Our 7th Canary island…
Index
| Date | Peak | Height | PF | Location | MAP |
| 19.12.23 | Pico de Malpaso | 1501m | 1501m | El Hierro, Spain | MAP |
Tuesday: The time had come to fly to the island El Hierro, where we would hike the high point – Pico de Malpaso.
This would be our 7th Canary Island and our 6th high point. The high point on Gran Canaria requires climbing or advanced scrambling and we’ve yet to do just that.
We had bought tickets on the internet on beforehand and we were excited to find out how traveling between the Canary Islands works…
We left our hotel on Tenerife 6:30 in the morning and had a 100km+ drive ahead of us, to get to the northern airport on Tenerife. It took me a few minutes to acclimate to 120km/h on the motorway – in the dark, but eventually I found the rhythm.
Paid parking on the Canary Islands was something we still hadn’t checked out, but now was the time for it. When we got to the airport, we buzzed a button and out came a ticket – apparently to be paid upon exit.
The airport was small and while busy – the stress level was low. We had checked in online and passing through security was pain-free…
The plane left on time (10am) and 40 minutes later, we landed on El Hierro.
The plan was to rent a taxi driver for the day, at least until 16:30, when we planned to be back at the airport for our 17:50 flight back to Tenerife.
But the taxi drivers didn’t speak English and the two taxis left with other (Spanish speaking) passengers.
We had to seek help at the information desk, and 10 minutes later, Alejandro came to our rescue. Plan B would of course to rent a car, but I felt that the rental car we left back on Tenerife was enough…
Alejandro didn’t speak English, but now we had the information desk as translator, Anne’s basic Spanish had come alive, and I had Google Translate ready. Alejandro now understood that we wanted to be taken up to Cruz de Los Reyes and hike Malpaso from there – while he was waiting.
The plan included at least one more hike while up there, but the language issues made things too complicated and so we just settled for Malpaso.
The top was just 1,8km away from the trailhead and so this turned out to be an easy hike. The only issue for me was stomach pains – something I’ve been struggling with for a couple of months. But now – worse than ever.
We didn’t find the island overwhelmingly astonishing and we were glad we had chosen Tenerife as base and El Hierro as a daytrip and not the other way around.
But we were very happy to reach the top of the island, as we had thought about El Hierro for quite some years.
The maps claim this top is 1501m, making this an “ultra mountain” – prominence >= 1500m, but trustworthy sources say that newer and finer measurements define the top to be 1499,9m. As such, it can’t be upgraded to 1500m, because it isn’t 1500m. So brutal…
After a short stay, we returned to Alejandro and we decided to return to the airport, hoping to catch an earlier flight.
It was on the way down I asked the taxi driver for his name (thanks to Google Translate) and when he said “Alejandro”, I played Lady Gaga’s song with the same name. That made him smile from ear to ear, and he knew the song well.
Back at the airport, we had to wait a while until people arrived in the ticket counter. A lady with basic English skills understood that we wanted to get back earlier and gave us standby tickets for the 15:45 flight.
Then we started to wonder – do we pass security with standby tickets? I went back to the ticket counter to ask, and now there were two different employees there. They decided to give us firm seats without any additional costs – even if we had bought low-fare tickets. Good service!
The flight was nice. We were served a small chocolate bar and a glass of water. It was cloudy, but Pico del Teide rose tall above the clouds…
It was a major bonus to get back to Tenerife so early, allowing us to drive the 100km+ back to the hotel – but this time on the north side of the island.
But first, we had to pay the parking ticket. That didn’t go well at all. The ticket machine was not friendly at all. We put the parking ticket in, then we put the credit card in. What’s the problem? Fortunately, a guy turned up and asked us to tap the card instead of inserting it. Problem solved.
I was still nervous when we reached the locked gate. Would it accept our ticket? But the gate opened and no ticket was needed. I guess there is some license place reading + paid yes/no going on.
Some 1,5 hours later, we were back at our hotel in Los Gigantes and we both quite tired. It had been a long, rewarding and tiresome day…
We were blessed with yet another nice sunset…
Trip statistics 3,6km, 100 vertical meters, 0h:58m
Pictures (Canon EOS RP/Iphone 13 Pro Max/Samsung Galaxy 21S)
