Acantilados de Los Gigantes (Tenerife), Dec 20 2023

Simply a wonderful hike!

Index

Date	Peak	Height	PF	Location	MAP
20.12.23	Acantilados de Los Gigantes	555m	–	Tenerife, Spain	MAP

Wednesday: The plan was that Anne would have a resting day, while I hiked the very cool Risco Blanco peak, in a valley close to Santiago del Teide. But as the day progressed, Anne became interested in hiking a route along the Los Gigantes cliffs. I was not aware of this route and started to read up on it. After a while, we both decided that this was a hike we wanted to do!

We walked from the hotel (at sea level), up to the north edge of town at approx. 100m elevation – 2km in distance. From here, we could see the path going towards the cliffs.

It took a little bit of acclimatizing to get mentally comfortable with the narrow path, but the path was quite easy to follow. It’s all in your head.

I’m not sure what the name of this route is, and so I just went with “Acantilados de Los Gigantes” – “The Los Gigantes cliffs”. But you can also search for “Ladera de Nifa“, “Galeria Cueva del Agua“, “Barranco Mancho de los Díaz” and probably other names too.

After a little while, we met two Chinese guys who had turned around. They told us that the path was incredibly narrow and the drop to the sea was scary. We decided to find out for ourselves, and we didn’t find the path too narrow or scary. Behind us, we could see the Chinese guys gain new inspiration from the fact that we didn’t fall and die, and they started following us.

The information on the internet was confusing. We knew there was a tunnel, but we didn’t know where. “The tunnel is closed!“. “The tunnel is open!” I guess we had to find out for ourselves. And what about all those signposts at the trailhead? At least “The managing entities do not recommend walking on it” didn’t sound like anything forbidden…

We had also watched a couple of YouTube videos that were downright scary. But these were videos from people following the water pipeline, and not this path. Once that was sorted out, it was mentally easier to keep moving on.

After a while, we turned a bend and met a US couple coming in the opposite direction. They told us that the tunnel was closed, which was a huge disappointment. Then we moved on, with a new mindset – to turn around at the closed tunnel.

And soon we got there. But it wasn’t a tunnel – it was a gate. Impossible to get through, so we decided to head back to the nearby gorge and have lunch.

We stopped for lunch and enjoyed the view back to our hotel. We could see the Chinese guys on the path below us.

This was really frustrating and we made a futile attempt to climb up the gorge, but we soon ran into unfriendly terrain…

Then came the Chinese guys and we told them that the trail was closed. One of the guys decided to check out for himself (as he should!) and a bit later he started yelling that it was OK to come along.

We were confused. Did he break the gate? Anne was reluctant to go back up, but when I saw the other Chinese guy climb up in a different direction that we had gone, we became curious.

And sure enough, we had missed the path. We had crossed over rocks on the trail – probably saying “wrong way!”, thinking we were clever. But it turned out to be the wrong way.

Then a Dutch guy came along, and he seemed to know where he was going. It later turned out that he didn’t, but we decided to follow him.

And after a little while, we stood in front of the tunnel – which was open!

We had brough headlamps and so there were no practical issues.

We went together all 5 of us and had a smooth hike through the ~1km tunnel.

On the other side, a heavenly beautiful gorge (Barranco Mancho de los Díaz) was awaiting. I’m not often blown away by scenery (having seen some), but this was just stunning!

We parted with the others. Then we came to a fork where we chose the path to the right while the others didn’t. The Chinese had gone the wrong way (towards the beach) while the Dutchman had gone the right way, but missed the fact that the route crossed the dry river in the gorge.

After a while, we were all together again, as the Dutchman came scrambling up from the riverbed, hearing our voices.

We knew there was another tunnel nearby (there are four in total), but we couldn’t locate it and continued up the valley instead.

When we got up to the pipeline, we parted for good. The Dutchman continued upwards, the Chinese joined us for a break, but we left early. It was fun to see this old house, built into the rock. One can only imagine how life has been here, in the past.

We were now close to tunnels #3 and #4, but we didn’t see a path leading to #3 so we decided to bet on #4.

I couldn’t get my eyes off Risco Blanca. It was almost so that I would take the trip to Tenerife again, solely to get up this wonderful peak…

Finally, we located tunnel #4…

This tunnel was also ~1km and just as easy to follow as the first one. Maybe the roof height was a bit lower in the first half of the tunnel.

It was fun to think about us now crossing through Montaña de Guama, which we hiked 3 days earlier…

We came out of the tunnel just of south of the village Tamaimo and joined the valley trail that we followed 3 days earlier.

But this time, we would not be hiking up the valley, but down to Puerto de Santiago – 6km away. On that note – what’s the difference between Los Gigantes and Puerto de Santiago? Not sure? Two names for the same town? Or are there two towns?

It was a nice valley walk. It was interesting to see what all the pipelines are for…

We passed one banana plant after the other. Clearly a big industry in these parts of the island.

After a while, we joined the main road and followed it down to Puerto de Santiago (at least that is what the signpost said)

Ever since we arrived in Los Gigantes, I wanted to pose by this boat. Now, I had my chance…

It was only natural to end this lovely hike with a swim in the laguna – Piscina Natural Acantilado de Los Gigantes.

I had expected the laguna to be overcrowded, but there was indeed room for us to leave our backpacks under some rocks and keep an eye out for them while we took a swim.

What a great place for a swim!

This was a hike we will remember for a long, long time!

Trip statistics 20km, 800 vertical meters, 6h:03m
Pictures (Canon EOS RP/Iphone 13 Pro Max/Samsung Galaxy 21S)