow.  We walked in single file for most of it. Fallen trunks blocked our way, some had to be climbed over, and others we ducked under.  Brambles snatched at our arms and hair.  When we stopped, there was almost complete silence. You could hear a leaf fall or the drip of moisture from the waxy leaves onto the ground.  There was (for me) a surprising lack of birdsong.  It’s the biggest difference I can name between this type of countryside and similar ones in my own country, where in summer the air vibrates with the musical calling of countless winged species.

In parts, where we climbed quite steeply, steps have been cut into the pathway to make it easier, but otherwise it was easy to pretend that no-one had passed this way perhaps even forever. This is one of the oldest parts of the island, which rose gradually from the ocean.  Millions of years ago it wasn’t one island, but three, what are now Anaga, Teno and Adeje, which is why the age of the island is sometimes disputed – over the centuries other eruptions formed the island we now know.  In other parts of our path we were up to the tops of our shoes in rich, gooey mud, and I relished the squelchy sounds of childhood …….no-one to tell me “nay”!

It was fairly dark under the canopy of which is, essentially, rainforest and the camera, which, as you might guess, I was using frequently, needed to be adjusted for almost every shot. Suddenly, from out of the overhang and without warning, an enormous pinnacle rose, a solid tower of rock, soaring to the heavens.

This was Roque Anambro.  At the time of the Spanish Conquest Tenerife was divided into kingdoms or Menceys.  Legend has it that Guanche ruler of this area of Anaga,  Beneharo, escaped to this high point after the conquistadores had finally triumphed and taken the island for Spain.  There he pondered whether to surrender or die.  He decided to die as a free man, and leapt to his death from its peak. True or not, there was without doubt a palpable atmosphere of sehnsucht, that longing for…..something which cannot be.

Austin shuffled on his climbing shoes to explore it a bit, and see if he can get a view from higher up, and I shuffled around it carefully, snapping him and the views which tantalizingly peeped from the fog from time to time. Austin decided his climb would take too long.

We didn’t linger, the weather was kind but unpredictable, and every now and then a strong gust rattled the branches around, making the older ones creak like sound effects from some horror movie. After a short time we emerged at the Mirador Cabezo de Tejo, which is constructed on a natural platform overlooking the north-east coastline. There, the ocean broke against the jagged shoreline and flirted with rocks offshore which mark the tips of underwater mountains.  We were almost as far as one can go on the narrow tip of the island. Forests and mountain peaks lay before us, the mountain sides bare in parts where timber was culled following the Spanish invasion, in the case of this part of the island for construction of the money-spinning sugar plantations, which are now a part of history.  Soil erosion followed, just as it did on the hillsides of the south-east where the pines were burned for their resin.

We didn’t have it entirely to ourselves, but the family already there were quiet and moved off soon after.  We had passed one couple on the way, and on the return would pass two more families.  This is not a tourist hotbed. It’s hypnotic and peaceful, and we were reluctant to move on.  We lingered for a while.

Arriving, we had taken the route less travelled, but returning we took the wider pathway, the one which the forest agencies and environmental department use……which explains how the mirador was created and is maintained. These routes once connected outlying villages and hamlets.  It must have taken hours and hours just to travel to buy supplies or sell produce.   It’s vehicle-worthy now if you have a 4 x 4 or something rugged, so we walked side-by-side and chatted for most of it.

There, where the rock face lines the road, it is covered by moss so bright and intensely green that it looks unreal. In places shelters have been carved out of the rock face, like these, two caves, or this seat.  Apparently, all over Anaga refuges like these have been created where travellers can duck away from the changeable elements.

Giant bracken line the route.  Not for the first time living here I thought of Alice’s “Drink me,” bottle.  These huge plants must be related to their smaller relatives in European forests and gardens, and made me feel as if I’d shrunk. In places the path looked like an Autumn painting, where fallen leaves lay in gold and red patches.

We were lucky with the weather.  It was perfect for walking, neither hot nor cold, and for me a very welcome respite from the dust and winds I’d experienced in the south of late.  We emerged onto a road and then dove back into the forest to climb more steps, eroded by water, slippery with wet leaves and mud, and pretty soon (too soon for me, except that hunger was setting in) we were back at the beginning.

I’m happy to say “too soon” because it means I want to go back, I need to go back to what is like a magic forest from a children’s story, a whole other reality. Austin had warned me that it was one of the most beautiful walks he’d ever done, and he has walked in places I’m still dreaming about, like the Blue Mountains in Australia, the Grand Canyon or the Caribbean.  It was every bit as much of a journey to the new and unknown as if I’d stepped onto a plane and taken off for new shores.  My experience with Tenerife is far from over.  I know now it may never be.

The photos of the coastline weren’t, of course, too good, hampered by the mist. However, there will be more photos on my Flickr page as soon as I get a moment to sort them out. If anyone wants to see more of this relatively unknown side of Tenerife.

Subtropical Snow

There’s no doubt about it, the sight of snow on the mountaintops whilst you’re strolling along a sunny, palm-lined street, or even floating in the ocean is almost surreal, and  it still gives me a thrill.  I was both born and bred in a flat and damp English landscape, and the vista from my roof terrace yesterday morning was so very different from those lingering winter memories! I just had to get up there!

So I seized the chance to take some time off to take a closer look. A few weeks back when it snowed, I wasn’t able to get up into the mountains for 3 days, and by that time much of the snow had melted away. It was cold too, with a keen windchill factor. Yesterday, however, was different, it was only 24 hours since the last snow had fallen, and it was a morning of halcyon purity, with a sapphire  sky straight out of a glossy travel magazine to offset the shimmering white,  and bone-warming sunshine.

I was stoked, as my sons would say, to be up in the mountains again. The drive was easy, through the first stirrings of spring; some lingering almond blossoms, a few adventurous California poppies and evident, fresh, green growth on the pines. When you drive up from the Vilaflor road it’s a mellow ride, taking you to another season, through those first glimpses of springtime, into pine forests and snow-lined roads, then into the barren rockery on the outskirts of the crater, until El Teide rises before you, lord of all he surveys, and in his winter coat, more awe-inspiring and imposing than ever. If you live in the north, the omnipresence of  Teide is perhaps not so much of a surprise when you arrive, but from the southern coast he rises tall but distant, and arriving you marvel at his domination of the scene.

Traffic was light enough, though it was obvious that locals as well as tourists were heading upwards to admire the winter landscape.  It’s not uncommon, it snows up here most years, but it doesn’t last long under the sun’s fierce glow, and there isn’t always chance to come see it, nor mornings like this to see it at its most breathtaking.  I overheard people talking about taking their kids out of school for the outing.  By weekend when they have no school it will mostly be melted away.

At the first  stop I looked back, and could see that mountain mists were following us. We must have been driving just ahead of them as they wound through the trees and rocks, and now they were beginning to finger their way across the crater, but for the meantime we were well ahead, and the road in front was clear and quiet enough.

The thing which struck me about this depth of snow cover was that it highlighted the ebbs and flows of lava, so that you could see how it had inched its way down the mountains, and where and how, at some point, it had halted, sometimes producing lacey effects, like festooned curtains, with the weird shapes and boulders, randomly spewed out from the earth, stark against the white.

Drawing level with the parador, we turned into the viewing area opposite, where the vista is unfailingly jaw-dropping in any kind of weather or time of day, but it was chock-a-block with cars, buses and tourists. I have nothing against them. We need them – just not in my photos! So it was back into the car. I wanted to see what the view was like from where I taken these photos a few weeks back. However, it wasn’t to be. Just past the cable car the road was still closed off. I learned later that roads from La Orotava in the north, and la Esperanza just above La Laguna were still closed. We’d only seen one snow plough on our journey, and though there had been some light rockfalls, the road had seemed quite safe, but as always here, life on the other side of the mountain is a different story, so we turned back, to see the mist now approaching fast, an over-powering, immense wall of dense white, shifting shape as it flowed over hilltops and crater. We took the road down to the west coast and Chio, partly because it’s wider with smoother bends than the Vilaflor road, and partly for the change, Mother Nature and the Enviromental Service having spoiled my plans.

The lava beds through which this road winds are sombre black and rich brown, contrasting with the snow, and resilient to whatever kind of weather Nature hurls at them, be it a temperature of 5ºC or searing heat in August. We’d lost the sun’s warmth to that mist now, and the day was chilling fast.

Stopping to try to capture the diversity of landscape between the snow covered forest floor and the sight of the island of La Gomera seemingly floating on that sub-tropical ocean (It didn’t turn out that well. The camera doesn’t see what the eye does – or is it time to try out HDR I mused – that stain of a darker blue in the top right is La Gomera), I turned around to see, on the other side of the road, a bleak and colorless scene, as the clouds bore down on us. Thank goodness this was a drive and not a hike, though hiking in those conditions wouldn’t have fazed me at one time! But I’d seen the desolate scenes on morning tv the day before, and I hadn’t expected to be able to walk very far, so I wasn’t entirley euqipped, plus lunch was calling too!

There was even less traffic on this road, and as we descended and, as the temperature rose, the road was adorned for springtime again.  These bonnie flowers are lotus campylocladus, and were so prolific in places that they carpeted the floor of the forest which was getting sparser as we drove down.  By now, however, the light had gone, despite heading west, it was too gloomy to get a decent snap.

And so we returned to the coast, casting aside layers of clothing until the normal jeans and T-shirt remained, and marvelling at how we’d seen at least three out of four seasons in something short of one day. I know I keep saying it, but diversity is what keeps me here. At the end of the day, this is an island, it’s small, there are constrictions which come with that, however beautiful it might be, but it does feed my need for variety very well.