El Portillo down into La Orotava

The 17km, five hour trail from El Portillo to the perfect, wooded but over-municipalised little crater of La Caldera in the La Orotava valley (or vice versa) - Cicerone 25, Sunflower 8 - is a delightful warmer-up. Superb views and colours as you contour round the central mountainside before dropping steeply through attractive Canary pines and laurel and tree heather cloud forest, to La Caldera. The best views are from the deep red top of the Montana de Limon, five minutes above the trail, El Teide's snowy peak presiding over the convulsed, colourful upper slopes and quiet forests below, all of it sitting on a carpet of perfect virgin cloud when we were there.

The La Orotava valley in fact the remnants of another vast landslip, as evidenced by its cliff walls many kilometres apart has wonderful laurel, tree heather and Canary pine forests above the rather dreary, densely populated coastal farmland and towns, some of which La Orotava and Puerto de la Cruz have delightful old centres. See our La Orotava page.

Tip: Start the walk where it leaves the surfaced road, some 3-4 km from the El Portillo junction. This cuts out some dull road bashing.

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 See our Tenerife page for further information on this walk.