Month: June 2008

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Tenerife has a lot more to offer to naturists than beaches. You can go hiking clothes-free even in a mountain forest, with the subtropical sun and warm temperatures year-round. Here we suggest a route (shown approximately on the map) that we took from Los Organos to Güímar: two days of pure mountain air, pure nature, pure naturism! Three days would work better for a more leisurely hike 🙂 This is not an official nudist area, but given general acceptance of nudism on Canary Islands, nudity is generally not an issue, and this area is anyway large enough to avoid encounters with other hikers. Most probably you will not see other walkers at all, if you do not walk on major trails.

But what you will see is breath-taking views down the valley

and up to the snow-capped mount Teide!

To get to Los Organos take bus 345 or 348 from Puerto de la Cruz or La Orotava. The bus stops right where the route starts as shown on the map. First, you will walk on a pretty broad road, but already there you may take off the clothes,

and certainly so as soon as you decide to climb by one of the smaller trails up the mountains (see the map, but unfortunately we cannot provide exact details of our hiking route, so please take care which trail to take or just follow the main ones, but then you will need more time (or a bike) to complete the trip).

This part of the forest, on the northern foothills, is quite humid, with pines and cedars covered by “beards” of lichens.

But succulents, more common on the drier southern side of the island, thrived there too,

blooming –

but not only succulents. I am not sure about seasonality of blooming on Tenerife, but when we were there in the end of March, it seemed like spring was in full swing.

There were many flowers,

some looked familiar from European gardens. And we were certainly not the only ones to enjoy their colours and aroma.

The way up the trail in that part is not dangerous but still challenging. Once you are high enough, you will be rewarded with magnificent views and tranquility. Get some rest and follow a narrow horizontal trail

(hope you’ll find it! But if you keep going up, you cannot really miss it, as it lies across the foothill). In some places, the mountainside is really steep,

but then there are hand-rails along the path;

or you can hold on to the rocks.

But when you see clouds right below you, you just feel like a god able to float in the sky 🙂

Bit by bit the forest was getting drier, and there were some eucalypti among the local flora,

but pines were predominant,

along with bushes that we couldn’t identify.

We didn’t see much of fauna, but a robin kept us company on a short lunch break,

we saw several Tenerife lizards.

We were stupid enough to get off that horizontal trail  to try a shortcut, and continued climbing up on quite a steep and not very stable surface.

Well, at least we were rewards with absolutely magnificent views as the sun was setting… still above the clouds!

As we were above the forest line, it took some efforts to find a flat spot to camp for the night; it was by a massive pine tree, which stood solely over the rocks and bushes. At night the wind was very strong and chilly, so our advice is to sleep in the forest and better continue climbing up the mountain range in the morning.

Shortly after we woke up, we reached an asphalted road TF-24 and headed north-west, passing through the border of the national park of mount Teide.

When we got to an information point with a map, we could confirm we were on the right track. There also was a nice view south, with a small black (sleeping) volcano – this is where we were heading.

After we got off TF-24, we followed a trail again, this time already downhill. We often picked narrow shortcut trails, but along the main wide trail we saw two caves, which could be nice place for an overnight stop if we had more time.

In about an hour after the information point, we finally got to the black volcano. The landscape looked quite surreal – an island of black desert in the green sea of pine forest…

And some more flowers:

the white ones, like these on an unidentified bush

camomiles stood out against the black background of the volcano;

but their purple relatives

and an orange poppy looked beautiful too!

And as expected on the drier southern side of the mountains, there were plenty of succulents,

including a young specimen of the famous Canary dragon tree.

Behind the volcano, we finally saw the settlements, the right one being Güímar. But we were still a couple of hours away from there… So, we took some rest and bathed in a tub… filled with chestnuts 😀

Maybe you will also be lucky to do the hike in the season of figs or prickly pears (fruits of opuntia cactus), which are a good source of precious liquid (but take care of spines, and if you get some in your fingertips, just stroke your hair, as advices by my Mexican friends). Oh well, at some point you will have to wear your clothes, as gradually you will get back to civilization – starting with some remote villas and then the town of Güímar. When in Güímar, visit black pyramids, but the experience of free-hiking above the clouds is surely much more memorable!!!