North Tenerife Road Trip

Yesterday I think we walked every street in the old town of La Laguna so we decided to head out in the car and see what we could see on the north end of the island. This is the wetter and greener part of the island which takes the brunt of the northeast trade winds.

Our first destination was the town of Punta del Hidalgo, a little village on the north coast and a destination for surfers. The roads are narrow and winding with lots of traffic circles. This destination was about 16 km away and I barely had to use any gas as it was mostly downhill at 50 kph. We parked at an overlook which provided some views of the ocean and rugged terrain. When we stepped out of the car, we discovered the temperature was significantly warmer than La Laguna. 26C vs 18C and we were definitely over dressed!

We noticed a number of people surfing in a bay and hiked down the path to watch.

From here we drove to Bajamar, a seaside resort. The main attraction here was some man-made pools along the shore that were charged with water when the Atlantic rollers crashed ashore. Pretty exciting!

After watching the breakers smash into the break wall for a while, we departed for a drive through the Anaga Rural Park, rugged mountains spanning the north-east of the island. It was a 35km drive that took over an hour. Most of it in 2nd gear. No straight roads and numerous switchbacks. Very dense forest for the first part then cliff side roads with not much protection from the drop off. There were some fabulous views from a few pull outs.

We descended to the coastal town of San Andres and the golden sands of Playa de Las Teresitas Beach made of sand imported from the Sahara Desert. Plenty hot here with temperatures in the high 20's. Wish we would have brought our swimsuits.

We rested under a palm tree to recover from the drive and then drove into Santa Cruz de Tenerife, capital city of the island. It was getting later in the afternoon so we decided it was too hot to walk around downtown but we really wanted to see its Auditorio de Tenerife, a soaring white wave of an auditorium. It was really impressive!

By now were were hot and tired and decided to drive back to the apartment to relax before supper. No rain tonight so we were able to walk to the restaurant we had intended to go to the previous night. We both had a lovely sirloin dinner. Mine included shrimp.