Our numerous experiences on Tenerife do not all fit into one blog post. Therefore, here follows the third part. You can find the blog post Tenerife – Part 1 and Tenerife – Part 2 here, so you can easily read our experiences on Tenerife chronologically.
In the meantime we have arrived in the southwest of Tenerife. We want to climb the volcano El Teide, which is the central mountain massif on Tenerife, as our next fixed point. However, the weather is not immediately favorable to go up the mountain, so we decide to explore the east coast of Tenerife first.

Costa del Silencio – Camping Nauta

To bridge the waiting time for perfect summit weather we first take on three days of chores. We stop at the camping site Nauta. We expressly mention this place here, because we have the feeling that this could be the best camping on whole Tenerife. Good sanitary facilities incl. perfect showers, a swimming pool and a restaurant on the area. Only the pitch could be greener, there are only a few places with shade. But that does not bother us in February during our visit.
Even being in a van the housework calls, we have to clean Ben properly once again. Fill up water and clean the various water tanks. In addition, a wash day is also announced. All of this is done most comfortably for us at a campsite. In addition, a new haircut is due, so we walk to the next town and enjoy a simultaneous haircut at different hairdressers. Uncomplicated and little squeamish, the hair is a whole slide shorter in a very short time.

Besides the above-mentioned chores, we do little for a few days and enjoy lazing around, fittingly as the name of the area says Costa del Silencio – Coast of Tranquility.

El Teide

The volcano El Tiede is not only the highest point of the island, but of whole Spain. With its height of 3715 m.a.s.l. there is even a bit of snow on the summit. Of course, we don’t want to miss that.
The approach is already spectacular. First, up to about 1700m, the volcano is covered with dense forest, large trees and lush green. Abruptly the scenery changes within a few meters of altitude and we continue through a barren, stony and dusty mountain landscape. Finally, we drive through a plateau at over 2000m which looks more like a desert than a volcanic mountain. The different rock colors of countless shades of gray, brown and orange fascinate us. Besides the road, there are exactly two hotel complexes and information points and the cable car station up here. We take the direct way to the cable car station, because the ticket is linked to a fixed time window. In trade of this we almost don’t have to queue and are quickly in the cable car.
At the top station, we can theoretically choose between three hiking trails. The summit trail, but unfortunately, we are denied because of the lack of permission, because the permission to hike to the summit must be applied for several months in advance. So, this option is not available for us. Remains a way in eastern and one in western direction. The path to the west is currently closed because of ice and snow. Thus, we go on a short circular hike to the viewpoint on Pico Viejo.
The view is extremely impressive. On the horizon we can make out isolated mountain peaks in the haze. These belong to Gran Canaria. Unfortunately, we don’t see other islands during our visit, because the weather is quite hazy and restricts our view a bit. Strangely enough, the altitude is not really tangible. We see up to the plateau 1000m below, but not much further down, because a fine layer of clouds denies the view to the coastline of Tenerife.
We enjoy the view from this height for a few moments, then we take the comfortable way down again with the cable car to our van.

In the National Park El Teide, which generously surrounds the volcanic peak, there are other impressive stops. We stop at the hiking area Sendero Roques de García. Around this impressive rock formation, we take on another hike.

The volcanic desert mentioned above is also worth a stop. It is located around the viewpoint Minas de San Jose. The desert was formed from the fine rock ejections of the volcano many thousands of years ago.

The hike of the last 150 meters up to the top of El Teide is already the second hike, which we cannot do because of missing permit. Here on the Canary Islands especially, but also on the mainland of Spain, for numerous trails the number of visitors per day are limited. Therefore, you have to book them in advance, partly they are free, partly they cost a few Euros. However, the popular tours are often booked months in advance. For someone who is here on a planned vacation no problem, the permits can be easily pre-booked over the Internet as early as the flights are booked for example.
However, we are a lot more spontaneous on the road. The permits for the summit hike of El Teide, for example, are booked well 3-4 months in advance. But 3 months ago, we did not even know that we will land on Tenerife.

Las Lagunetas

On our approach to El Teide volcano, we got our first glimpse of the Las Lagunetas landscape area. Here we passed under large trees and lush forest. This prompts us to come back here again to spend more time in this forest. There are a number of forest trails and we make up our own circular route via several different paths. We are impressed by the tall trees, certainly 20m or even 30m high. In addition, many places are overgrown with moss. So, probably because of the special local climatic conditions, there is always enough dew water at this altitude to reliably supply even such a large forest with water. The fresh mountain air flows into our lungs, the scent of coniferous wood and pine trees has an uplifting effect on us. A nice change, which fills us again with energy for the coming days.

Tenerife has its own character, just like Fuerteventura. After the time on Fuerteventura, we experienced the contrast in the landscape on Tenerife as super nice. The island life is a bit faster on Tenerife and also the consumption possibilities are much better developed on Tenerife than on Fuerteventura. Of course, many of the returning visitors know this and so the rush of van travelers, camper nomads and tourists in general is many times bigger on Tenerife. Nevertheless, there are still secluded places on Tenerife where we could perfectly withdraw from the crowd for a few days before we then dived back into the middle of the big city and literally the big city carnival with renewed vigor. This concludes our series on Tenerife. Only the city of Santa Cruz is still missing in our travel reports on Tenerife. The city has a lot to offer, accordingly next follows an independent blog post exclusively related to Santa Cruz.
The time on Tenerife was really beautiful, varied and enriching for us. Certainly we will draw long on these experiences!