Playa de las Américas; Saturday, 12 December, 2020

I had an early alarm call, and was down to breakfast shortly after they opened, as I was due to be picked up for my booked tour at a little after 08:30. So, with virtually nobody about I headed out of the hotel and down to the meeting point for my Jeep Safari. The name turned out to actually be a bit of a con, as nobody is allowed to go off road anywhere on the island, and the entire tour could have been conducted in a comfortable mini-bus or van, but instead I would spend the next 8 hours crammed uncomfortably at an odd angle into the back of an ancient 4 wheel drive land rover knockoff.

The tour started by heading up out of Playa de las Américas and up into the mountains above, firstly driving through the county town of Arona before stopping a kilometre or so beyond it for view over the South Western corner of the island. From here it was possible to make out the key development of the islands economy, with large parts still covered by the netting of the banana plantations that were the key source of income for the islands up until the early 1980s when the concrete jungle of the resorts catapulted tourism up to the biggest income source.

From Arona we continued climbing up to the small town of Vilaflor where we stopped for a morning coffee before starting the final ascent up into the high planes on the roof of the island. This area is the caldera of a giant super-volcano, second only in size to the one in Yellowstone, but with an almost moon-like interior. We drove all the way across the floor of the crater, before climbing up to a view point on the rim. The viewpoint also looks across from the crater to the peak of the only active volcano left on the island, the near 4000m Mount Teide.

After spending some time taking in the views of the volcano and crater we headed back down into the crater floor and then took the same road that I’d been on the previous night for the stargazing down into the town of Tamaimo where we stopped for lunch.

From Tamaimo we headed out on a small winding mountain road that climbed up some 500m in just 3KM, before plunging back down the other side of the mountain and into the small village of Masca. This is situated inside the crater of a long extinct volcano, with the whole town virtually surrounded by the crater walls, apart from a small opening out into the sea at the western end, it makes for a very dramatic setting for the village.

Having looked round Masca for a while it was time to head back to the Jeep knock-off and make our way, uncomfortably, back to Tamaimo and then onto Playa de las Américas for the end of the tour, where I was dropped off outside the hotel.

I freshened up a little from being cramped up inside the car for nearly 90 minutes and then headed out for a wander around the town to see what it was like. It was pretty much as I had imagined, just a sea of high-rise concrete hotels, each one straining to get a view of the sea over the others. Not that the beach had much going for it, given it’s coarse black sand, and the reef off shore that makes the coast here good for water sports, but not so great for swimming.

After a little wander around town I grabbed some snacks from a 24 hours supermarket and headed back to my hotel for a light dinner – given I’d had a large lunch on the tour – before turning in for the night.