Exploring Magnificent Teide National Park
When I booked my flight to the volcanic island of Tenerife, there was one stand-out destination that I knew I needed to visit. It had dominated my bucket-list for years, ever since I saw it plastered over post-cards in tacky souvenir shops. The iconic landscape didn’t make it onto the reverse of Tenerife’s old currency, the 1000 paseta note, for no reason. It looked other-worldly. It was Teide National Park. Named after the towering volcano that lives there, Teide National Park rules the heart of the island. With its summit at a whopping 3,718 metres above sea-level and 7,500 metres if measured from the ocean floor, Teide is the third tallest volcano in the world, only beaten by Hawaiian volcanos. The national park itself extends over an area of 18,900 hectares and is named as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Teide is a stratovolcano that is in fact made up of two separate volcanos: Teide and Pico Viejo (which translates to ‘Old Peak’, even though this peak is in fact younger tha...