Windows in a cloud [#129]

This is my first post on Liketu. Hello, Liketu people! I wanted to try it for some time, but I posted most of my travelling content via Actifit. It’s already more than month since I arrived to Tenerife, and after few days of resting on a beach today morning I had a wish to go for a hike. I slept in Puertito de Güimar so it was enough to look up in the mountains to see of weather is favorable. No clouds! This doesn’t happen very often in this part of the island. I didn’t wait any longer and set my GPS to a parking 10km away. The road was very steep, at moments I wasn’t sure if my old Opel Astra will be able to climb it. Roadsign shown at some point inclination of 25%.

It was only when I arrived to my destination I noticed a clouds forming not that far from me. The whole point of Ventanas de Güimar are views. I was disappointed, not gonna lie. Weather here changes a lot, so I was hoping clouds might disappear later. That didn’t happen though.

But why this trail? Ventanas means windows. And this unique trail leads along waterways built by locals. Significant part of the path goes through mountain tunnels and some of these have windows to abyss beneath. Hance the name. Waterway is situaten few hundreds meters above a level of ground and actually was never used. All the hard work wasted. Almost wasted, at least we have there a great trail.

The way is not maintained and at the entrence there are signs informing that entrance only on one’s risk. Path is overgrown with vegetation and between tunnels weaves around stones, roots and concrete construction. In general way is safe, however someone with vertigo or fear of heights might feel at risk here. Tunnels were built for hobbits,so anybody with height above 5 feet need to be careful with head.

As for views? Well, I was in a cloud for most of the trail described in a guidebook. But from echos and stones thrown down I can say the hole is deep! I wouldn’t like to fall down so much! Only after going out of tunnels and looking for my own way back I got out of the cloud and got reminded today was actually pretty warm day. This is not circular path, which means you need to come back the same way you get to the end. Unless, as me, you don’t like it and you are willing to get off the path.

So I was following tunnels until I noticed one of these is actually used for modern water transportation system. Pipe have to lead somewhere right? So i followed the pipe up the canyon and said goodbye to Ventanas. Path was very narrow and full of vegetation and lead constantly upwards. There were two pipes here, old metal and newer plastic. From time to time old pipe was crushed with stones, definitely out of order. Soon I was out of the cloud and I came upon scree of rocks. Definitely someone was boring a tunnel here!

I climbed the scree, not without a challenge. Rocks escaped from under my feet and only at the top I realized it was bigger than I initially thought. There was a mining cart at the top and it definitely helped me with climbing. After reaching a summit I noticed some water treatment facility and large stream of water pouring out of the mountain. Tunnel was there too, the closed one. From there the way was rather simple, however physically challenging and definitely not boring. Just look at my pictures.

Thanks to my app with offline map after 2.5 hours hike through mountainous forest I came back to my parking spot. Now the cloud was slightly higher. I’m definitely going to come back here to admire views without a foggy curtain.

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