A Lady in London

I seem to visit Spain at four year intervals. My first trip was when I was in seventh grade. My family went on a big tour of the mainland during Semana Santa, the festival-filled week before Easter. Four years later I traveled to Barcelona for a weekend with some friends I was studying with in Nice. Four more years went by before I was working in Brussels and took weekend trips to visit friends in Madrid and Mallorca. After yet another four year hiatus, I returned to Spain on Friday with my boyfriend for a weekend in the Canary Islands.

Before I headed to the Canaries I didn’t know much about Tenerife except that the weather would be warmer than it was in London (no big achievement, but certainly most welcome). Not being able to go on a trip without doing a little bit of research beforehand, I set aside my bathing suit and did some Google searching.

What I found was that most English-language websites about Tenerife feature little more than tips for sunburn-prone British travelers. For example, there was not a single website that didn’t have advice on sunbathing, including the important reminder to “wear sunscreen with at least SPF 30″ (and yet every British tourist we saw in Tenerife was sporting at least a second degree burn…amazing).

That said, a few of the websites had some tips for activities like hiking that didn’t involve lying on a beach chair to work on that pre-cancerous glow. So on Friday afternoon I set off for my weekend in the Canary Islands armed with a backpack full of tank tops, bathing suits, books, hiking clothes, and of course, four bottles of sunscreen.

Tenerife is a very developed island, but despite the mega-resorts crawling their way up sides of the mountains, there are places that have retained their natural beauty. While we spent the first day relaxing by the pool under an umbrella and smothered with SPF 30 (not everyone ignores the sun warnings), we spent the second day exploring Tenerife’s volcanic interior.

The drive up the mountain not only afforded spectacular views of the ocean, but also showed us the variety of Tenerife’s climate. At lower elevations the terrain resembled the Arizona desert, complete with cacti and dry, rocky land. As we drove higher, we suddenly found ourselves in alpine country, surrounded by pine trees and thin mountain air.

As we descended into the volcano, we were in a Grand-Canyon-meets-Haleakala melange of hardened lava and rock formations. We spent a few hours hiking around and exploring the trails of the Teide National Park, which awed us with their prehistoric beauty. The natural scenery was a sharp contrast to the resort-packed beach front, and made for a refreshing day trip.

On our third day in Tenerife we drove up the coast to Los Gigantes, a town at the base of some beautiful rock cliffs. We walked around the area, watching the fish and crabs in the harbor and admiring the enormous cliffs before heading back to our hotel for a late afternoon walk.

While Tenerife had its share of mega-resorts and European tourists, I enjoyed our weekend in the Canary Islands and was happy to have explored some of the off-the-beaten-lounge-chair path. Spain made for a great weekend break from the frigid London weather (it’s been hailing on and off all day today), and I hope that it doesn’t take me four more years to return.