A Circular Walk from Mirador La Centinela

View from the Mirador La Centinela

The Mirador La Centinela is a spectacular restaurant/viewpoint situated around 1,800 ft above the San Lorenzo valley giving stunning views down to the coastal plain and inland to the mountains. A good circular walk starts here from in front of the restaurant and descends into the barranco below, initially on a track of volcanic cinder, before climbing up to the hamlet of La Hoya. As the path climbs to the hamlet, it passes the  Fuente de La Hoya spring that would, in the past have refreshed travellers and their animals along the way and if you look carefully, you will see water troughs carved into the volcanic rock at different heights to serve both human and animal needs.

View Inland at the Start of the Walk

La Hoya is the site of the first settlement in the area and the route passes the picturesque Casa Vera de La Hoya rural house before arriving at the road, close to a well preserved tile kiln.  After crossing the road, the route descends into the impressive Barranco del Drago before arriving at the site of the Fuente de Tamaide on the barranco floor.

Abandoned Terracing

Here, at the spring, is an old communal laundry area and after a scramble between huge boulders the route crosses a wooden walkway as it climbs out of the barranco. The walk now crosses a  quiet rural road and follows an old cobbled camino that crosses a smaller barranco before a road at Tamaide is reached and signposts lead you into the town of San Miguel, passing the Casa del Capitan . This traditional old Canarian house belonged to the Alfonso family until the end of the nineteenth century and Miguel Alfonso Martinez achieved the highest military rank in the municipality, which is where the house gets it's name. After the house was devastated by fire, it was purchased and restored by the town and now houses an historical and ethnographic museum .

Church in San Miguel

Now, you have a decision to make. From the Casa del Capitan continue along the Calle de La Iglesia to soon reach a signpost for Aldea Blanca on the right near the La Bodega Vieja restaurant. If you want to explore San Miguel or have had enough walking, you can continue along the Calle de la Iglesia into the church square where where you can take advantage of the shade and benches provided by the Indian Laurels. From here, it is a short walk up to the main road where you can catch the bus back to La Centinela. However, if you still have plenty of energy, and want to continue the walk, you will need to return almost to the Aldea Blanca signpost just before the Casa del Capitan museum and turn down by the La Bodega Vieja restaurant following green and white signs.

View across the vineyards

This downhill route follows an old corpse road, initially on tarmac that soon gives way to a rough track by a house. There are parts of the route where the signposting leaves a little to be desired but if you keep right at all of the major intersections, you will eventually find yourself descending to Aldea Blanca. Bear left in the village to reach the church square where you can take advantage of the shaded benches before setting off on the steep climb back up to the Mirador La Centinela.

Adeje Mountains

After leaving the square, heading for the main road, the route leaves the village on a road alongside the Cafeteria Agora to a plaza on the right, where you pick up the path to La Centinela, which can be found up some steps in the right hand corner.  This follows a track around some industrial units before passing close to a riding stables and climbing steeply up to the Buzanada-Aldea Blanca road. The signs here are a little misleading, giving the impression on reaching the top of the climb that you carry straight on, where in fact you turn right along the old road to reach the main road.

Montana Cambada

The continuation is across this road and the path climbs steeply, giving excellent views across the nearby vineyards to the surrounding volcanic cones and Adeje Mountains in the background. As you climb higher, you will catch glimpses of the restaurant at the Mirador La Centinela above you, until eventually, you rejoin the path you descended on at the beginning of the walk. Just turn left here and climb back up to the Mirador where you can recover in the restaurant with a cool drink while enjoying the views down to the coast. The whole walk takes around four hours, not including breaks for refreshments and sightseeing in San Miguel, the last hour of the walk is mostly uphill so you will need to be reasonably fit. There is also no shade on the walk, apart from the plazas in San Miguel and Aldea Blanca, so plenty of water and a sun-hat are also recommended.   

Barranco de Las Vegas Update

Looking into the sun along the barranco to Gran Canaria

Since writing 'Discovering Tenerife on Foot', I have tried to keep walkers up to date with conditions on the various walks in the book. While devising the Barranco de Las Vegas walk, I had problems with new paths being created/cleared and a host of new signposting for the local Las Vegas circular walk (TF242) as well as the longer route leading to the Paisaje Lunar/Lunar Landscape walk (TF83.1) above Vilaflor. 

Los Riscos del Muerto (Cliffs of the Dead)

While these walks were being created, I put regular updates on the 'Updates and Amendments' page of the blog detailing all of the new signposting to be found on the walk. Eventually, there was so much update detail, that it was in danger of becoming confusing, so last Sunday, I re-walked the route to see what the situation was and how difficult it would be for those following my walk and I'm happy to say that after the initial profusion of signposts on the ascent from the village, the walk is really quite easy to follow. 

Montaña Guajara

My route is designed to take walkers into and across the barranco before descending the opposite side back into the village. The walk can be combined with the Las Vegas circular walk (TF242) if you are an energetic walker as both are quite short. 

The turn-off to the barracno

On Sunday, I was blessed with a beautiful sunny day with far reaching views to Montaña Guajara in the National Park and as I climbed steeply uphill I passed Vipers Bugloss just coming into bloom alongside the path and, on emerging from the trees on the edge of the barranco, I had a fabulous view down into it towards the coast with the island of Gran Canaria apparently hanging in the sky. 

The Barranco de Las Vegas

After crossing the barranco, I had fantastic views of Los Riscos del Muerte (The Cliffs of the Dead) and descended on a wide, rocky track to a point that has caused some walkers problems with following the directions in the book. Initially, when planning the walk, I wanted to continue the route down the rocky track leading through a finca to a rural road. After a short walk along the tarmac, I knew there was an old camino that turned left and returned back to the start point. Unfortunately, during the planning stage, I found a large, aggressive 'Keep Out' sign on the finca boundary and although I am fairly sure that the track continues through the property to join up with the tarmac, I felt that it was best to avoid any possibility of confrontation with the owner. 

Oranges growing in the barranco

Because of this, I devised a route following an extremely faint, almost invisible path, which leaves the track on a bend above the finca, and despite this being marked with a large cairn set slightly back from the track, I was contacted by some walkers who had not been able to find the path. Last year, I set out to mark this point more clearly with some stone cairns and I am happy to advise that it is now more defined and easier to find and follow than before. On this trip, I did a little path clearing and added one or two more cairns, which should now make it very easy to follow the path in this beautiful region. The location of the village of Las Vegas was determined because of it's position below the slopes of Montaña Guajara, which meant that rainfall flowed down the barrancos from the mountain making the land hereabouts very fertile. This was confirmed as I descended to cross the barranco once again, which was quite overgrown despite the very dry winter and I also passed oranges growing on the barranco floor. Eventually, I rejoined my outward path and turned right downhill back into the village. Although I have left all of the updates from last year on the blog, the updates from last Sunday's walk are really all you need to help you follow the early part of my route from the village.   

Roque de Jama or the Trail of the Lonesome Pine

This is a guest blog from Derek Fisher, a walker from England who visits Tenerife most winters and sometimes walks with me in the south of the island. Last year, he purchased a copy of 'Discovering Tenerife on Foot' and during his visit in January of this year, he completed the walk to Roque de Jama. I give this walk the highest rating in the book, not because it is necessarily the most strenuous but because the path is difficult to follow and the summit is quite exposed and dangerous. The following is Derek's account of the walk. I would also like to point out that Derek is 76 years old and I have frequently been amazed by his fitness and stamina when out walking with him as he skips across rocks and boulders, often taking the most difficult route across the mountainsides. I only hope that I can remain as fit and active as Derek when I am his age.

Roque de Jama or the Trail of the Lonesome Pine
by

Derek Fisher

I usually go on a couple of walks with Gary every time I visit Los Cristianos but this year I left it late to contact him so I had to fend for myself. Last year I bought "Discovering Tenerife on Foot” so I thought I would test whether it was idiot proof. Roque de Jama seemed an eminently suitable walk. It was on a good bus route (every 20minutes) and was one of the toughest but one of the shortest in the book.

One of the greatest problems with walks both at home and abroad is locating the starting point. I’d already wasted about half an hour a few days earlier in Arona trying to remember where the start of the trek up El Conde was. Gary not only gives sufficient detail so this problem is avoided in this and all his walks but makes sure you get off the bus at the right place as well.

The first part of the walk is along roads, their very steepness presenting a strong early challenge. However the effort was rewarded by interesting features such as a 2 arch aqueduct and good views down the Valle of San Lorenzo to the towns of La Camella and Cabo Blanco. The timing of this part of the walk given by Gary was 30mins. He must have been pushing it because I struggled to do it in 35. There were a few points where one could have gone wrong had the road names not been given. Again this is a very good provision

On reaching the open mountain side the directions again were very good guiding upwards on a cairned pathway of varying degrees of roughness and distinctness. In the early stages one passes an old oven and a threshing circle before getting a view of the coast at El Medano near the airport and Montaña Roja sticking out into the sea. I’d spotted on the summit ridge what I thought was a jagged cairn so I regarded it as a useful landmark. Unfortunately I got a little careless as I got near the ridge. I lost the path and had to scramble up the nose of the ridge which I quite enjoyed. I was quite surprised when my landmark cairn turned out to be what Gary refers to as a lone pine tree. Hence my subtitle for the walk- “The trail of the Lonesome Pine”

From the lonesome pine, a rocky path takes one to the top of the ridge which includes about 50yards of a jumble of huge rocks tilted at a variety of angles. I have a good head for heights and normally this would not present any sort of problem for me but there was something about the end of this ridge which sent a little shiver down my spine. Maybe it was the contrast between the earlier part of the route up the friendly dip slope with its cactuses and spurges and the bleak summit ridge with its precipitous drop in to the valley below. This was perhaps exacerbated by my inadvisably being on my own.  Nevertheless the 360degree views were spectacular. There was Teide seated majestically in Las Cañadas to the  north, Montaña Roja to southeast, Los Cristianos and Playa de Las Americas in the South and in the West, El Conde where I’d been a few days before  with Roque Imoque  nearby. I’d love to climb Imoque’s sharp pinnacle were I able to find someone with the necessary technical expertise to help me.

 At the end of the ridge is a daunting rocky pinnacle 30 or 40 ft in height. Gary did not exaggerate when he said it was not for walkers. Set into the pinnacle is a cave seat but at this point the ridge is only a few feet wide. I sat on the seat intending to have lunch there but left after a few minutes. It was quite cold there but I suspect apprehension still lingered and influenced my departure.  

I’d taken about the scheduled hour and a quarter to reach the cave seat and after a short break for lunch during which I continued to admire the view, I sent off on the return journey.  I managed to keep to the cairned path by looking well ahead to spot the next cairn. I was also grateful about the warning give by Gary about not taking a seductive looking path appearing to be the obvious way down.

I descended to the road without incident and arrived at the village of Valle del Ahijadero. The given time to that point is one hour. I arrived there in half an hour and back at the walk’s starting point after a further quarter of an hour. My total walking time was 2 hours compared with a suggested time of 2hours 40mins. I tend to descend quite quickly but even so the time suggested for the return journey seems to be a little generous in view of it being scheduled for 10 minutes longer than the ascent. Perhaps the schedule had included a lunch break or perhaps Gary had worn himself out on the way up!!  

As I made my way down I wondered about how the walk might be varied.  Could one descend directly down one of the ridges to Valle del Ahijadero or would the terrain be too rough?   What if one did the road sections by car? An investment of around an hour and a half would then reward the mountain walker with a good climb over rough terrain, magnificent views and the excitement which this exposed summit ridge gives.

Anyway Gary thank you for providing the means for my having a very enjoyable outing- I can certainly recommend it.

   

Walking with Tenerife's Elusive Mouflon

Setting off from the Parador

The walk from the Parador to Vilaflor, Spain's highest village, starts at over 2,000 metres altitude and last Friday a group of us started the day in balmy temperatures in Los Cristianos as we caught the once a day bus to the Las Cañadas National Park. As the bus climbed the serpentine road to the park, the temperature plummeted until, as we entered the park, the frost covering the volcanic landscape made us glad that we had packed our fleeces. Starting off in the crisp, cold air under electric blue skies after a group photo outside the parador, we were soon walking quickly, trying to warm up as we headed for the path out of the giant caldera. The first hour of the walk involves climbing almost 300 metres in thin air and we made regular stops to catch our breath, giving us the chance to admire the fantastic scenery below. 

On the Ucanca Pass

Arriving just below the caldera rim, we reached the final ascent path to the Ucanca Pass, which in winter is usually a tricky climb over hard packed snow but due to the very dry winter the island has enjoyed so far this year, posed no real problem other than the rough, rocky ground underfoot. After around an hours climbing, we reached the pass and after another group photo, began the descent into the wild beauty of the Barranco de Eris de Carnero. As we descended, one of our group suddenly called our attention the 'deer' on the far wall of the barranco and as I looked in the direction he was pointing, I was amazed to see three 'deer-like' animals bounding across the rocks.

Approaching the Caldera Rim

Initially, I was a little bemused as I knew there are no deer on the island but then I recalled reading some years ago that there were a number of mouflon sheep on the island in the National Park region. These were introduced in 1970 for hunting, although there have since been moves to eradicate them in an attempt to stop them damaging the protected flora of the National Park. The males of the species have large, curving horns but the three we were watching as they expertly clambered across the volcanic, boulder strewn valley wall appeared to be female as no horns were visible. The mouflon are extremely elusive and rarely seen and this was the first time in many years of walking on the island that I had encountered them. Unfortunately, they were too far away to photograph but more information about them can be found Here

Decending into the Barranco de Eris de Carnero

Eventually, they disappeared out of sight and we continued our descent into the valley and as we reached the path to the Paisaje Lunar, or Lunar Landscape, we descended into the cloud. As the chilly mist swirled around us, we reached this valley of strangely eroded pumice pinnacles, sculpted over the years by the wind and rain and after a break here to take in the views we continued through the pines before descending steeply into Vilaflor.

At the Lunar Landscape

After exactly five hours of excellent walking, including an encounter with one of the islands more elusive inhabitants, we had just enough time for a quick drink in a bar before catching the bus as it returned from the National Park to the coast.
(The walk from the Parador to Vilaflor is no.4 in the book 'Discovering Tenerife on Foot')          

Walking Tenerife's Badlands

Puerto de Güimar

Last week, I finally got around to walking the Malpais de Güimar, the volcanic coastline close to Puerto de Güimar on the east coast of Tenerife. This walk has been on my 'to do' list for some time and while it doesn't present much of a challenge either in time or effort required, it did prove to be a fascinating walk. Starting from the pleasant, if unremarkable seafront of Puerto de Güimar, the walk starts by an information board at the edge of the malpais and there are a couple of routes to choose from.

Exploring San Miguel in Tenerife

Not too far from where I live in the south of Tenerife is the small hill town of San Miguel de Abona. Passing through the main street, it's easy to think that this slightly sleepy, fairly typical Canarian town has little of interest for those visiting the island but for anyone taking the time to leave the main road and investigate the narrow back streets, there is much of interest to be found. 

Salto del Pastor sculpture

Walking to The Deserted Village in a calima

The Deserted village of Las Fuentes

During the recent calima I walked the 'Deserted Village' walk from the book, which in the event proved to be a mistake. I had suggested the walk to a friend who was visiting the island and a day or so before he arrived, a weather warning was issued on the island for high temperatures but we decided to go ahead regardless.

Cave house in Las Fuentes

Walking in Tenerife can often be quite a 'perspiration soaked' affair and never more so than in a calima, a hot, dusty wind from the Sahara, and I have never walked in one quite so hot as this proved to be. As the day wore on the temperatures soared into the high thirties and what would normally be a perfectly manageable walk of around 3.5 hours became a 5.5 hour test of endurance!

New Stockists in south Tenerife

Now it's easier to get hold of copies of  'Discovering Tenerife on Foot' as from today, Tenerife Sunshine will be stocking the book in their outlets in the south. The two locations are the Tropicana Office in San Eugenio and the Troya Office in Playa de Las Americas. Log onto Tenerife Sunshine where you can find a map showing the exact locations of both.

Montaña Colorada, The Red Mountain

The weather yesterday here in Tenerife was superb with clear blue skies and I took the opportunity to climb to the summit of Montaña Colorada from the peaceful village of Cruz de Tea. The peak itself is not particularly imposing but from the summit marker there are stupendous views in all directions with the high peaks of Montaña Guajara and Sombrero de Chasna particularly dominant. The climb from the village is a strenuous 1.5 hour hike up paths that are often difficult, being covered in loose, gravelly red soil and rocks, making the walk initially a little like struggling up the side of a sand dune. Eventually, the gradient eases and the going becomes easier underfoot as you enter pine forest, giving you more chance to enjoy the scenery. Montaña Colorada means 'Red Mountain', and although the description 'mountain' may seem a little exaggerated, there is no denying it's colour! As you ascend, the summit cone peeks tantalisingly between the pines, frequently disappearing again making the climb seem longer than it really is. Once on the top, it is well worth stopping for a break to admire the 360 degree views, which in clear weather extend from the coast to the caldera rim. The return route is the almost total opposite of the outward path, as it descends through terraces of vines and fruit trees before following a deserted country road steeply back to the village. As you reach the village, you will find a very large, well preserved tile kiln, next to the appropriately named Tasca El Horno, where you can enjoy tapas and a drink as a reward for your earlier efforts. Photos below.

Montana Colorada

Checking out the Route - Amendments and Updates

I recently walked the Barranco de Las Vegas with someone who had encountered problems with route-finding while using the book. The idea was to re-walk the route together to see if I could identify why he had struggled to find his way. After crossing the barranco, it became obvious that the problems were caused by plants and bushes along the way that were very overgrown hiding a vital cairn and the entrance to a narrow path through bushes. We had quite a lot of rain on the island during the winter and as the spring has turned to summer, the foliage has burst into life, which adds a wonderful dimension to the walks but can cause problems with route finding. As a result of this I have added a note to this effect for the Barranco de Las Vegas walk in the 'Amendments and Updates' page, which can be found in the sidebar. It is always worth checking this out before setting off on a walk from the book as I do walk these routes regularly and if I come across any problems, update the page with my findings.