I’m fortunate enough that I can work from wherever there is good internet. That covers a lot of this earths surface – and airspace. I’m also pretty flexible when it comes to working hours. This gives me plenty of options how to structure my day: If it’s raining I can stay home and work a bit more. If it’s sunny outside I can go work to a cafe. If there’s thermal activity I can go flying. If I don’t feel productive I can… simply be.
In early February 2021 I was still hurting, and wanted to leave Switzerland once more. Not for vacation though, I wanted the new place to feel like home. Me living and working there, for at least a few weeks.
It wasn't easy to find a country that is in the right time zone such that I don’t have to get up in the middle of the night for meetings, has good internet, is warm and cheap, and offers good spots to fly my paraglider.
My original plan was to go to Morocco. I had the airline ticket and accomodation for the first few days sorted out, was ready to leave Switzerland. But I only made it to the check-in where the airline informed me that Morocco doesn't allow tourists into the country – a sudden decision in light of the then increasing number of COVID cases. Oh well, such is life and travel in corona times…
Back to the drawing board. After a bit of research, I found that Tenerife, Spain was still open to tourists. And winter is the paragliding season there. Booked!
Wait, not so fast! To make sure to not get rejected at the check-in again I called the airline. After receiving a confirmation that I won't be turned away again I booked the ticket.
This time though I was smart enough to book my accomodation only after landing and getting through immigration.
I wasn't expecting many tourists on the island, it was off-season after all, and COVID was still raging all around the world. But the number of people I saw was way lower than even that.
Could there be a reason why the island seemed that deserted? Did I miss something important, was the island perhaps in a dire COVID situation, with everything locked down, shops closed, and a high incidence rate?
None of my scary thoughts proved true. It was pretty much business as usual on the island. I think it was just the combination of being off-season, and the general public being afraid of traveling. Life on Tenerife was relaxed.
A few weeks into my stay I started seeing more and more people in the streets and on the beaches. Mostly spaniards, but also a many czech people, and people from the baltic states.
I met few germans, and just a handful of swiss people in total during my five weeks – even though the flight from ZRH to TFS was full.
Many young people I've met have been on Tenerife for many months already. They came in waves. Whenever a country tightened the restrictions a bunch of them would flock to Tenerife. Usually with the goal to stay until the conditions in their home country improve, but many stayed for far longer. I can see why they don't want to move back.
Tenerife is the largest island of the Canary Islands. It's still small enough so that you can do a day trip to the other side of the island. Yet despite its small size, it packs many different climate zones: dry and barren landscapes in the south, lush green vegetation in the north, warm weather down by the sea, snow on mount Teide.
The permanent trade winds push air onto the north-east shores. As the moisture in the raising air condenses, clouds form. The cloud base is consistently at about 800 to 1100 meters above the sea, leaving the plateau around mount Teide under clear blue skies.
This also means the northern side of the island is often covered in clouds. The quickest way to escape them is to drive up the mountain. Because the clouds are so low, it doesn't take long until you punch through them.
The only sign of COVID on Tenerife was the fact that face masks were mandatory in shops, restaurants, but also in open spaces.
People were generally following the rules. I even met some walking through the national park, nobody around them for miles, in winds of 20km/h and yet they were wearing masks. Rules are rules, right?
Police was frequently patrolling the streets and making sure everyone was wearing a mask. Everyone that is except those jogging, biking, or doing any other even mildly strenuous activity. It didn't make sense, because the harder you breathe the more droplets you spread and inhale. But who am I to complain, I too enjoyed running along the beaches.
Another trick to avoid having to weark a mask was to grab an ice cream in one of the many ice cream stands. That freedom wouldn't last long though, the ice cream quickly melted in the hot temperatures.
Wild camping is strictly forbidden, especially in the Teide National Park. But if you pitch the tent after sunset and pack just after sunrise you can escape unseen.
Nights were cold. It was April, spring has barely begun, and lack of clouds means energy easily escapes into outer space.
The sunrise though was well worth it. I was living on the south-west side of the island, with little chance to catch a beautiful sunrise. There were few occasions to do so, and nights spent high up in the Teide National Park offered those.
The north-western tip of the island is a landscape of deep gorges, winding roads, and tiny villages. It's the only region on the western side of the island where you'll see that much green. Even just a few kilometers to the south you'll find a completely different landscape: dry and rocky, with few vegetation outside of the many palm plantations.
Costa Adeje on the eastern side of the island is one of the few places on the island where you'll find shallow, wide, sandy beaches. The whole coast is plastered with restaurants, bars, luxury shops, and five-star hotels.
It was my favourite place to spend the evenings. In just a few minutes drive from my apartment I could be on clean, wide, almost empty beaches.
I'd make sure to bring a cold cider and dark chocolate, put on some relaxing music, and keep my eyes wide open to capture the colorful sunsets.
If the cloud cover was too thick, I would drive to Mirador de los Poleos – a viewpoint just high enough to be above the lower cloud cover. From there you also get a nice view on the two neighbouring islands to the west, La Gomera and La Palma.
To the east of the viewpoint, on the opposite side where the sun sets, is mount Teide. As the sun slowly descends behind the horizon, you can watch the volcano change color from yellow to orange to red to violett, until it is at last fully engulfed in earth's shadow.
After the sun sets it still takes a while for the night sky to reveals itself. It's well worth waiting the couple hours until the last remants of the sun disappear from the horizon. Because only then will the night sky reveal itself, and you get to see the milky way in its fullest beauty. Perhaps you'll even spot a strip of Starlink satellites crossing the sky like a row of ducks (Space X had launched another batch of Starlink satellites just one day prior to me trying to stargaze).
Continuing further along the road past Mirador de los Poleos will lead you to the Teide National Park. The park covers most of the center of the island, around mount Teide, and offers many hiking trails on the plateau and up to some of the peaks.
The hike up to the top of mount Teide isn’t too strenuous, but it’s not an easy walk either. You don't even need hiking boots, as proved by a group of italian tourists who made it to the top wearing sneakers. I admired their dedication.
There are two trails, one from the east, and another one from the south-west. The later is longer, but nicer. It goes past the second-highest peak of Tenerife – Pico Viejo – a volcano with a far larger crater than the one at the top.
Pico Viejo is a good place to rest and gather your strength before continuing to the very top. The peak seems within reach, but don't be mistaken, it takes another two hours to get there.
To get to the very top of Teide you need a permit. This restriction is in place to limit the damage to the fragile ecosystem around the peak. The park administration is mostly concerned about the hundreds of visitors every day who take the cable cark to a station just a couple hundred meters below the peak.
Those who are ready to walk down on their own can wait until the staff guarding the gate leaves with the last cable car at around 5pm. After that you can walk right past the gate to the top.
The crater at the top isn’t particularly pretty, but you get to enjoy a 360° panoramic view on Tenerife and surrounding islands.
While I’m sure that watching the sunset from the top would be a unique experience, I wouldn’t want to walk down in the dark. Walking on volcanic stones requires a lot of concentration, doing that in complete darkness - even if you had a strong headlight - doubly so.
And it gets cold up there. Don't forget that the peak is at 3700 meters above the sea!
I was running down and was lucky to make it to the car just as the night was setting in. If I had left the peak a couple minutes later, I'd be walking in complete darkness.
My apartment was in Las Galletas. When I first entered that town I felt like in a different country. I found myself walking through dark, narrow, lifeless streets, between worn down buildings and steel bars covering doors and windows of every shop, restaurant and private residence (which I took as sign of high crime rate).
It was such a stark contrast to Adeje and Los Christianos, which are just a couple minutes drive away. I'm sure it must have been a nice place years ago, when the buildings and parks were freshly built. But in 2021 the town felt almost abandoned.
One of the reasons why I chose Tenerife is because it's well known for its stable flying conditions all year around. And indeed, there were few days where flying wasn't possible.
The conditions can be so good that thermal activity continues late into the evening. I had seen sunsets from the beach and from the mountains. But never have I imagined I'd see one while flying through clouds. It felt so magical.
After concluding that I've seen enough of the sunset from the air, I decided to head to the landing site at the beach. When I finally made it there, it was dark and the only lights guiding me were those of the beach bar.
A few kilometers to the east of Las Galletas is the small town El Medano. It is located on the southern coast of the island and thus enjoys near constant winds from the east. It's one of the spots for kitesurfing on Tenerife.
It seemed like a modern, young, vibrant town. If you're into kitesurfing it's definitely worth staying there.
While walking towards the beach and not really paying attention to anything around me, I suddenly found myself standing just a couple meters away from paramedics bent over a person on the ground. I turned right around and walked away. On my way back to my car I walked past a hearse.
Kitesurfing doesn't seem like a particularly dangerous sport, less dangerous than paragliding I would assume. Yet accidents can happen everywhere and at any time. I was remineded of that at that very moment.
The last night I spent out in the wild was just two days prior to flying back to Switzerland. It was still cold in early May.
I didn't meet many people crazy enough like me to sleep in a tent, but I would regularly drive past campers or vans parked by the side of the road. They weren't even that discrete.
It wasn't all leisure for me, I still had to work eight hours a day. The large choice of locations I could work from made it just about bearable. With a bit of creativity it's not difficult to find suitable locations everywhere. Meetings in particular were much more enjoyable while walking through sand or shallow water.
I got so used to the calm life style on Tenerife that I felt overwhelmed, if not even stressed after I got back to Zurich. Granted, the day I got back was exceptionally nice weather in Zurich, which drove a lot of people into the streets and to the lake. I hadn't seen that many people in a very long time.
It took me some time to adjust to the big city life. And part of me still thinks I'm on the wrong place.
Because there are things… that are more beautiful.