Exploring the Barranco del Rey in Tenerife

Early morning cloud drifts over the mountains

Most hikers who have walked in the south of Tenerife will be familiar with the Barranco del Rey. The GR131 long distance trail flirts with this impressive gorge in it's initial stages and as it departs Arona, on it's journey to La Esperanza in the north of the island, it crosses the ravine before heading off into the hills. 

Arona to Ifonche Circular Walk - A Southern Classic

One of the things I like about living here in Tenerife is the ease with which I can get into the mountains when I want to go for a walk. In the UK, as I lived in the south, it meant a drive of at least two and a half hours to get anywhere with any ‘real’ mountains. Now, it takes me less than fifteen minutes. Close to where I live in Chayofa in the hills above Los Cristianos in south Tenerife are the Adeje Mountains, which are easily accessible from the town of Arona from where there is a wonderful circular walk along old caminos linking the town with the remote hamlet of Ifonche. The route leaves Arona for the nearby village of Vento, from where it crosses the Barranco del Rey in the shadow of the imposing table-topped summit of Roque del Conde. This impressive ravine passes through the Ifonche region on its way to the coast where it reaches the sea by the infamous Veronica’s nightclub complex in Playa de Las Americas, a world away from its origins high in the mountains. 

Walking the Rio Conde

Last Thursday, my wife and I walked the Rio Conde, a disused water channel running through the mountains from Adeje to Arona, which is a town close to our village, Chayofa. The plan was to bus to Adeje and then climb up to the Rio Conde and follow it to a point where it passes closes to Chayofa before leaving it to follow a path back home. The channel is about a metre wide and very vertiginous in some places as it skirts around cliff edges, so the walk is not for those with a fear of heights. There are also sections where the slabs on the top have broken and a balancing act is required to negotiate these, which is a little unnerving at times. At one point, it crosses a ravine and although the channel is quite wide, you have nothing to protect you from a sheer drop on either side so concentration is vital. Because of this, I forgot to take a photo of the aquaduct as it crosses this point. The walk went well until towards the end of the channel when it started becoming very overgrown and it was necessary to climb down off of it at some points. It was during this section where I had an encounter with a prickly pear cactus and sustained an injury to my leg. I'm still not sure but I think I may have a cactus needle buried in my shin although the swelling is going down now. Hopefully, if there is a needle in it, it will work it's way out in time. This is the second injury I have sustained to my left leg in recent weeks but I suppose after years of walking with hardly any problems, I was due some bad luck. The walk took 5.5 hours overall, although it was made longer by some of the overgrown sections and the injury, which slowed me down a bit. Photos here