The CIA has a webpage giving details on any country you could possibly want to know about. It tells you about the government, the crime rates, and most importantly, whether there are any water-borne parasites that will swim up your urine stream and give you bladder cancer. It also tells you if the water has been “improved,” or sanitized, and what percentage of the country has improved water. The statistic for Spain is 100%, but the Canaries have a different opinion. In their minds, the government just messed up their water.
The water system in Tenerife is different than any place I’ve ever been. There isn’t much in the way of ground water. It rains maybe a few times a month. If it rains really hard, there’s flash flooding in the canyons. In any event, the rainwater runs out to sea before anyone has a chance to do much with it.
So how do the people here get enough to drink? In the mountains, there’s a consistent cloud presence on most days. They call this “El Mar de Nubes” or “The Sea of Clouds.” There are also forests on the mountains. The trees absorb the water from the clouds and transport it down to underground aquifers that run all the way to the beach. The water system taps into the aquifers at the bottom of the mountains and adds chlorine, fluoride, and any other helpful chemicals they want. It ends up tasting a little like the water in L.A. Those of you who’ve been there know this is not a good thing.
The locals bypass the improvement part by taking every jug and barrel they can carry into the mountains and filling them up at faucets in parks and by the roadside. They lug it down and use the water for drinking and cooking. As far as I can tell, the water is perfectly safe to drink and tastes like high-quality bottled water.
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