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.

A Walk into Island History

Mist tumbles down the mountainside and swirls amongst the tops of the Canary pines, and droplets of pure water hang from each long and graceful needle. Spring flowers line our pathway, lotus campylocladus, jara rosa and more, tempting us to tramp further into the woods. From below, out of the brume and snaking between the tree trunks the haunting notes of a conch shell, that ancient sound which the natives used to warn of dangers.

This is not how the hundreds of vacationers setting up their sunbeds on the beaches maybe a thousand feet below at 9.30 on Saturday morning see the island, but for me it’s much more real and alive than almost anything which happens in a resort. The conch shell, or bucio, was being blown by the representative of the island government who was along on a guided walk yesterday. We were also accompanied by a group from Santiago del Teide, who were walking with lanzas, the long poles which the original island inhabitants, Guanches, used to propel themselves across the rocky terrain. You had to wonder if we’d stepped into a time machine, and back to the Tenerife of five hundred years ago.

But let me begin at the beginning – Pilar had sent me a message the previous day to tell me that in the nearby village of Arico there was an organized hike, titled La Ruta de la Brea, and it sounded perfect for this totally unfit body – only around 3 km which was also a good distance to try out my new walking boots bought in the post-Christmas sales. A quick check on the internet translated the world “brea,” a new one on me, as tar or pitch. I was puzzled and intrigued.

I’d woken rested, but aware that I hadn’t had enough sleep. Happy, when I recalled great sushi and good conversation the night before, topped off by what I like to call “the best ice cream in the world,” but knowing I needed another hour in bed. A cold shower, toast and peanut butter (for energy) and a couple of strong coffees later I was heading out of the door with my daypack and hiking poles.

9am Saturday, then, found us meeting in the town square of Arico. It’s a pretty village by standards in the south of the island, with seemingly vertical, neat and winding streets, and glimpses of woodland and greenery above, which is where we were heading. The mayor himself, an amiable man with a pleasant turn of phrase, came out to see us off. We were around 30 people, and there was a very good-natured vibe in the air, the day promised well. This walk was organized by the local council in conjunction with the Cabildo, the island government. It’s part of a series to promote the history and traditions of the island, as well as the countryside and environment. This was my idea of bliss – I was outdoors, in beautiful scenery, learning about history and in great company.

As this was only to be 3km I decided not to encumber myself with the walking poles, and left them in my car boot. We car pooled from the square to the starting point, the recreational park at El Contador. If you check Arico on some maps of the island you’ll find that the roads seem to disappear on the western edge of the village. In a way they do – modern roads, that is. The road we drove was narrow and potholed, (and to be honest, I was glad I wasn’t the driver – my poor, old car would never have made it!). It meandered its way upwards with twists and turns every few meters, until it petered out into a dirt track close to El Contador, on the edge of the corona forestal, the garland of forests, which circle the mountains between the stark, volcanic landscape on the tops and the rocky coastal areas. Views at every turn were spectacular, as the island turned greener before our eyes, and gave us glimpses of rural life which has changed little over the years.

We’d already noticed a difference in the air when we alighted in Arico, but here the air was clearer and fresher still, full of the scent of pine and wild thyme. Even around the small car park the wild flowers of spring welcomed us, and for the umpteenth time in the 20+ years I’ve lived here I wondered at how easy it is to escape the concrete below and seem to arrive in a different world. At this point I have to tell you that my camera is poorly and these pictures were all taken with my phone, hence the fuzzy quality on a lot of them.

We set off at an easy pace, an amble along a track which took us past a small farmhouse and into the trees. 3 km of this – easy peasy, not a test for my new shoes really……ha! It wasn’t long before we began to climb, and realize that most of the 3km was practically perpendicular! Remember my decision not to encumber myself with hiking poles?

I’d had no time to check the walk out, but I now know that it’s classed as medium to hard, which I guess is about right – for someone who is fit! But I moan too much. It felt good to stretch myself and strengthen my resolve to be fitter, and the deep and soft bed of pine needles underfoot made the going not really that bad. I lagged at times, but not too much I think, all things considered. In parts it was like climbing stairs.

In some places the path petered out altogether, and we simply followed the experts, taking deep breaths of crystal air when we paused to listen to the guides explaining how in the past what are here called Californian pines had been used in replanting of deforested areas, but over time hadn’t stood up to the climate, and there is now a movement to replant as much as possible with native Canarian pine; or to point out features like the lichen still festooned along tree branches, a rare sight in late spring, when the weather is usually much drier.  They indicated the wee holes where woodpeckers had been at work, or the hollowed out trunks, some with cavities large enough for us to fit into, where trees had been tested for resin content. We were walking a trail used by the harvesters of that resin hundreds of years ago, a trail which took them, with their overburdened mules, from the steep hillsides over a thousand feet above sea level to the ports of the east coast below us.

This picture isn’t as sharp as I would have liked, but I think you can make out the lichen clinging to the branches, you can also make out the slope of the hillside, which is not that steep just here.

Brea it turned out is the Spanish word for the pitch, resin or tar which comes from the pine trees, and it quickly became big business for a hundred and fifty years after the Spanish conquest of the island in 1496, in a manner not dissimilar to the way rubber was going to drive colonisation and conquest in years to come in other parts of the globe. It was used to waterproof many things, but mostly importantly the ships of those European nations involved in exploring the globe, and fighting for the resources and novelties they found there. You know the names already, Spain, England, Portugal, France and Holland. By the time the Canary islands were discovered those countries had managed to get through a fair old bit of their forests, and were looking to find new sources for the product.

All of this I learned at our final stop, where we thankfully sank to the ground and snacked around the rim of an oven which had been used to burn the trees to melt down the resin. As it melted it passed through channels into another oven which we passed some minutes before, and from there to a drying area, before being loaded onto mules for the long journey down to the coast.

The main oven

Our guide was expert and very articulate, so much so that not once was he interrupted during his chat, which I am guessing must have lasted a good half hour or more. I was much too fascinated to look at my watch. He talked of pirates, of the watch towers I’d seen last year on the Ruta de los Castillos, and the event we English know as “The Spanish Armada” – so different to hear “the other side” mention a slice of history. He explained the extraction process, and threw in many other tidbits of history along the way.

The history of this product, of which I’d not heard a word previously, is an important part of the history of the islands, but further is a typical story of colonization. Most of the exploiters of the woodlands were Portuguese, with even less of a vested interest in the state of the countryside than the Spanish conquerors, although, apparently, even back then it was a known fact that deforestation caused soil erosion. They worked in teams, usually 6 to 8 men, and often were enslaved Guanches or poor men working for a pittance. The built their ovens, cut down the trees, extracted what they needed, and when the area was used up they simply moved on to another, leaving a barren hillside behind them. Some 28 of these ovens have so far been found in the Arico area, and these, of course, just the ones sufficiently in tact to be able to identify.

The second oven into which the melted resin drained

I was already feeling the spirits of past times around us, when we were passed chunks of the hard, black resin to take a look at, and one sniff took me right back to another period, my childhood.  I searched memory banks and I think it was the telegraph poles which carried our, then, novel phone lines down the road.  I can only think that in the hot summer months the unseasoned wood leaked resin which smelled just the same as this piece I was holding in my hand. I remember them being sticky with black stuff which fascinated me.

It seems that research is quite recent and still very much ongoing, and I was very surprised to learn that our speaker was a volunteer, so eloquently had he explained the story to us. Frankly, I could have listened as long again, especially as the questions afterwards were also informed and interesting, but we did have a time to arrive back at El Contador, and time to make a move came too soon.

The descent, of course, was easier and quicker, so long as you had good footwear. I stumbled at one point and Pilar found me a stout, fallen pine branch to use as a pole. A few minutes later a  kind stranger handed me another, from which he’d carefully removed all the smaller branches and twigs so that I had a fine support. I would have loved to keep it for a souvenir, but since I had to go back to the village in someone else’s car I thought better of it.

Not being so short of breath on the way down, there was lots of time to chat to fellow walkers as they paused to take a snap, or we paused to listen to birdsong, and then, back on the trail, fell in with different people. It’s a happy day when some of your personal worlds come together, and I had that kind of day yesterday, and it was the jolt I needed to kick me out the lethargy of recent weeks.

Mostly, it was just marvellous to be outdoors in the forest, a walk which was guided so no need to worry about directions, and enjoy the company of like-minded and friendly folk, and by that I mean not only my own friends, but everyone in the group with whom we interacted. I think I can honestly say that I’ve never walked with a better group of people. Mainly, this group were true Canarians with a deep of love for their countryside and history, and I have definitely never walked with a friendlier group. It seemed as if I’d met before every person with whom I had contact.

To bring the day to the perfect conclusion our driver pointed us in the direction of a local bar when we arrived back, where he said they did an excellent goat stew and a local ecological wine…….and he was right!