The Development of Tenerife, the Long & Winding Road

I’ve driven around Las Américas and Costa Adeje many, many times. But I always take what seemed like incredibly circuitous routes to get anywhere.

Last weekend, after crippling myself on 12 Beaches Boulevard I got the chance to see which route Tenerife’s bus drivers used to travel between Los Cristianos and Fañabe.

We had a look at taxis first but, after noticing that the fare from the centre of Los Cristianos just to the port was €5 I figured that as I’d never paid to get screwed, I wasn’t about to start now.

With a bit of advice from bus route guru Colin Kirby, Andy and I boarded the 417 bound for Guia de Isora. From Los Cristianos to just before San Eugenio the route was pretty straightforward, but it was from there I was really interested. Blow me if the bus driver didn’t take the route I thought that I must have always gotten wrong. To get from one part of Costa Adeje to Fañabe on four wheels you really do have to cross the TF1, go round a couple of roundabouts and re-cross it again.

I’ve always suspected I was missing something, but no – it is actually a complete mystery of road planning. It just doesn’t make any sense and betrays that someone wasn’t exactly looking at the bigger picture when they were developing the area.

As we turned this way and that way on a convoluted route from A to B, La Laguna popped into my head. The reason being that when La Laguna was being developed nearly 5 centuries ago, the grid layout used for the town was revolutionary. It was such a logical and clever layout that many South America cities used it as a blueprint.

This thought occurred to me; is it possible that five centuries ago road planners on Tenerife were smarter and more advanced that they are now?

As an epilogue of sorts, when we crossed into the Fañabe the bus headed back towards PDLA before turning and coming to a halt at a bus stop. It was quite a distance from the hotel, so I advised Andy that we should stay on the bus until it got a bit closer.

My heart fell when the bus, instead of taking the road I thought it would, headed right back across the motorway again in the direction of Guia de Isora, presumably because there was no way to rejoin the motorway from the side I wanted to be on (those pesky road planners again). Thankfully we managed to get off on the other side nearly opposite our hotel, so it wasn’t a disaster and we didn’t end up with an unplanned trip to Guia, but it was a close call.

Living in Tenerife: A World of Contrasts

Yesterday we headed west, well south west to be more accurate, to research a potential new walking route on Tenerife. Apart from nearly succumbing to the searing calima heat during the course of the day, we also crossed paths with three old Tenerife friends – irony, aesthetics and environmental awareness.

Irony
The journey to the starting point of the route would normally take about an hour and a half, passing through the lovely Santiago Valley before skirting the hills toward Guia de Isora.

Yesterday half an hour was added to the drive because the normally quiet road was full of lumbering trucks which were too big for the old road which linked Guia with Santiago del Teide. And here’s the irony – why were they on the road? Because they were transporting materials to and from the new ring road; a construction apparently designed to make circumnavigating the island easier.

Personally, I’ve never thought there was much of a problem using the road that’s already there (it’s a beautiful drive)…not until the new road’s trucks clogged it up, churning up the tarmac in the process. We’ve been told that despite Spain’s austerity measures, this new road will be completed – shame. I can only hope that the austerity measures stop some other projects in time to prevent the authorities covering the whole damn coast in tarmac and concrete.

Aesthetics
At one point during our walk yesterday we followed a path along the bottom of a picturesque barranco. Luminous dragonflies and bright yellow butterflies fluttered and zipped about our heads as we strolled past wild vines with only the sound of rushing water to break the silence. The running water wasn’t coming from a babbling brook, it was coming from steel pipes which ran through the barranco.

Most of the time these were hidden beneath the flora and fauna, but every so often they had to break cover to travel up the walls of the barranco. And when they did, they looked like this.

Maybe with a little bit of thought, they might have been placed in a way that was a bit more sympathetic to the landscape. Come on guys and girls, if you want the island to be attractive as a rural destination, look up aesthetic in the dictionary.

Environmental Awareness
We emerged from the barranco at a small, unremarkable modern hamlet. Unremarkable apart from one thing; its street lamps were solar powered.

I’ve never seen these before and was fascinated by them. Now I’ve googled them and discovered what I thought were speed traps on the TF5 motorway, might actually be solar powered lights. How about that?

It just tickles me that in the one area there are JCBs tearing up part of the landscape, steel water pipes spoiling parts of a beauty spot…and environmentally friendly street lamps.

Aaah Tenerife, you’re a confused little soul, but I love you really.