I’ve just returned from a volcanic island off the west coast of the Sahara, otherwise known as Tenerife. I was expecting a bit of the exotic and I most definitely found it in the flora, and the cacti.
Tenerife has a live volcano on it which you can see from almost every little nook, cranny and coastal rock if you look up. The huge crater around the volcano is unusual landscape, it’s a combination of desert-like red earth and low lying scrubland to then what looks like churned wet mud and dark boulders. It reminded me of the Australian landscape, I had to get the sketch book out.
Stand alone cactus grow sporadically, of all different shapes and sizes. This one I thought looked like a stereotypical cactus that you might see on the front cover of a Mexican travel brochure .
There are loads of hillside and coastal villages, little clusters of colourful houses that are perched up onto a hill or to the side of a coastal cliff like limpets.
C shaped fishing villages winding around the base of the cliff where the shore meets the volcanic rock.
Dark wooden, highly decorated colonial style balconies were remnants of the old style of architecture which is being reintroduced into some of the new builds, especially in villages of conservational importance.
There’s me drawing, the volcano “El Teide” looming in the background!