The Last "Working Weekend" Part 2

My first hiking experience

Sunday after our shopping trip it was time for my first hiking experience. Even if the girls had told us that it would be a short and simple hike I was a bit excited, because I am sporty but not incredibly fit. After my semester in France I was lacking fitness and should have done more sports, but due to my 9 hours working day I wasn't motivated enough in the evening and did only some 20 minutes runs or some exercises at home. Furthermore, I had no idea what to wear as it was hot outside but I didn't want to get sundburns everywhere and I didn't know where we would go. So I chose long sport tights and a t-shirt - an outfit that couldn't become too hot and wasn't too cold on that island. I packed my backpack that was quite heavy with all the water and left my appartment. 

I met my Vietnamese friend at 8:30 in front of my appartment house, as planned the day before. She told me that she also had had problems to find something to wear and she had chosen even warmer clothes than I had. We started our 20 minutes walk to the shared appartment of the other girls and it became already quite hot while we were walking there - I realised that hiking wouldn't become my favorite hobby, but at Tenerife it was something necessary if you want to see special and beautiful places. We called them (their alarm was broken) and waited on a bench outside until they would come down. We felt already quite weak so we were sharing some cookies and a clementine while we were waiting - they were always too late, even if it had been them who had fixed the meeting point. After 15 minutes (!) they finally arrived next to us and after having said hello and talked a bit about the plans we started our trip. My Vietnamese girl and I didn't really know where we would go to, we just knew that there was a large ruin of an old storage house right next to the sea. Actually, I was already hoping that we could stop 10 minutes after we had started the tour. But I wanted to become fitter and see something of that beautiful island, so I had to do some efforts and finish the hiking trip. 

Hills and more Hills

We walked across Playa Jardìn and the problems started - we had to walk up to the hotel Maritim, a quite prominent skyscraper almost at the end of Puerto de la Cruz that was a large hotel, appartment house and also place of one of the diving schools in the city. The hill was was quite steep and there wasn't one centimetre of shadow anywhere. It was exhausting to walk up there and I regretted already that I had come to the hiking trip - I just wished to be in my bed again and to pass a relaxing Sunday at the beach. But I tried to focus on the nice view and the even nicer views that might come after a while. We arrived at hotel Maritim and had to walk down the street there in order to reach the starting point of the real hiking path. There was a small sign telling us what we would find at the end of the small way full of rocks and stones. I saw my feet already hurting because of the movements I wasn't used to and my skind being burned because of the adamant sunshine. We had started the tour early in the morning in order to avoid high temperatures, but it hadn't really worked out, as it was already quite hot after 8 am. After the sign that had told us the name of the ruin we were going to visit we had to walk up a hill again - what a surprise! With all the small stones and the rocks it was even more exhausting to walk there because one had to watch every single step in order not to sprain one's foot. 

It continued like that for a while and after some steps we had arrived at a small village that was called Romantica. It was really small, I guess there were only holiday appartments owned by mostly German people. Almost everyone who owned a nice house on that island was owned by the Germans, I don't know why it was mainly them loving that place on earth, but there were also groups on Facebook, formed by people that were coming to Tenerife having their holidays every single year - at the same time, staying in the same hotel and doing the same things. I know, I am young and they aren't and there are some differences between attitudes, but I couldn't understand how to spend his holidays every year at the same place. Well, back to topic - we crossed the small village in order to continue our trip and arrived at a quite particular house that was surrounded by a blue fence with stars and suns - it looked beautiful and we stopped to take some pictures. After everyone had taken one, we finally reached the real path that was leading us to the ruin. I was quite exhausted already, but also excited about the nice view they had promised us before the hike. At a very beautiful place where one could see widely to the West of the island we made a short break, had some cookies and fruits and enjoyed the view. At this point I didn't regret having taken part in that hike anymore - the view was too beautiful, and I was really having fun with the Vietnamese girl - as always. 

The forbidden ruin

After a while the hills finally stopped and we could relax a bit while we were walking. There were still rocks and stones all over the way and the vegetation didn't help to walk quietly, but it was better than before and I started to enjoy the view and the hike. We took some selfies from time to time in order to shorten the duration until we would arrive at the ruin - for the others it was easier, they already knew the way and knew how close or how far we were. But I didn't want to ask like a small child, so we just continued following them. We had already walked more than one hour and everything I could think about was the way back where we had to do the same thing again - the only advantage would be that all the hills were the other way round now and it would become a bit less exhausting, I hoped. 

So we continued walking and chatting, and after more than 30 more minutes walking one of the girls told us that we had arrived, and when we were next to them we could really see the ruin finally. I was happy to see it, but I could also see the long way down to the house - it was at sealevel and we were at at least 300 metres. Furthermore, the path down to the house didn't seem to be secure, it was only a bit of sand leading down the abyss. But my fears were interrupted when another girl told us that they had walked down the last time and it had been quite difficult. Furthermore, in the house there are living homeless people and you can find injections and condoms everywhere and it smells incredibly bad. They also said that going down is prohibited and that there were too many people that day and it wouldn't be possible to walk down unnoticed. I wasn't unhappy about that because it seemed to be incredibly exhausting to walk down there and even more difficult to get up again. We took some pictures from the distance and walked down the path a little bit until we reached a wooden bridge and had an amazing view at the ruin. One more time I was happy that I had the possibility to spend half a year at such a beautiful place and that I had agreed to go hiking with them. 

We stayed some more time at that bridge because the weather and the view were simply great and we were all happy to be there. But finally we decided to return to Puerto de la Cruz (the ruin is next to a village called Los Realejos) and started to walk back the path. It was less exhausting because most of the time we could walk down the hills, but as our feet were already tired there was not a lot that had changed in comparison to our way to the ruin. There wasn't a lot left to talk about, so we were hiking in silence and enjoyed the weather and the view up there. When we arrived back to the small village Romantica and wanted to walk down the first, stony path back to the hotel Maritim we met a group of people with three dogs - two Golden Retriever and one puppy. As girls we were all excited about the little cute puppy and stayed there some time to pet it and take pictures. But after a while the group wanted to go, so we had to say goodbye to our little new friend and continued our way. 

Relaxed Ending of an Exhausting Day

During the rest of the route back until Playa Jardìn nothing spectacular happened - we were all hungry, tired and exhausted, so we didn't talk a lot and just focused on returning to the city. When we had finally reached the beach we said goodbye to the three other girls - they had brought their bikinis and wanted to relax a bit at the beach. Unfortunately, the Vietnamese girl and me hadn't thought of that and couldn't stay with them, so we continued to the city centre and decided to have dinner there. We chose a nice Tapas restaurant that we hadn't tried so far and ordered five different tapas dishes. It was releasing to be back and to know that we had finished most of the exhausting part of that day and could start to have a relaxing sunday finally. We enjoyed our food that was good but not incredibly delicious and stayed a bit at that busy square in order to watch other people and talk a bit about the following week that would be the last week of my internship. After a while we paid and walked through the city centre until we arrived next to my appartment. We said goodbye and everybody returned to his home - exhausted, but happy about that nice day. 

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