main

Swotch`s Tenerife Singletrack site features downhill bike trails with GPS tracks.

Swotch`s Teneriffa Downhill Bike Singletrail site mit GPS info.

Canary Islands Canarias

The origins of the “Camino”

Some 100 years in the past, people lived a stone-age life in the mountains of the Tenerife. There were no possibilities for motorized or even wheeled traffic. Deep ravines and steep slopes forced the people to travel walking.

Traveling on foot is a different business to road traffic. The walking traveller does not want to loose one single step from the straight line. He won`t like curves or look for road junctions. Instead, he just points out the church tower of his village, and walks towards it. He can climb or descend even considerably steep slopes. Crossing a “barranco” (ravine) or “malpais” (lava flow) although takes time, so he rather avoids them.

He does not need much space. A road one meter wide is enough, or two meters for “double-lane traffic”. As he travels maybe one or two whole days, he wants some pavement to keep the flow of his walk. A bordering wall will keep weeds and tree branches out of his way.

The most important walkway was called “Las Cañadas”, or “the Riverbeds”, a 15 kilometers long line of sandy flats surrounding the Teide. Although this place is at 2000m of elevation, it is ideal for walkers: it is almost level, the sand makes walking easy, and it is right in the middle of the island. The height was not a problem, since most villages were between 500m and 1000m of elevation.

Most other routes connected the villages with the entrances of Las Cañadas: El Portillo, Degollada de Guajara, Degollada de Ucanca, Boca Cangrejo, Boca Tauce. From these points, each village had his own “camino” on the possible shortest way.

Other important goals for walkers were the harbors like Garachico, Puerto Santiago, Alcala, San Juan, Los Cristianos, Los Abrigos, Poris, where goods and visitors arrived, and emigrants departed. After the destruction of the harbor of Garachico in 1706, people from the North were forced to embark ships in the southern harbors, as there is no more year-round harbor in the North. Maybe this led to the construction of the Camino de Valle Santiago. The name “Playa de las Americas” (Americas Beach) tells us where the emigrants from the North departed to Cuba and Venezuela. Emigration was mostly illegal, so that no official harbors could be used.

A point of special interest was (and still is) Candelaria. Each 15. August thousands of pilgrims walk towards the Basilica of the town. There is no fixed starting point of the pilgrimage, every one is due to start from the village he lives in. The walkways leading to Candelaria are called “Camino de Candelaria” or “Camino del Virgen”, and there are plenty of them.

Further, all neighbouring villages were connected with each other, always heading from church to church. These connections were rather problematic, since the need of crossing several ravines.

In the late years some sections of the caminos were converted to jeep tracks or paved roads, but very often after a few hundred meters the original walkway follows.

The caminos are often referred to as “Camino Real” (King`s Way) because they were built on governmental funds instead of “veredas” (path) built by the villagers themselves.

Caminos are a part of the island`s heritage. They are symbols of the ancestors way of life. The last few years village councils rebuilt several old caminos.

The Pistas

Most “pistas” (jeep tracks) were built in the past 60 years. As modern agriculture reached the island, the demand on irrigating water grew. As there is almost no surface water on the island, mine shafts (galerias) were built to reach the ground water reservoirs. Up to this date some 1000 kilometers of mine shafts (some as deep as 5 kilometers) were dug into the mountains.

In order to bring the heavy machines jeep-tracks were built in all the higher regions of the island. Few of them have connections to other roads, most are dead-ended at the mine station they are built for.

Other pistas were built as fire-tracks. These are connected to each other.

There is even (at least) one artillery track built on defense purposes, dead-ended near the Guajara.

Have fun and a safe ride

Swotch