Being at 3500m height for the first time at Tenerife

Puerto de la Cruz is a very touristic town in the North of Tenerife. It has a lot of skyscrapers (which are mainly hotels) and tourist agencies like rent a car and travel agencies. But anyway, if you get out of the touristic district and more into the older town it's very nice and has a beautiful atmosphere.

It is about 58 kilometres away from the Teide National Park and the Teide volcano, which is the highest mountain of Spain with more than 3700m. When my dad was here, we rented a car and started our way to the National Park. It was cloudy and the staff at the hotel's reception told us that the cable car might be closed. But we wanted to try it anyway. On our way it rained several times, but we continued. From the sea level of our hotel up to the ground station of the cable car we had to go up 3200 metres which is quite a lot! So, we went and went and went about 1 hour and a half through forest and mountains which was actually quite beautiful but exhausting, too. Finally, we arrived at the beginning of the National Park and it was like entering into a totally different world - there was sand and lava stone, then there were green spots, some plants, cactuses. It was like 20 landscapes in one! Very fascinating. It looked a bit like on the moon (not that I would know how it is on the moon... ) and I couldn't stop taking pictures out of the car.

Finally, we arrived at the ground station of the cable car and fortunately there were not that many people waiting already - usually it's possible that you have to wait about 1-2 hours which is very annoying. But because of the clouds in the city many decided not to get up there. Good for us - after 30 minutes of waiting we were in the cable car and went up to 3500 metres. I was a bit scared in the cable car because it was moving a lot. But after only 8 minutes we arrived. And it was amazing. Even if there were clouds that didn't let us see as wide as you can usually see up there the view was so beautiful! You feel like the king of the world up there. And you should definitely avoid moving a lot. The air is so thin, you get exhausted so fast - I couldn't believe it. I felt like my grandma!

But anyway, I wanted to discover the surrounding a bit - so I went a bit along the path, but because of the clouds it didn't get any more interesting. So, after having taken some pictures (of course) we went down again, got into the car and decided to take another road back to Puerto which would lead us more into the National Park.

It was a good decision - we passed by several panorama points where you could see the Teide from some distance, and we saw some nice stone and sand formations along the street. Back on our way to the sea level we crossed the many different natural phenomenon and I couldn't believe how much different nature can be at one small island.

That was really an experience that made me love nature even more - it's so full of variety!