Exploring Tenerife

Having a car made exploring the extremely scenic island of Tenerife very easy. The main highways are well signed and kept in great condition, and with typical European places, filled with roundabouts. The villages and smaller towns tend to have much narrower roads, something very common and you come to expect to see. Tenerife is the largest island within Spain’s Canary Islands and is located off Western Sahara, Africa. The island has a lot to offer with pristine beaches, mountain ranges inland, Mt. Teide - the dormant volcano and highest peak in Spain, wineries, numerous small towns and villages to explore, and banana plantations scattered all about the landscape. 

We took our arrival day as a day to get acclimatized and rest up from our long travel day. After settling in to our room, we took the hotel train down to the beach and spent the afternoon lounging and swimming in the bay. On our way back from our afternoon at the beach, we found the funicular that also serves as providing access to and from the beach and hotel. 

Driving in Tenerife was pretty straight forward and easy. One driving excursion took us on a breathtaking scenic drive along a very narrow road filled with massive turns and insane switchbacks to the small mountain village of Masca. The village is about 650m above sea level and has become a destination drive given the crazy roadway to get there and the hike down the gorge to the ocean. Masca has been nicknamed the “Machu Pichu” of the Canary Island because of one mountain peak that looks very similar to Peru’s Machu Pichu. Masca offers stunning views of the Atlantic Ocean, and the Teno Mountains that surround it. It is home to about 100 habitants and has a unique charm to it as it really is off the beaten track and not overrun by large numbers of tourists; while the road is very drivable to get there, it’s not for the faint of heart which likely deters enough from heading there. With the village built on the mountain there is a lot of walking up and down cobblestone roadways and stairs, which can be slippery even when not wet, in order to explore. 

We know Spain in general has really good wine and while researching what to do in Tenerife, we discovered they are the main producer and exporter of Canarian wines and so we had to include a wine tour of one of the local wineries. We had already tasted some local wine and really took a liking to it. We booked a tour and tasting at Bodega Ferreira, an organic winery situated 1000m above sea level and surrounded by volcanic lava on either side of its property. Throughout the tour we learned about their regenerative wine making process while walking around the grounds and stopping at several spots to taste the wine; all in all we sampled 4 wines and some port. Our tour was a small group, made up of us and three girlfriends travelling from Poland. It was nice to have a small, intimate group like this. 

Afterwards, we decided to drive to Teide National Park to explore the park and Mt. Teide, the island’s dormant volcano and the third highest volcanic structure in the world at 3,700m above sea level. Declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2007, you feel like you’re in another world driving through the park. The volcanic landscape and rock formations make you feel like you’re on the moon. The centre of the park is situated at 2,000m above sea level and at this height, we found ourselves well above the cloud line. The scenery is stunning, with a lot of mirador (viewpoint) stops and Mt. Teide’s peak peeking out above the clouds. You ca take a cable car to the summit, but we were there a bit too late for that and instead enjoyed the scenery and drive through the park. Besides the volcanic landscape, there are forested areas, some of which were clearly burned and scarred in the forest fire the last year. The park is known for its panoramic views, incredible sunset view points and stargazing. Since we were already here and about an hour drive away from our hotel, we decided to head into, Vilaflor, a quaint nearby town for supper at Los Cipreses de la Casa Inglesa. As with many little villages and towns we drove through, the place looked deserted and we thought that perhaps the restaurant was closed, because there was no one around. Lucky for us, the restaurant was open, and we had a fabulous Canarian inspired meal before heading back up the mountain to catch the tail end of a fantastic sunset and wait for complete darkness to see the stars. The star gazing was spectacular and we got a glimpse of Venus and the Milky Way. From where we were standing, we were able to overhear a tour guide explain the various different star formations and galaxies in the sky. 

Another excursion we took was a two-hour sea kayak and snorkel tour. The kayaking was open ocean which I wasn’t entirely keen on, but I ran out of excuses that Z wasn’t able to dispel and so off we went. Thankfully the water was calm on our way out and as we kayaked out, we got to see dolphins, though they were a bit lazy that morning and didn’t fully breach out of the water. Nonetheless it was so cool to see them reasonably up close, we were maybe about 30 feet from them. The pod looked like it was a group of five bluenosed dolphins. The Spanish marine patrol was out in force that day as well and our guide got “pulled over” and grilled about who he was, who he worked for, if thy were licensed, and how many of us were in his group. After about 10 minutes of questioning, we continued on our way to the snorkelling spot where we were supposed to see the resident turtles except that this day there was really much to see at all and the snorkelling turned out to be a non event. I discovered getting back into a sea kayak isn’t as easy as they make it out to be on land. I struggled a lot and thankfully didn’t tip the kayak over, but man was it difficult. After much frustration, I  managed to get myself back in in the least graceful way possible and learned the next day that I managed to severely bruise my thigh in the process. The kayak back was a bit more rough and challenging as the winds had picked up causing more ocean swells and white caps. All in all it was a fun adventure despite my initial reservations. 

Our stay on Tenerife was brief, four days but we maximized our time and explored and experienced a lot of what the island has to offer. It was a fantastic stop before moving on to our next leg, Portugal. Our flight over to Portugal was about two hours on TAP airlines and even on that short of a flight, we had a full lunch service. There is definitely something to non North American airlines having superior service.