Tenerife is one of Spain’s volcano islands with a landscape similar to a desert at some places, but it also has the very opposite: very green areas. You can get it all at this island.

One of those green areas are Anaga up on the north tip of the island, which we could explore a bit of one of our days there. Unfortunately not enough, but it gives a picture of it.

This region still hides small picturesque villages, cut off from the main roads and perhaps even the rest of the world?

This might be the real hidden Tenerife. It’s said that there still are some people living in adapted caves there. I sure would have loved to meet a genuine caveman!

The road goes along the Anaga massif with a couple of fabulous Mirador-spots (View spots). Make sure you got plenty of time when going there, so you can make plenty of stops and some detours at the few places it’s possible.

As in other places at Tenerife Island, there was mountains to drive up and down, with breathtaking views. Despite its generally rather modest elevations, the Cruz de Taborno has a height of 1,024 meters.

At one spot along the road, we were literally driving at the top edge of the mountain and this rock below was the absolute top.

It’s a pity that I couldn’t show you how high up we were at this point, but I took the photo from the car and there was vegetation at the sides, so it would not have shown anyway.

I must compliment Tenerife (and actually all we have seen of Spain) for their excellent care of their roads though. Everywhere they were as well taken care of as you see in our photos from there. No problems at all.

At one point we got to see those awesome rock formations, like sea stacks, but on land and looking like some kind of figures, at least one of them or what do you think?

This road trip was something different than other mount trips we’ve made. Beautiful in another way with it’s green valleys, not only breathtaking views because of the heights, but also with interesting mountain ranges.

Not scary heights, just relaxing, beautiful views. No need to be covered in sweat when arriving the goal, as I use to be…

We did spot some wanderers on the road a couple of times and I think there are some over-night cottages or similar at some spots in the area, well worth to investigate if you’re into hiking in the mountains.

When coming down at the north-north-west side of the island you really get to see the mountain ranges dropping down to the sea.

The road really went down to the sea level from there, making me wonder if it can be flooded if the Sea is high.

There are two beaches on this coastline: Playa de Almaciga and Playa de Los Roques, both with black sandy beaches and as we could see: popular for surfers.

There even was a small surf bar, probably very popular during summertime.

We went back home just before the sun did set since I don’t like to be up in the mountain in the darkness. We just had time enough to get down from the Anaga mountains before it turned real black.

When going South again we did choose another way than the usual TF-1 highway which we already had traveled so many times. We tried the smaller C-822 in hope to see some small villages along the road.

It turned out to be not so good idea when you’re afraid of heights. There were no signs on our map that this would be such a curvy mountain road, but it is!

Behind that road fence, it’s steep, right downhill the high mountain side, so we had to drive slowly, in case we should meet some one. This was how the road looked like for very long.

By now I was covered in sweat, we had to turn back to the highway again at the first place we could, because I really couldn’t stand it.

No matter how romantic it truly was totally alone with only the moon shining…

Lifecruiser ♥ Anaga
 

This Tenerife boat on the road is exactly like me right now: stranded. I have no idea what so ever what it did there - and not what I’m doing over here either.

I long for the Sea just as much as that boat probably does!

Lifecruiser ♥ Boats
 

Playa de las Americas are situated in the South of Tenerife Island, Spain. Combined with an attractive beach walkway, lots of sport activities and the wonderful climate, it’s not so difficult to understand why it’s so popular.

The South is more sunny and warmer than the North side, we could clearly notice the difference. Tenerife island is also known as the island of eternal spring.

I would also call it Tenerife’s most popular tourist destination. It stretches for quite a bit of the coast with different beaches almost all the way with breakwaters to stop the imported sand from Africa from being washed away.

I’m not sure if the beach above really contained imported sand from Sahara, it looked rather black to me. Perhaps it get mixed up after a while.

I’ll show you a close up of the sand on that beach, in which you clearly can see that it has some darker lava sand in the mix.

For us, Las Americas seemed to be a bit lacking of the genuine Canarian culture though, if you wanna experience something local while there.

The explanation of that is that many tourists from northern Europe comes here frequently during the whole year and especially in the winter, when their home countries are cold. We noticed very many Brits here, but also Swedes.

There’s also lots of shops, bars and restaurants and it’s here the most lively nightlife is, filled with pubs, disco’s and shows, ranging everything from low budget to luxury. I would even call it exhausting nightlife.

Especially if I should judge from an older TV documentary (Tenerife Uncensored) I’ve seen reporting from here, but it might have shaped up a bit since then.

That’s also the reason why we didn’t stay there later in the evening than we did, just enjoying the sunset at a seaside restaurant.

We had a nice relaxed evening there, me with drinks in the same color as the sun, hubby was not as lucky since he had to drive us home.

Lifecruiser ♥ Beaches