21-12-15

Not sure what I’ve done to aggravate the weather gods. I don’t have anything against a bit of rain… by why only on the mornings of a tenting night?!

But, can’t be helped… getting used to it 😉

I take it a bit slow, and luckily it stops while I’m packing up and I can wipe down the worst of wetness from the tent before bagging it.

With all the procrastination and faffing around, I get going quite a bit later than I had hoped… by that time it’s all blue sky – like the weather forcast had said.

It’s 11:45 when I make my first step on the trail, and it’s 27km to the next camping area, where I wanted to spend the night…

So, in order to make up time, I chose to take the Camino de Santiago pilgrim’s route instead of the GR131 for the next stretch (they basically criss-cross / run in parallel for a good while on Tenerife) – it’s slightly longer, but has a lot less ascent it seems. Also my guess is it’s on bigger trails, so less slippery after the rain. And, with fog drifting down again after the 5mins of blue sky, I hope for more views staying on lower altitudes.

I take a short second breakfast / technical stop at the shelter Las Canales.

Then I get to the first viewpoint – lovely far view out to the coast:

And some hours later – another amazing view:

There is very few people on the trails; only one person on a motorcycle, and then these two guys:

And there is some amazing huge trees, with their own organic lametta – ready for x-mas.

The trail continues more or less flat-ish on good and wide forest roads, ‘pistas’; so I make good progress. But the terrain is getting steeper and steeper.

Then there is some more imaginary views.

Before -finally- a short hour before sunset, the sun’s pushing through, and I get a glimpse of what I’ve missed all day!

Just seconds before sunset, with the moon already out, I arrive at the Zona Acampada de la Caldera…

…where I hurry to set up my tent:

Total of approximately 27km speed-hiked today.

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