La Guancha

The morning bus from Puerto de la Cruz wheezes to a halt beside a bakery that still prices its pastries in pesetas on a chalkboard. Inside, an elderly woman counts out centimos for a paper bag of berlingas—Canarian doughnuts rolled in sugar so fresh they stick to your fingers. This is La Guancha's daily pulse: small, sticky, and stubbornly local.

Between Bananas and Cloud Forest

Five minutes' drive uphill from the TF-5 motorway, the village unspools along a ridge at 500 m. The air cools by six degrees, banana leaves give way to grapevines, and Atlantic brine is replaced by the smell of wet earth after irrigation. The road climbs so fast that hire-car clutches smell of burning by the time you reach the plaza. Park anyway; the ayuntamiento car park is free and usually half-empty.

The layout is simple: one main street, two bakeries, three bodegas and a 16th-century church that keeps Spanish hours. Houses are built from chocolate-coloured volcanic blocks, their balconies painted the same ox-blood red you will see in San Cristóbal de La Laguna. Nothing is postcard-perfect; paint peels, dogs nap in doorways, and someone’s washing flaps above the chemist. That is the appeal. La Guancha feels like a place that forgot to audition for tourists.

Walk fifty metres past the church and you hit the edge of town. Beyond, the ground drops into the Barranco de La Magdelena, a gorge so deep that kestrels turn to specks before they reach the bottom. A paved path switchbacks down through allotments where retirees grow potatoes the size of ping-pong balls. Locals call the route el paseo de los alemanes because Nordic hikers march it at dawn in trekking poles and sandals. You will meet no one after ten o'clock; by then the sun is high enough to make the climb back feel like penance.

Wine, Cheese and Other Fermented Opinions

Tenerife’s north is vineyard country, but the terraces here are toy-sized—just five or six rows per plot—because every spare metre already grows potatoes or onions. The Vinátigo winery, on the ring-road roundabout, bottles listán negro that tastes of smoked berries and black pepper. Tastings cost €8 and the owner, Juan, switches to Geordie-accented English the moment he spots a UK number plate. Shipping to Britain runs €36 for a six-bottle case; customs paperwork is handled for you, a courtesy rare this side of the Atlantic.

If wine feels too serious, order queso asado in Bar La Cuadra. A slab of goat cheese arrives sizzling in its own ceramic dish, drizzled with palm honey. The texture sits somewhere between halloumi and baked camembert; the flavour is sweet, salty and slightly barnyard. One portion feeds two, but the barman will not judge if you ask for extra bread to scrape up the residue. Lunch for two with a carafe of house red rarely tops €24; card payments are accepted, yet cash still speeds up service.

Vegetarians do better than expected. Papas arrugadas—wrinkled new potatoes—come with green coriander mojo that is more herby than fiery, plus a bowl of watercress picked that morning from the barranco. Ask for escaldón, a porridge of gofio toasted flour and fish stock, and they will swap the stock for vegetable broth if you smile nicely.

The Coast That Doesn’t Do Sunbathing

La Guancha’s municipal boundary reaches the sea, but the shore is a five-mile, 12-minute drive down the TF-42. The road corkscrews through agave fields and abandoned greenhouses until it dumps you at El Guindaste, a black-lava platform where waves detonate like mortar shells. There is no sand, no promenade, and the only facilities are a fishermen’s hut selling warm cans of Dorada for €1. On calm days you can swim in natural rock pools the size of a Surrey garden pond; when the swell is up, the same pools become death traps. Check the colour-coded flag at the harbour: green means swim, red means watch the show from a safe distance.

British families sometimes arrive armed with lilos and expect a Puerto-de-la-Cruz-style lido. They leave disappointed, ankles bleeding, after discovering that sea urchins regard flip-flops as a delivery system. Wear trainers with grip, bring a dry bag for your phone, and time your visit for early morning when the trade wind is still asleep.

Walking Off the Roast Dinner

Three waymarked trails start from the village fountain. The easiest is the Camino de La Corona, a two-hour loop that skirts allotments and ends at a viewpoint facing Mount Teide. On clear days the volcano floats above a cotton-wool layer of cloud like a misplaced Alpine peak. The path is signed but not sanitised; you will share it with unleashed dogs and the occasional quad bike bringing fodder to goats. Gradient is gentle, stout trainers suffice, and there is no café at the top—pack water and a bocadillo.

Harder walkers can continue along the ridge to the Bosque de Los Tilos, a laurel cloud forest that smells of moss and wet bark. The full return trek takes five hours and gains 600 m; mist can drop without warning, so carry a lightweight jacket even in May. Mobile reception is patchy; download the trail map on ViewRanger before you set off.

When to Turn Up, and When to Stay Away

Spring and late autumn give the kindest light: terraces glow emerald after winter rain, and temperatures hover around 20 °C. August is hot, humid and filled with fiesta fireworks that echo around the gorge like gunshots. The Fiestas de la Esperanza climax on 14 August with a street dance that finishes at 06:00; if you need sleep, book a room in Puerto de la Cruz and drive up for the show.

Winter brings Saharan dust storms that smother the island in sepia fog. On those days visibility drops to ten metres and every surface feels dusty. Cafés still open, but views disappear. Check @AEMET_Esp on Twitter the night before; if the forecast shows a brown blob heading towards the Canaries, reroute to the south coast.

Sunday is quasi-closed: only one bakery opens, the bodegas lock their doors, and the bus cuts its frequency to two journeys a day. Arrive Monday-to-Friday if you want the place to breathe properly.

Parting Shot

La Guancha will not change your life. It has no souvenir emporiums, no infinity-pool hotels, and the nearest beach is a lava battlefield. What it offers instead is a calibrated dose of everyday Tenerife: a place where the bakery still burns wood, the mayor drinks with fishermen, and the mountain rises so steeply that you can breakfast in cloud and lunch by the ocean. Treat it as a half-day detour on the way to Icod’s dragon tree, or as a palate cleanser between the brash south coast and the colonial polish of La Laguna. Either way, arrive curious, leave before siesta, and remember to bring a jumper—even when the coast is 25 °C, the village can still feel like a British spring.