Hiking

One thing that I have missed living in West Africa is a good weekend hike. In Germany, I loved catching the bus to the edge of town and then spending the day by myself hiking through God's creation. There are probably some trails somewhere in West Africa, but finding them, concerns about safety, heat and finding people to go with makes it more work than it is worth. Tenerife on the other hand, has trails around every corner. I had received a Tenerife trail book a few years ago, but never really had time to use it because we always were away over the Christmas holidays. This year though, there were lots of open weekends to explore.

The first hike we chose was probably the hardest of all we did, but also the most fun. There was about six of us hiking together, we all went about the same pace (which always makes things more fun) and we all wanted a bit of a challenge. The trail started up on the north end of the island in a little village called Chamorga, which was really little more than a small bar/restaurant, a church and a few houses in a group. You start by going up a mountain and then over to the ocean side. The hike down the other side brought you through little hillside farms and gardens as we got closer to the seaside village of El Draguillo. There were some great dragon trees on the way down and I finally realized (possibly) why dragon tree have their name - when the long palms fall off the trees, the one end becomes yellow-orange and looks a little like the split tounge of a snake - I had never been close enough before to see.

Once we reached the coast we spent several hours coming around the point to a lighthouse. We passed by a couple houses connected in no way to the outside world save by the trails we were following - but what views they woke up to every morning - wow. At the lighthouse, we realized that it was getting later and at a sign we decided to take the trail which said 3.0 km back to Chamorga instead of the 3.3. Looking back, I think maybe we should have taken the extra .3 km as the trail we picked ended up going straight up and over the mountain instead of skirting around the side. We certainly felt as though we accomplished something by the end, but after five hours of hiking, an elevation gain of 400 meters in about an hour was not what we were looking for. Unfortunitally, at this point, my camera battery died and I think everyone else was too focused on getting one foot in front of the next to take photos :)

We did make it up and over in good time and got back to the car before dusk came, which is what we were hoping for. As we came around the last turn and could see the little steeple on the church in Chamorga, we knew we had finally made it. We came home tired, but glad for the exercise, nature and amazing views.
((More photos of our different hikes can be found on Marcel's facebook page.))