Anyone walking in the hills above the south west coast, especially in the Santiago del Teide area, over the last few weeks will have not only experienced the pleasure of walking through one of Tenerife’s prettiest landscapes, but will have done so at a time when it has been at its magical best.
The almond trees’ blossom adds delicate splashes of colour to the countryside and seeing the valley full of pale pink and soft white petals is a vision that makes the heart soar. It’s one those little Tenerife pleasures that you can only experience if you get out and about in the hills.
Because of the fire of 2007 which devastated part of the valley, the displays haven’t been as impressive in recent years as they once were. But each year nature regains her ground and the sight of the abundance of almond trees filling the Santiago del Teide Valley with their pastel shades this year helped confine the burnt earth and blackened trees to the recesses of the memory at last.
It’s too late to join any of the guided routes that are organised especially to view this annual show, but there are still quite a few trees in bloom, so any latecomers to the show can still enjoy a taste of this delightful spectacle and then literally really enjoy a taste of the trees by having a post-walk almond biscuit at Bar Fleytas.
However, if there’s anyone who arrives between March and May and finds that they’re too late for the almond blossom, I’ve got some good news. Almost as soon as the almond blossom disappears, parts of the valley erupt in a blaze of colour as displays of wild flowers herald the arrival of spring.
Truth is, there’s never a time of year when the Santiago del Teide Valley won’t enchant those who seek out its natural wonders.
The Santiago del Teide Valley is included in our Into the Valley routes.
I’ve spent much of the winter working in Tenerife and enjoyed much of my free time walking in and around the Santiago valley. There are many signed footpaths around – the PR-TF ones marked with yellow and white stripes but so far I haven’t been able to find a directory of these walks online, and the tourist info centre wasn’t much help either. Do you know where this information can be obtained? If you’d like to see my photos of my walks they’re at http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2072957&id=1243477883&l=4689a6663c
The Island government have invested a lot of time over the past couple of years in improving the walking networks, but sometimes they tend to work from the front backwards – you’ll get an information board going up before the walk is actually signposted – so it’s possible that the information will be available in the future but at the moment I’m not aware of a directory.
But to be completely honest I haven’t looked. Some of the new signposted routes don’t follow what we believe to be the best walks – the official route at the Erjos pools is a prime example of that. Because of this we map out the route we think is better and that doesn’t always exactly match the PR-TF ones.
J