So, where is Tenerife? It’s part of Spain, but sort of like Hawaii is part of the US. It’s geographically closer to Africa than Spain. It’s a volcanic island chain about 750 miles south of the south coast of Spain, and 200 miles west of the west African coast. Tenerife is one of the islands in the chain, and it’s a super popular place for holidays and second homes. It’s about 50 miles long in its long axis, two airports and it has about 1M residents. It has a high volcano in the middle, Mt Tiede, with an elevation of 3718 meters (12,188 feet). Mt. Teide is the highest mountain in Spain, and the third tallest mountain in the world, if we count from its base on the ocean floor. It is 7500 meters (24,600 feet) down to the seafloor. Only Mauna Loa and Mauna Kea on Hawaii are taller.
And it’s got nice weather! While it was cool and often rainy in Lisbon (and more so in Liverpool where we go next) it’s 72 degrees down here and sunny. Lovely weather for a winter spot. And a great place to grow bananas and amazing tomatoes, which are some of the main exports. After seeing us in down jackets in the preceding posts, we are now wearing shorts!
One of Chris’ long time friends, Jane Nagus, has had a house down here for almost 30 years, and so we are staying with her and will travel around with her too. She knows all the best bars and restaurants and places to go, so we follow along and soak it in. Her house is near El Medano on the south coast, which still has parts of fishing village in it, evidenced by the boat yard right next to the beach.
Both Chris and I have been nursing a hurt foot on this trip, limiting how much we can walk, but today we took on our first hike of the trip! We hiked up a nearby volcanic cone formed from an underwater eruption (how many people can walk to that from their house?) and discovered some lovely small coves and views. Really nice. There’s also views of wind turbines, a big solar farm and an oil rig…the old way of energy right next to the new. Tenerife generates about 40% of its energy from renewables, which is good since it needs a lot of power to desalinate water for drinking and there are few natural energy resources here. About 65% of domestic water on this island comes from desalinization. One of the Canary Islands, El Hierro, was the first island in the world to be completely electricity independent thanks to renewable energies.
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