3. Tenerife-Dragon Tree & Garachico

The drive to the Dragon Tree took about an hour up a winding mountain path. Tenerife has no natural fresh water rivers and very little rain in most of the island. People who found water on their land became very rich in the past. Most water is what the locals call horizontal rain. Meaning the water from the mountains came not from rain, but from clouds. And man, was today a rich day in the mountains.

By the time we reached the stop point for the Dragon Tree, Icod, the rain intensified. Because it was a slippery, cobble stone hike to the church where we could see the tree, mom stayed on the bus with some of the others. Angél took us through a tunnel and into another town square.

Legend has it that the god Atlas battled a dragon sent to Tenerife to destroy paradise. Atlas vanquished the dragon with a spear but everywhere the dragon’s blood fell, a dragon tree grew…slowly though. Each branch takes 16 years to grow. Based on that and the number of branches, the Dragon Tree is thought to be over 1200 years old. It was MASSIVE. In the picture of the tree you can see a red dot in the middle left of the picture. That’s a person…

We met up with the bus at the other end of the piazza after I dated into a shop to get a postcard of the tree. Next we’re headed to the town of Garachico for lunch and a look at the pools formed from the last volcanic eruptions. Due to the slope left behind as the magma hit the sea, Garachico is prone to tsunami waves as well.

This was our lunch break. Mom and I ate at Fungi, a small cafe restaurant that specializes in mushrooms and meat. Mom had pasta bolognese and I tried the stuffed mushrooms with Canaria cheese. We were joined by Robert from our group and had a great time sharing food and watching him drink his ‘barachico.’

‘Barachico’ is Tenerifey coffee made from coffee beans, milk, condensed milk, sugar, cinnamon and sometimes with a dash of liqueur. The owner of the establishment was over the top enthusiastic and said his middle name was Mushroom. Check out was a bit wonky with the credit card reader but we made it back to the bus only two minutes after the 4 o’clock meeting time. The people in Tenerife operate on island time. So any schedule is tremendously flexible.

Next stop was Orotava Hills…Read more