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.
