Finally
it’s time for part two! After 2 nights in Santa Cruz and a café con leche at
our favorite bakery, we took the guagua (bus) to the next destination: Puerto
de la Cruz. We spent four nights in this city, chilling on the beach and
sipping cocktails, but we also rented a car and explored the beautiful
landscapes of this island. Read on!
Puerto de la Cruz
It took about 1
hour by bus to go from Santa Cruz de Tenerife to Puerto de la Cruz. The way there was beautiful, with
great sea views. Puerto itself was very different from Santa Cruz: more
touristic, and at first sight, not that great. It’s a real holiday resort, full
of hotels, tourists, and restaurants with images of food and menus translated
in eight languages. The black beach however was interesting and our apartment,
which we feared a little because of the low price, turned out to be not that
bad at all! It was bright and clean, at walking distance from the beach, with
nice furniture, a flatscreen, a kitchen and a lovely balcony with mountain view
where we enjoyed some tapas and wine from the island. So Tenerife Ving is
definitely recommended, although don’t, I repeat, don’t have breakfast there. Just
don’t.
Although
the city is a lot more touristic than Santa Cruz, it definitely had its charms.
The black beaches are different for a change, and even when it was a little
cloudy, the sand stayed nice and warm.
There are
tons of restaurants and bars around, but finding good places to eat or have a
drink turned out to be a bit of a
challenge. Prices are low, but mojitos for 3 euros aren’t always that good
(Chris’ mojito was watery, mine was so sugary my teeth were falling out). And a
6 euro menú del dia can be attractive but when our food was served only a few
minutes after we ordered, we knew it couldn’t be that good (at least pretend you’re
cooking something in there!).
But like everywhere
else, the golden rule is to avoid the big streets and try to look for something
in the little alleys instead. We found the cutest little narrow street, filled
with plants and a couple of hidden restaurants. We had a great night at
restaurant Casa Mika, sitting outside in this quiet street filled with plants
(and tourists were absent!); as it was getting darker, the atmosphere got even
better. We started with bread and the best aioli everrr, I don’t know what it
was, but I couldn’t stop eating it. Then we had tapas: pulpo a la gallega
(soooo so good), goat cheese with 2 different kinds of mojo, a typical sauce
from the Canary Islands (the green one was especially delicious), patatas
bravas and all of this washed away with a liter of red wine. We ended with a
café Casa Mika, which was a coffee with a very generous splash of Baileys and
whipped cream.
The food
was so good, I really had in on my mind lately: at La Boquería, I bought the smoked
paprika powder I tasted on the pulpo (that smell… to die for), I got squid and
I even found green mojo at Lidl for one euro (which, obviously, did not taste
that good). We also bought Baileys and we’ve had a couple or more coffees with
whipped cream and Baileys since… Just enjoying life!
More
pictures of Puerto de la Cruz:
Canary
Islands street art!
Pretty
flowers are all over the island.
Pretty blue
wall in a somewhat obscure backstreet:
Luckily,
Puerto de la Cruz has more than hotels and restaurants with pictures of food! I
was pleasantly surprised.
One day, we
took the bus to Orotava, a town nearby. Cute little place, but we’d seen it all
after half a day. We walked around for a bit, and we visited a church and a
couple of monumental houses that were filled with the usual tourist stuff. We
expected a bit more from it, but maybe we’re just spoiled because we’re
surrounded with awesomeness in Barcelona every day.
After a
couple of days in Puerto de la Cruz, we decided it was time for a little road
trip. We rented a car for a day and left in the morning. Off to the mountains!
Our goal was to see Mount Teide, the big volcany on Tenerife. Its summet is the
highest point in Spain and its last eruption was in 1909, according to
Wikipedia (so it must be true).
This is
where we drove that day:
Together
with Santa Cruz and the bus ride to Puerto, we’ve seen quite a lot of the
island!
The weather
was amazing, especially when we were above the clouds. The landscapes were
beautiful and always changing: green and full of trees, then dryer and rockier
and finally black, volcanic stones where piling up on the sides of the road. Chris was driving, I was busy filming and
taking pictures the whole day. We were both completely in our element.
A beautiful
day to be in the mountains!
Our
kick-ass ride
And this is
the famous Mount Teide
This is
where we had lunch! Great view
We read online that it can get very cold up in the mountains and that you should where jeans and bring a sweater... boy it was hot that day!
These ones
were pretty big! Look at that big monstrous head…
At some
point, we suddenly saw some silhouettes further at sea. The other islands!
We had some
hours left and still a full tank of gas. Let’s drive on!
We went to
see “Los Gigantes”, these giant rock formations. 
And we
drove further… We thought we should see the famous “thousand year old” Dragon
Tree in Icod de los Vinos: a drawing of this tree was hanging on the wall of the apartment in Puerto
and it was even on the way. What a bad idea…
Icod is not
an easy village to drive in. Chris drove perfectly the whole day, for hours and
hours in the mountains, but this place had some very steep roads. We stopped in
a street because we thought we passed by the famous tree. It actually wasn’t
that tree, but it was still a nice one; we saw the real deal further away. “Screw
the tree, let’s go home” – or so we thought. The street where we parked the car
was actually so ridiculously steep that we couldn’t get the car moving again,
it just rolled backwards. Some Russian tourists saw our struggle and offered to
help. One guy sat down behind the wheel, the others put stones behind the back tires
to give it some grip. Russian guy starts the car, honks and drives away… for a second
I thought: there goes the car. But he was so thoughtful to put it in a flat
street where we could more easily drive away. We were, are still, SO THANKFUL
for these people! I have no idea how else we could have left this place.
Not the “real”
tree, and the whole reason for our epic parking fail. Damn you! This was also
the last picture I took this day.
Extremely
relieved and exhausted, we left this damn Icod. However, looking for the highway,
without GPS or signs anywhere, turned out to be quite the challenge too. Driving
in these little dizzying mountain roads, it’s hard to see which way you’re
really going. Apparently we were totally going the wrong way, and ended up in
La Vega, an obscure looking mountain village high up in the clouds. Chris asked the way in which was probably the
only bar in town. Luckily, they gave us the right directions and finally we
were on our way home!
We were
still back in time to return the car, and despite the parking situation and
getting lost, we had an unforgettable day!
Our last
days in Tenerife, we just chilled on the beach, watched some Honey Boo Boo,
walked around and drank some cocktails. What a great trip! Some days where a
bit cloudy, but honestly who can complain when you come home to this:
That’s why
we live in Barcelona… we lengthened our holiday feeling by having breakfast at
Rambla del Poblenou, relaxing at the beach (the water was so clear, so warm! It
was beautiful), drinking a raspberry coconut juice at La Boquiería and having
fresh seafood from the market and homemade gazpacho on our balcony.
Sorry, but
that’s the whole reason we moved here!
Hope you
enjoyed this long read and sorry for those in rainy Holland…. I heard the
weather will get better next week!
Cheers to summer!
More info:
Tenerife Ving
Casa Mika
La Verdad 11
38400 Puerto de
la Cruz
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