Mountain Lifestyle: The days are just packed - surfing and climbing in Tenerife

Wednesday 30 December 2015

The days are just packed - surfing and climbing in Tenerife

A full packed day of Tenerife action again today, with a morning in the surf and then finishing with some excellent climbing!

The waves at Playa las Americas were much bigger than we'd expected. Eventually we realised that they measure the wave height here in meters not feet, so what we thought would be a cruisey little 2' session, turned out to be well over head height, heavy waves! Yikes!

At the hire shop, we picked up a couple of boards and were told to stay away from our plan of heading for the best looking wave as it was strictly for locals only. I'm really not into all that 'localism' nonsense, but decide to heed the advice no the less. I was also a little put off by the rocky nature of the beach. It was hard to tell quite how shallow the water was that the waves were breaking on to. To play it safe, we decided to hang out on the edge of a very big and busy main wave. I got some rides and could have had more had I been prepared to be dropped in on and dodge any number of surfers who'd be in the way! It sure was busy/dangerous, so by loitering around on the edge of the line up, I was able to hoover up the odd wave that the crowds had missed in relative safety. Not easy on a 6' foam hireboard, but good to be out...

We took a walk along the promenade afterwards and stopped at a cafe to watch the pros. It's a beautiful place if you are looking out to sea, but the scenes in the other direction are certainly far from being my cup of tea. Some of the beach areas and all the hotel pools and bars are lined up with sunbathers, cheap lager and tattoos.

Having had our surf fix, we retreated to the solitude of the nearby mountains and found an excellent little crag near the village of El Rio. It was another narrow and winding road, but well worth the effort.

We'd timed it nicely, as the sun was just leaving the cliffs (along with all the other climbers), so we could climb in the shade but with the rock radiating heat!

We climbed three quality routes...

From the top of the last climb, the light was starting to fade. There should have been a reservoir below us - there was a big dam, but no water to be seen...