Our goal is Chinamada, a community high up in the Anaga mountain range, consisting entirely of homes that built out of caves. Supposedly 2/3 of the cave homes are underground, with only satellite dishes protruding out the top. There is also a restaurant up there where I had thought we could have lunch, although with our aborted hike, we are too early for lunch at this point. But no matter, off we go on increasingly more narrow roads to see what we can see.
Once we turn off the main forest route, we find ourselves on a seriously one-lane road that winds along the sides of the cliffs facing the valleys and then the sea. It’s really sort of mind-boggling how people can live out here! There isn’t anything for miles and all of a sudden a house pops up. Then a whole huge community, called Rio, appears out of nowhere with may 20+ houses? And on that road? You have to be hardy to live on this part of the island, that’s for certain.
We’re captivated by views, less so by the road, but we’re extraordinarily lucky that there is no one else out driving this early on a Sunday morning. We stop as much as we can to take pictures of the little villages, the gorgeous green terraced gardens and then these amazingly huge mountain formations, one with this large chiseled peak proudly sitting at the top. It’s just gorgeous. Finally, we start to see little dwellings appear, tucked into alcoves in the mountains. Then, boom, we are here – at the end of the road in Chinamada. Here is the restaurant, La Cueva, all locked up and definitely closed (even though they say they are open at 10a – which is only about 10 minutes away) and a little school or church or community center or something where the parking lot is located.
We hop out to investigate and end up just walking around the little lanes, looking at the little garages cut into the rock, and houses literally built into the mountain. We now see what they mean about being 2/3 underground, only the front portion of most houses is on display, the rest lying underneath the rock. Crazy! Hiking up a path, we pass an abandoned looking house (hey, fixer upper! Let’s buy it and move here! Ha! Not that I couldn’t spend the rest of my life just staring out at the incredible landscape, but there is no way on earth I’m learning how to drive on that little teensy narrow road to get here!) and more lived in houses (one has a dog, so it is definitely occupied) that apparently you need a cart on which to haul any supplies up. The steep path leads to an over look facing The Roque de los Pinos, a volcanic dome that has somehow amassed a forest of Canarian Pines on it. Beyond the rock, the volcanic peaks stretch away falling off into the ocean in the distance. Fabulous.
Wandering back down the path, we get a good look at the restaurant, and how the facade is built into the rock. You can see the concrete that is used to meld the roofline into the mountain face. In the distance you can see this type of construction on all the houses up here. It would be so cool if we could tour some of these places, but, of course, they are private homes, so unless we meet some random friendly local who invites us in, we’ll just have to live with our imagination. Turning the corner at the end of the path, we reach the literal end of the road, with a bunch of trucks equipped with what looks like dog cages parked along the side. There is another path here that takes you down the hillside, through beautiful terraced fields. We wander down it a bit, enjoying the spectacular views, but turn around relatively quickly – we’re not hiking the whole 4.4k to the next village as the sign post indicates! There are tons and tons of trails here, which would be great if we were staying here for a few days and not on a tight schedule of a few hours.
Back to the car, we get organized to retrace our drive down the mountain, now aiming for La Laguna, a World UNESCO heritage site (that a lot of the tours are going to visit, but if we can find parking, it is the perfect place for lunch). As we are getting ready to leave a car comes flying up the road and goes into the restaurant. Guess they really are opening, just a little late. But that’s ok, we’ve got our Plan B locked and loaded. We head out, Ed brilliantly navigating the teeny little roads. As we proceed though, there are more cars on the road. One that backs up to let us pass, and another one at the entrance to Las Carboneras that stops on the side of the road so we can pass and wind our way through the definitely one lane (but 2 way) street through the village. Phew.
We make it back to the main road without seeing anyone else besides some hikers, but as we are turning downhill, a line of cars are coming up and turning toward Chinamada. Good time to get out of Dodge! We won’t have to worry about passing on that teeny precipice lined road. As we descend back into the valley, we decide to stop at the Mirador Las Ingles for a quick peek. Arriving at the turnaround, we find the walkway roped off with danger signs. There is some falling down looking building on the side of the stone pathway also blocked off. We console ourselves by taking a few pictures looking back over mountainsides with clouds that look like they are separated from the peaks by some sort of force field, hovering just above them and following their contours. We don’t know what the Ingles Peak looks like, but this is a pretty gorgeous alternative. As we are retreating to the safety of the car, another car comes up and the driver (a guy) decides he’s going out on the closed viewpoint anyway, he just moves the big blockade fences and squeezes around. His girlfriend is not so adventurous and stays by the car. We don’t wait to see what happens, but instead head back toward the main road, stopping at this little road that is cut through the rock walls.
Turns out this is the beginning (or end) of a trail that leads down to the Pico de las Ingles we were just trying to see from the overlook. A group of hikers has just finished their hike and are taking a really cute selfie as we head through the narrow entrance to the trail. It’s a fabulous view, the rock walls leaning so closely into the lane, all moss covered and carved from years of rain water running down their face. Ferns crowd the bottom of the walls, with pines crowning the top, leaning in, making for a very pretty canopy above. We wander down the lane far enough to see it proceeds far downhill, to far for us to try it out. As it turns out, it is probably a pretty long and strenuous hike, so our decision to go back to the car was the right one.
Continuing on our journey downhill and out of the mountains, we pass car after car coming up into the park. When we get to Cruz del Carmen, where we were virtually alone just a few hours ago, the parking lot is packed and cars are parked haphazardly all over the road for meters before and after the entrance. Wow! It’s the same when we reach the Mirador Jardin, it was jam packed with cars and people! When we were there we were all alone! OMG, it so pays to get up and out early. Now our aborted hike looks like an even better decision since it meant we missed most all of the traffic (human and automotive) on the way in and out of Chinamada!
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