Tenerife 3.0

It’s the third time now that I’ve been to Tenerife around my birthday, which is just before Christmas. So the perfect time to escape grey, cold London to an island where 30 degrees in autumn is the usual. My main criteria for this time was to stay somewhere off the beaten path. If you’ve been to Tenerife you will know that the southern part of the island is full of artificial villages consisting of hotels and holiday apartments, inhabited by tourists. So we booked a place in a small village called La Listada, at the East coast. A small, winding road lead to the coastal village, it has one bar where all the locals are, and an impressive coast line. It’s also quite windy but it’s not where the tourists are, which is what I really enjoyed, despite the fact that I am indeed a tourist myself.

EL PUERTITO DE ARMENIME

It’s not the first time we came here. A picturesque beach that depends on the tides, so make sure you get there when it’s low tide. We were basking in the sun all day, but do take an umbrella with you for the sun and lots of sunscreen. Also make sure to take some lunch with you, there isn’t much around there so it’s the perfect spot for a picnic on the beach. I love this tiny beach, once again it’s off the beaten path so you can escape the mass tourism from places like Playa de Las Americas.

PUERTO DE LA CRUZ

A town located on the north west part of the island. We took the route through La Laguna because that’s where the motorway goes. Anyway, the way we went you can see El Teide from the car. Yes, third time in Tenerife and I still have not been on El Teide. I suppose that speaks for itself that I prefer sitting on the beach in the sun rather than hiking up in the cold. Also watching the sunrise from the top isn’t really a selling point for me on a holiday but each their own. Anyway, the beach in Puerto de La Cruz is impressive, the waves were very high. You can tell that all we really did is find the best beaches and just stay there all day. Honestly, it was clearly needed, after the year we all had.

FOOD

What would be a travel post without mentioning food? Right, it wouldn’t be a proper travel post, of course. First of all I would like to raise a toast for all the amazing fruit Tenerife has to offer. Canarian platanos (the local bananas) and ripe papayas were my favourite. I didn’t know I would enjoy papayas so much, but a proper ripe papaya is something immensly delicious. How many times can one say papaya in one paragraph? Locally grown papayas from the island, what could I ask for more. It’s six times I used the word “papaya”, including this sentence, I know you counted too.

But fruit is not the only food we had there. I have to admit though being a veggie/vegan on the island is not easy. Vegetarian is probably more accessible than vegan because you always will find some cheese and vegetables.

If you don’t want to tap into the tourist traps, I can recommend going to a local guachinche. Typically, they are small, local restaurants offering simple, local food, and most of the time quite meat heavy. However, there one which is easily accessible by car (often they are in the mountains), called El Cordero. The name kind of gives away what you will find there, el cordero meaning lamb in Spanish. The main stuff on the menu is meat, so if you eat that, you will find something here easily. That said they also offer some vegetable dishes and cheese, like grilled veggies, grilled garlic mushrooms (you might have to relocate to a different room after having these, if you are travelling with a partner, just a heads-up) and papas arrugadas. Those are a traditional dish from the canary islands, they are salty and wrinkly potatoes, because of the way they are cooked. Usually they are served with mojo rojo, a red dipping sauce or some aioli. I can highly recommend taking these, not only a great side but also filling, and they are potatoes so what can go wrong.

Thanks for reading if you made it this far and maybe you got some inspiration for your next trip!