From the Roques of Garcia we continue on through the crater with the next goal in front of us, the cable car station. We plan initially to stop just to see if it is true that you cannot buy tickets on the spot but the parking is full and we decide to pass. In the distance we start to see the astronomical observatory that we will pass later but still it is a long way away.
There are some interesting desolate landscapes later that we stop and explore, they really look like a different planet, more Mars than Earth.
And then at the other end of the caldera we arrive at the other visitor center, El Portillo. We are not even sure if it open as there were fires that closed most trails in the area. Luckily it seems open and there are only few cars around so on we go to explore the Botanical Gardens.
But first we admire an endemic lizard that sits right under the sign which says, do not feed the endemic lizard. So we do not feed him even though he seems quite interested in us.
We do not enter this visitor center but still we admire the huge beetle in front of it, it is an endemic beetle but the actual one is much smaller of course.
The Botanical Gardens itself are relatively small and because it is quite hot we explore relatively fast and continue on moving outside the national park area.
We then pass the astronomical observatory and even see a Great Gray Shrike endemic subspecies resting on the top of a rock mound.
And then after some great vistas it is time to descend towards the Santa Cruz de Tenerife where our AirBnB is. It takes quite a bit to find to the garage however we are happy to find a place to park as otherwise the whole area is quite busy. At least we will explore mostly on foot and the car will stay safely in the garage the next day…or so we think.
