Villa de Mazo

The airport shuttle drops you at a crossroads where pine-scented air hits warmer salt breeze. Ten minutes ago you were collecting bags; now you're 500 metres above the Atlantic, watching banana palms shiver in the mist that rolls off Cumbre Vieja. Welcome to Villa de Mazo, the island's least assuming municipality and, for canny travellers, its most useful.

Up on the ridge

Most visitors race past the turn-off, bound for the black-sand posters of Los Cancajos. They miss the point: Villa de Mazo is two places stacked on top of each other. The administrative centre sits on a basalt shelf, altitude just high enough to dull the Canarian heat. Stone houses wear wooden balconies the colour of weathered teak; the sixteenth-century church of San Blas keeps watch from a plaza barely larger than a tennis court. Walk three streets in any direction and tarmac gives way to agricultural tracks that dive through vineyards and dragon-tree plantations. Morning temperatures can be six degrees cooler than the coast—bring a fleece even in May.

The ridge road, LP-207, strings together neighbourhoods whose names—El Pueblo, Montaña de Luna, La Rosa—sound like folk songs. Each hamlet has its own threshing circle, still used for drying almonds in September. Pull over at the cooperativa and you can fill a five-litre demijohn with young red for under ten euros. The vine terraces are so steep that tractors are banned; growers use wooden sledges called "trillas" and two sure-footed donkeys. Ask nicely and someone will show you the inside of a cigar workshop where tobacco leaves from Gran Canaria are rolled into fat puros priced at four euros each—half what you'd pay in Santa Cruz.

Down to the water

Drop east for ten minutes on the LP-2 and the thermometer climbs. Banana tunnels replace vines, the air smells of diesel and salt, and you reach the coast at Los Cancajos—not a village but a 1980s planning experiment that actually works. A crescent of dark volcanic sand is flanked by low-rise apartments, most owned by mainland teachers who fly in for August. The beach shelves gently, making it safe for body-boarding when Atlantic swells arrive in October. A promenade of cafés serves espresso at €1.20 and cold Dorada at €2; wi-fi is patchy, so people talk instead.

Locals swim at La Salemera, the next cove south, where fishermen still haul nets at dawn. The single beach bar grills parrot-fish so fresh it twitches on the plate; order it with "papas arrugadas" and green mojo that bites back. Sunday lunch finishes by three—after that you'll get yesterday's bread.

Walking on young geology

Villa de Mazo is the eastern gateway to Cumbre Vieja, the volcanic ridge that last woke up in 2021. The terrain looks gentle on the tourist office map; it isn't. From the Montaña de Luna car park a way-marked path climbs 400 metres in three kilometres to Volcán San Antonio, whose 1677 lava stream reached the sea in six hours. The surface is razor-sharp "aā" lava—wear proper boots, not the trainers you packed for the beach. Carry a litre of water per person; there is no kiosk, no shade, and mobile coverage vanishes after the first saddle. The reward is a crater rim where you can stand above a caldera still warm to touch, the Atlantic glittering 1,800 metres below.

If that sounds extreme, stick to the coastal path that links Los Cancajos to La Salemera. It's flat, paved, and passes natural lava pools where children snorkel for sea urchins. Allow forty minutes, plus stops to photograph the iron-red cliffs that glow at sunset.

When the town turns into a carpet

Visit in June and you may wonder why church bells start at six in the morning. Corpus Christi is approaching, and for three nights the streets become temporary art galleries. Neighbours collect broom blossoms, volcanic gravel and dyed sawdust, then spend twelve hours on hands and knees creating carpets that stretch the length of Calle Real. Designs range from geometric Islamic patterns to cartoon characters; by law they must be finished before the 10 a.m. procession, when the priest walks over them swinging incense. By midday only coloured dust remains—photograph early or not at all. Hotels don't hike prices for the festival, but rooms in the old centre are booked months ahead by islanders returning to their mothers. Plan accordingly.

Saturday market maths

The weekly market fills Plaza de San Blas from eight until two. Stallholders arrive in battered HiAces, tailgates dropped to reveal piles of salted almonds, goat cheese wrapped in palm leaves, and embroidery so fine you can pull the cloth through a wedding ring. Prices are fixed—no haggling—but the cheese lady will offer tastes if you greet her in Spanish first. A round of queso palmero costs about five euros; it keeps for a week unrefrigerated, making it the best in-flight snack you'll ever smuggle home. The cigar seller clips the end of your purchase, demonstrates lighting without inhaling, and expects you to smoke on the spot—consider the non-smoking sign decorative.

Last-night logistics

British tour operators push west-coast hotels because they own the beds. Savvy travellers book their final night in Villa de Mazo instead. The airport is a twelve-minute taxi ride on empty roads, so a 07:30 departure means you can leave at 06:45 rather than 04:00. Rural houses—casas rurales—start at €70 for a two-bedroom cottage with roof terrace and telescope for stargazing. There is no street lighting; bring a torch and expect silence broken only by the occasional dog convinced the Milky Way is an intruder.

What it doesn't do

Nightlife ends with the last coffee. Public transport exists—guaguas run hourly to Santa Cruz except on Sundays when they shrink to two—but timetables are aspirational. If you want clubs, karaoke or Happy Hour, stay on Tenerife. Rain can arrive horizontally in February; paths become skating rinks of mud. The medical centre closes at weekends; for anything serious you're helicoptered to Santa Cruz. And that postcard image of whitewashed houses cascading to the sea? Wrong island entirely—Villa de Mazo is earth-coloured, practical, and unbothered by aesthetics.

Come anyway. Bring walking boots, a reusable bag for cheese, and enough Spanish to ask directions. The village won't charm you in the conventional sense; instead it offers something rarer—an island community that continues to roll cigars, press wine and sweep flower carpets whether you watch or not. Stay long enough to be recognised in the bakery, and you might find the Atlantic looks different when viewed from 500 metres up, the morning mist parting just long enough to reveal Africa on the horizon.