Teide Volcano, Anaga Cloud Forest & The World's Second-Largest Carnival
📍 Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Spain📅 3-day itinerary
The capital of Spain's highest mountain — a 3,715-metre Atlantic volcano with a lunar landscape of multicoloured pumice and basalt at its base — where 1.4 million tonnes of Sahara Desert sand were imported to make a golden beach on a black volcanic island, where the last surviving fragment of the forest that covered all of southern Europe in the Miocene period grows cloud-wrapped on a mountain spine above the north coast, and where the world's second-largest Carnival fills the streets with 250,000 people in February.
Spain's Highest Mountain Accessible by Cable Car Through the Volcanic Moonscape That Surrounds It & The Wrinkled Potatoes Boiled in Near-Brine Water Until the Salt Crystallises on the Skin That TIME Magazine Ranked Among the 100 Best Dishes on Earth
The Ancient Cloud Forest That Covered All of Southern Europe Before the Mediterranean Climate Dried It Out Surviving on a Canary Island Mountain & The Sahara Sand Imported by the Tonne to Create a Golden Beach on a Volcanic Island
The 1496 Colonial City That Gave Its Grid Layout to Havana, Lima and Mexico City as the Planning Template for the Entire Spanish New World & The 600-Metre Volcanic Cliff Where Resident Pilot Whale Pods Live Year-Round in the Atlantic Current