Hugo Jonker

Where were we? We’d climbed up to Teide, I danced on the volcano, and then we descended to the top of the cable cart. The route we planned (to Pico Viejo and beyond) was closed, so we decided to abort the plan and take the cable cart down. On the way down the cart operator pointed out some native mountain sheep — but I didn’t spot them. At the cable cart base station, we treated ourselves to a brunch and sat down to figure our plans out.

During brunch, Aga said there were basically two options: back to Los Cristianos and beach out the rest of the holidays, or to go to somewhere called ‘Los Gigantes’. Were we to go to Los Gigantes, we could also go to something or somewhere called “Masca”. Apparently, it was gorgeous and wonderful and amazing and more!

As it turned out, we didn’t have to make the choice for a while just yet. I innocently asked how we’d get there. “Hitchhiking! Or, if that doesn’t work, we’ll take a bus.”
Errr… hitchhiking? Le what? Never done that in my life. Then again, never too old to try something new :)

The bus schedule was rather… disappointing. There was about one bus per day, and it was going near (not to) Los Cristianos. To go by bus to Los Gigantes, we had to take this bus (which left from somewhere sort of nearby) at 4pm. Did I mention it was roughly 10am? Even if hitchhiking hadn’t been suggested, I would’ve probably opted for it… or for walking.

We left the base station and walked to the main road. In line with our desire to hitch a ride, we were walking on the right (non-left) side of the road. The first few cars passed… grmbl. Then, one slowed down a lot, and we both thought “success”! But apparently he then saw our backpacks and raced off again. GRMBL!

Anyway, the primary plan was to hitch a ride directly to Los Gigantes. Failing that (which was likely), we’d hitch a ride to the point where the road to Los Gigantes forked off from the road to Los Cristianos / the beach. I heard a car coming, and we both turned and put on our bestetest smiles. Amazingly, the car pulled over! We were about to successfully have hitched a ride! AMAZING!

For me, this was a completely new experience. Luckily, Agnieszka had done this before, and she struck up a conversation quickly. The Danish couple that had picked us up were about our age, and had rented a car to explore Tenerife. For a brief while, that sounded quite appealing to me. Rent a car, and explore the country side together with your girl. You could find all these wonderful spots … hmmms. The parts where we had walked, were inaccessible by car. And they were pretty damn amazing. And actually, with this car, there were some nice views too, but we were mostly speeding through them, not really having the time to admire them. Upon reflection, the hiking sounded slightly better.

Since the friendly Danes were heading in the direction of Los Cristianos, we asked to be dropped off at the fork. There happened to be a toursistic stopping place there, because of the nice view of the lava field leading up to mighty Teide. As you can see, we ditched the hitchhiking plan for a while and acted as tourists :)
According to the bus plan, there ought to be a bus stop around here, so if we failed to hitch a second ride, we could always make it to Los Cristianos.

After a round of taking photos, our collective thumbs had had enough of a break, so we broke them out, all fresh and shiny. Car number one…. shiny thumb, admire the shiny thumb… no. Car number two… number three… no luck. After 40 or so minutes, we figured it might have something to do with the location. There were lots of tourist walking around, it wouldn’t be immediately obvious that some of them were in need of a ride. Following that logic, we hiked some ways up the fork, waiting for a car to Los Gigantes. A few came, accelerated and passed. Grmbl. We took some more photos (it’s a photo-blog! :), and our hope of reaching Los Gigantes dampened.

By noon, we had walked back to the viewpoint and tried again from there – with the idea that any ride is better than no ride. Still, no luck… or was there? A car pulled over… was that for us… it could be… I went over, but the couple was Spanish, so I waved Aga in and let her figure it out. By then I figured they’d stopped for some photos, not for some tourists. Turns out I was right :s

Aga seemed quite down by this. I realised that a young girl hitchhiking is different from a bloke hitchhiking, and again different from a couple hitchhiking. Probably, had she been by herself, she would’ve by now hitched a ride. I almost felt like apologising… Ah well, couldn’t be helped. Plus, we were having fun together. Up to the point where she seemed to see the hope of Los Gigantes / Masca evaporate into thin air.

Figuring “what the hey”, I proposed we just started walking to Los Gigantes. I reckoned that a still-standing hitchhiker might be less appealing to pick up than one that is already hiking. Well, the second one sort of radiates an air of “you can make my life easy or not, but I’m going to get there.” as opposed to the “make my life easy please?” view. Well, pure speculation of course, and far-fetched reasoning, but enough to convince me to start moving, and it was good to not stand around anymore.

So we started in the direction of Los Gigantes. A few cars passed without acknowledging our thumbs. We polished them a bit and kept walking. Another car approached, we raised our shiny thumbs, et voila! Magic happened!

It turned out to be the Spanish couple who had earlier not picked us up, but stopped for photos. They weren’t heading to Los Gigantes, but they were going a short way in our direction. Grateful for any forward motion, we joined. This time, Aga was the only one doing the talking – Spanish is not my forté. They dropped us at a rest place besides the road, and we went bravely on. Again we showed our prettiest thumbs at any cars coming our way, and if they passed, we silently berated them and kept marching on.

It wasn’t long before another car pulled over. This time we were picked up by a friendly Swedish couple, I’d estimate the age of my parents. We had a fun chat, especially when the gentleman turned out to be working in IT as well. We talked shop for a bit, until the signs from both ladies clearly indicated a change of subject. :)
They were going to Puerto de Santiago, which was immediately next to Los Gigantes. More accurately phrased, “Los Gigantes” is a series of impressive rock formations protruding into the ocean, and also the name of the harbour region of Puerto de Santiago (which is next to the rocks). The friendly Swedes dropped us of in the village, near a sign pointing to the harbour. within 20 minutes, we were there, and on our way to find an apartment.

Aga had a particular location in mind, and we did find them in the end. The apartments were at about 1 minute from the harbour… if you crawled slowly. The lady at the desk told us that there were apartments available, but they were still being cleaned. Recall that we hiked up Teide earlier this day, and had been walking in warm weather quite a bit… We were both ready for a shower. That they could offer us in the mean time, so we had a shower. Afterwards, Aga wanted to go to the swimming pool. I wasn’t that interested to begin with, and didn’t feel too comfortable leaving our luggage there. Moreover, the room ought to be done in about 10 minutes, so why not?

And indeed, after a little pushing we got into the room and dropped our stuff. Our balcony overlooked the harbour, and not from far. We collected ourselves a bit, and then we went out to explore the town and grab a bite to eat. While exploring the town, I suggested tapas – that is a typical spanish dish and we hadn’t had the occasion yet. So at the village square, we asked if the bar had tapas. They said “yes”, but should’ve said no. We ordered “papas locos”, which I expected to be potatoes (papas arugadas, our favourite Tenerifian dish by now, consists only of salty potatoes). Imagine our surprise when we were served french fries with cheese and ham. And when I write “with cheese and ham”, I mean “with small cuts of cheese and ham sprinkled all through the french fries”. This was by far the weirdest dish either of us ever ate.

While more happened this day, I’ll leave it at this. That way, at least you can ask me about the Rincon De Antonio, next time we meet. Hasta Luego!

PS: Yes I did touch the water in the evening, after dinner. Heighest point in Spain in the morning, lowest point in the evening. Fun, no?