Life in a Northern Town

Place: Puerto de la Cruz, Tenerife, Spain

The island of Tenerife is sometimes referred to as “The Seven Continents” because the climate varies depending on where you are. In the town we live in, La Cuesta, the weather tends toward hot and humid. The afternoon temperature here is 32 degrees Celsius, which is pretty darn hot. (To put it in perspective, England’s summertime highs typically reach 17 degrees). 

To escape the heat and get some much-needed privacy, Ruyman and I fled to the north and stayed in his father’s unoccupied apartment for a few days. It was clean, quiet, and a stone’s throw from the ocean. We took hot showers and ate what we wanted, napping by the pool on the roof and watching paragliders soar on thermals at sunset. I sunbathed, sipped on a bottle of diet caffeine free Coke, and enjoyed life.

There’s a different feeling in this part of Tenerife. Once the wallflower sibling of the south, the north now bills itself as the “real” Canary Island experience - quiet, provincial, and unspoiled. Wineries and immense banana plantations add to the feeling of a simpler time. The shoreline reminds me a lot of the Olympic Peninsula in Washington. Beaches are rocky and tide pools are plentiful. With sea and clear skies in front of you and cloud-swathed mountains at your back, it’s almost like Port Angeles, only with cacti and Germans.

The Germans are very fond of this part of the island and claim it as their own tropical retreat.  More times than not, restaurant signs in the north are in German and boast offerings like streudel and bratwurst. Tall Aryan types jog on coastal paths and sunbathe as close to naked as you legally can here. 

While I enjoy visiting the north, I don’t think I could live there. While some of the villages really are as authentic as they claim, for the most part the rustic life there is as staged as the Vegas-like glitter of the south. The only untouched part of the island is Santa Cruz, which isn’t dependent on tourism. It’s dirty, gritty, hectic, and loud, but it’s real in its chaos.

Still, it’s nice to take a quiet seaside nap under a palm tree now and again, just as a change of pace.