Its another early morning on the ship – we are docking at 7 and there are 4 other ships in with us today, so we want to make absolutely certain we are at the Cicar rental office first. Luckily, we are the first ship in, and even though we are at the 2nd to last berth (sigh), we figure we can still beat everyone else to the car rental. So, we set the alarm, get up, shower, breakfast and head out around 7:15, even though the office doesn’t open until 8.
It’s a long walk over to the ferry terminal building, but since we skipped the gym this morning, this counts! The weather looks variable – cloudy with spits of raindrops. It’s a lot warmer than it looks too, so by the time we are at the office, we are pretty drenched, even without all the layers. We hang out downstairs in the ferry terminal, waiting to see if anyone comes to the office. After a couple of wrong staircases, we finally manage to figure out how to get up to the 2nd floor – they’ve got all the doors locked, which seems strange to us (I even had to rescue a crew guy who walked up there and got stuck in the vestibule between 2 locked doors!). There’s a big sign saying that if this office is closed, check the office in the parking lot, but we take that to mean that if they are closed during siesta go to the lot. So, we stand up by the office, hoping someone will show up before the Costa ship disgorges its 100’s of passengers who you know won’t have a problem renting and driving cars all over the island (our ship passengers, not so much!!). We figure if no one comes by 8:10, we’ll call them.
As we hang out on the 2nd floor balcony overlooking the ferry ticket office, a port police guy walks by, and gives us this weird look, like what are you doing there you stupid Americans, but doesn’t say anything. Then a few minutes later, another guy walks by, looks up and says, that office is closed, you need to go out into the parking lot. Muchas Gracias Senor! At least he was nice enough to say something! Now we understand why Google Maps kept sending us to the parking lot where the cars are located – we knew to park there, but the office there if brand spanking new.
So, we hoof it back to the lot, and fortunately are the only customers there a little after 8am. We get our car, then as we are setting up the GPS and organizing we look over to the office, and there is a line a mile long. Good timing!!! And we’re off – heading toward the northern end of the island and the Anaga Rural Park. But first we must find gas, because we only have 1/4 of a tank.
The first station we see is inaccessible from the highway on which we are traveling, so we figure we’ll find one somewhere up the road. There must be service areas along the highway. Not! We are already off on the rural road going into the mountains and nary a gas station to be found. Ed just pulls off on the first exit, and I quickly Google gas stations, luckily finding one pretty close to the exit and we are saved from running out of gas in the middle of some little mountain road. Big relief – and it turns out that we are in the town I had on our itinerary for later in the afternoon. Pretty funny!
Gassed and ready to roll, we resume our drive up into the volcanic mountains of Tenerife. The crowded village buildings quickly give way to forests as we navigate the small little windy road that rises up into the mountains. There was obviously a big storm here last night or earlier this morning, because the roads are soaking wet and strewn with tree and rock debris, making driving even more interesting! It’s still cloudy and overcast up here in the mountains, and with every turn, the wind gets stronger, whipping the trees around us. We pass through areas where we can just see over the edge of the road with sweeping vistas, then are plunged into darkness as we drive through tunnels of trees that form a canopy over the road.
We reach Mirador Jardin, the first overlook pretty quickly, hopping out of the car to take some photos, where we realize just exactly how much the weather has changed! It is wicked cold and windy up here – time to layer back up. Cold and wind aside, it is absolutely gorgeous up here with long views down the valley and into the town of La Laguna and out across the Eastern mountains to the sea. Stunning, and we’re all alone up here with the view all to ourselves. Climbing back into the car, more for warmth than for any rush to really leave, we continue our upward journey through more tree tunnels and around more craggy rocky roadsides to reach Cruz del Carmen, the trail head for the hike we want to take today.
There’s still plenty of parking in the Anaga information center lot, so we snag a space and go look at the informational signs. We’re too early for the info center (which is a bummer because I wanted to get more information on the park and trails), so we just head into the forest to begin a short hike on the Path of the Senses, a 1 1/4K loop trail that takes you along the old royal road than linked the towns of Anaga and La Laguna. We start out on a boardwalk lined with moss covered trees, that takes us into the fresh smelling forest. Then the boardwalk ends, and the muddiness begins. The rest of the trail is a series of earthen paths, slick from the rain, with only occasional wooden steps or planks set in. It’s gorgeous, and a little eerie with a lot of fallen trees and precariously leaning trees. The loop trail we want descends down to the Mirador del Llano de los Loros, where there are said to be great views of Santa Cruz and the dam of Tahodio, but we realize pretty quickly on that we aren’t going to make it there. While not exactly treacherous, the muddiness of the path makes for really poor traction, even in our good lugged shoes. Plus, we are descending, and you know the old saying – what goes down, must come up (ok, ok, you get my point though). We make an executive decision to abandon the outlook and turn back uphill to return to the car park.
We didn’t get as far as we would have liked, but caution is the better part of valor, and we’re further validated by a sign post on the trail that says “In wet weather conditions or when humidity is high, mud may impeded your journey along this path. In such circumstances we recommend you return to Cruz del Carmen via the footpath that led you to this point.” Gotcha, we’re turning back!
It was still a lovely walk through gorgeous forest and undergrowth, without another sole around. We diverted off on a couple of offshoot paths to find trail markers and display boards talking about how the area was once deforested and has now been replanted, and one area that was a firebreak but has been replanted now. You can totally tell the difference in the trees and bushes too, it was really fascinating. Back in the parking area, we walk out to the viewpoint at the end of the lot for more magnificent views over the valley, then we escape to the warm car and head further north into the rugged mountains.
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