Tenerife: Pista La Porquera, Roque Negro

I'm still recovering from our return to cold, gray Dresden after 3 weeks of sun in the beautiful Canary Islands.  We spent Christmas and New Year far away from the snow and cold in Tenerife and El Hierro.  Let me tell you a little about our trip...

We arrived in Tenerife on December 15, and rented Casa Roja on Pista La Porquera in Roque Negro in the Anaga Mountains for the first week.  Above you can see Casa Roja, a tiny house about the size of our garden cottage in just gorgeous surroundings.  It was the second to last house in the village. 

 Here's a view from our terrace.

 Here's another view toward the ocean.

This is Pista La Porquera, the street on which Casa Roja is located.  For whatever reason, I was a bit apprehensive about organizing everything ourselves on this trip, and being so far away from "civilization".  I don't really know why I felt this way; we've been to the Canary Islands five times, know the lay of the land a little bit, and have always had great experiences with the lovely people and my broken Spanish there.  Well, the moment we arrived, all of my concerns disappeared.  It was so quiet here, in the morning all you heard were chickens, and in the evening dogs.  The dogs were not scary, but tiny, friendly, enthusiastic little guys.  And the people, oh the people!  I adore Canarians.  On our first evening we went out for a little stroll, and met the people who lived in the next house.  Zacharias and his wife gave us some of their homemade wine and some of their homegrown sweet potatoes, talked to the kids and let them play with their puppies.  On other walks around Roque Negro, we were greeted by a very old lady who came out and gave the kids flowers and kisses, and various other very friendly, welcoming people.  They didn't want to sell us anything or get anything from us, they are just warm, open people.  That's how life should be lived!

The first days we walked around Roque Negro to get a feel for the lay of the land there.  You can see the first path we took if you look closely at the picture above.

The landscape is quite steep, and it's really impressive to watch the people walk to their terraced gardens, they are so nimble and quick!

We walked those 270 meters on the sign above from La Porquera, the only thing they don't mention is that the 270 meters seem to be vertical!!

It's such a nice change to depart from winter and arrive in lush, green permasummer.  My enthusiasm for this vacation prior to leaving was right around 0, since so many things had happened this fall.  I almost would have liked to have stayed home and just done nothing, but that would have been a terrible idea.  The first days of vacation proved that it was just what we needed!