GeoWorld Travel Canary Islands Tour Geology Trip and Holiday

Itinerary

Day 1 - Arrive on the island of Tenerife. (Tenerife has two airports: our hotel is located a short distance from Tenerife South Airport - TFS). Our hotel, where we will be staying for the first three nights, is a 10-minute taxi ride from Tenerife South Airport (TFS), and around a 1-hour taxi ride from Tenerife North Airport (TFN). There are many direct flights to Tenerife South from Europe, including with budget airlines.

Day 2 - Teide National Park World Heritage Site, Tenerife. We spend today in the magnificent Teide National Park which is also a World Heritage Site on account of Teide’s sheer majesty - a 3,718m high peak rising from a collapsed caldera – and the fact that the volcano has produced some very rare, evolved types of lava. Our first stop is to look at two volcanic cones that lie along Tenerife’s northwest rift zone: the first of these is the Boca Cangrejo cone, which was seen erupting by Christopher Columbus in 1492. The second of these, which we walk to, is the Chinyero cone, the site of Tenerife's most recent eruption which occurred in 1909. Our next stop is to examine lava from Mna Reventada which is a composite flow, an example of mixed basanitic and phonolitic magma within a single flow. We then head west along the caldera floor to reach the Mirador de Chahorra, where we get excellent views of Pico Viejo, a parasitic cone of the main Teide volcano, and see where lava erupted from it in the 1798 Chahorra eruption. We then move on from here to a stop where we see some radial dykes and cone sheets. After this, we stop at Los Azulejos to see colourful hydrothermal formations before moving on to the Mirador Roques de Garcia, where we get great views of rock outcrops which may have formed the headwalls of previous calderas. Our next stop is at Minas de San Jose where pumice used to be quarried and where we can also see obsidian. We then reach the base of Teide volcano itself. This impressive volcano is of global geological importance. Here we ride the cable-car to an altitude of 3,500m, just 200m below the summit (NB: the cable car is weather dependent and will not run in high winds). We will then take an optional hike to the summit. This hike requires a permit which must be obtained 3 months in advance so please inform us if you want to join the hike at the time of booking. Those who do not wish to climb can enjoy the views at the upper cable car station. After returning from the cable car, we head back to our Tenerife hotel for a second night. 

If weather conditions mean that the cable car is not able to run, we will visit the National Park Visitor Centre at El Portillo and we will view some phonolite lava balls. These ‘balls’ formed rather like snowballs accumulating material as they rolled down a lava flow.

Day 3 - Tenerife and La Gomera. Our first stop today is the Amarilla scoria cone. Here we see a volcanic cone that initially began erupting in shallow water but completed its eruption sub-aerially with Strombolian activity. The cone is a striking yellow colour due to the ‘palagonisation’ (hydration) of the volcanic ash that was erupted into the sea water. On the margins of the cone there are also spectacular fossilised beach dunes. Our next stop is to learn about the violent Plinian eruptions which occurred on Tenerife between 2 million and 200,000 years ago. Several cycles of very violent caldera-forming eruptions have occurred, producing pyroclastic flows. The deposits they created, known as ignimbrites, can be examined here. Then, on the edge of Los Cristianos, we will stop at the Caldera de Rey crater, which was formed by felsic lava exploding with water (phreatomagmatic eruption). This violent eruption produced pumice fallout and pyroclastic flows. We then take an early afternoon ferry over to the island of La Gomera. Here we will visit an enormous 5m wide dyke and a former quarry where baked red scoria has been mined as a building stone, before spending the night on the island.

Day 4 - Garajonay National Park World Heritage Site and Los Organos, La Gomera.  We spend our morning driving through Garajonay National Park World Heritage Site. The park is designated as a WHS due to its unique vegetation with relic forests that are remnants of what would once have covered much of Europe and North Africa. The National Park is also full of many volcanic dykes and plugs. Our first stop is the Roque de Agando a 5.1 ma trachyte plug. We then continue to Mirador de los Roques where we can look back at great views of the Roque de Agando. Our next stop is the Mirador de Igualero where we get excellent views of a mushroomed-shaped intrusion called La Fortaleza, which is a trachyte intrusion with a flat top. We then arrive in the harbour village of Valle Gran Rey for a boat trip to the spectacular cooling columns of Los Organos, which resemble Scotland's Fingal's Cave and Northern Ireland's Giant's Causeway. These columns are the interior of an eroded trachyte dome. We travel 12 nautical miles each way and have views of imposing valleys and bays. There is also a good chance of seeing whales and dolphins en route. (NB: this boat trip is weather dependent). After our boat trip we visit a National Park visitor centre to see some of the trees that are unique to this World Heritage Site. We then take an evening ferry to La Palma where we will spend the next three nights.

In the event that the boat trip cannot run due to bad weather, we will visit a number of sites in the north of La Gomera.

Day 5 – La Palma’s 2021 eruptions and the Caños de Fuego Interpretation Centre. Today is the first of four days on the island of La Palma. La Palma is the youngest volcanic island visited on this tour and its most recent eruption was in 2021. La Palma has been created from two different volcanoes: the older Taburiente Caldera (in the north) and the Cumbre Vieja volcanic ridge, which is covered by many smaller cones (in the south). Our first stop is to join a local guide to take us on a hike into the restricted zone around the new Tajogaite volcano, which formed in 2021. Our hike takes us to the closest viewpoint that we are permitted to get to and we get great views of the new cone, whilst also getting a sense of the devastation that the eruption caused. The eruption took place between 19th September and 13th December 2021 and is the longest known, and the most damaging, volcanic eruption on La Palma since records began. The lava flow covered over 1,000 hectares (2,500 acres), prompting the evacuation of around 7,000 people. It was also about 3.5km (2.2 miles) wide at its widest point, and about 6.2 kilometres (3.9 miles) long. The lava flow reached the sea and destroyed more than 3,000 buildings, cutting the coastal highway and forming a new peninsula, as well as forming an extensive system of lava tubes. We then move on the Caños de Fuego Interpretation Centre & lava tube. The lava tube exists in lava flows that were emitted by the 1949 eruptions of Cumbre Vieja. We then return to our hotel near Santa Cruz de La Palma.

Day 6- San Antonio and Teneguia cones, La Palma.  Today we visit the south of the island and our first stop is to examine lavas that erupted in the Martin eruption of 1646 AD. This is followed by the Volcan San Antonio Visitor Centre. Here we can see original video footage of the 1971 Teneguia eruption. We then take a walk along the rim of the San Antonio crater, looking inside as we go. At the far end of the crater, we can look down onto the Teneguia cone which erupted in 1971 and was prior to 2021, La Palma’s most recent eruption (except for one submarine eruption). We then drive down to the southern tip of La Palma to observe lavas emitted in the Teneguia eruption and to view the Fuencaliente lighthouse. Our route then takes us up the western coast of La Palma and we stop to observe the lava from several recent eruptions which have erupted from the ridge of the Cumbre Vieja volcano. Eventually we reach Mirador de Las Hoyas where we can see how lavas from both the 1949 and 2021 eruptions have spilled over the sea cliffs to make new land in the form of lava deltas. The 1949 lavas deltas have had soil added to them and now host banana plantations. After this, we stop at El Remo, where we can view a deep lava flow channel, 50m wide, bounded by enormous levees 10m high which are from 1712. Our final stop of the day is in Santa Cruz de La Palma, when we visit La Caldereta, one of the largest tuff (volcanic ash) cones in the Canary Islands. We then head back to our hotel just outside Santa Cruz de La Palma.

Day 7 - Caldera de Taburiente National Park, La Palma. Our first stop is the National Park Visitor Centre for an initial overview of the Caldera de Taburiente. This caldera, which is famous for being the place where the term 'caldera' was first coined, was formed by a giant landslip followed by fluvial erosion. Our next stop is the Mirador de La Cumbrecita where the Bejando volcano can be seen forming the eastern wall of the caldera. Here we leave our vehicle and take an 800m walk (in each direction) along the caldera collapse wall for impressive views into the caldera. We then stop at Barranco de las Angustias for a picnic lunch and a hike. The barranco, or gorge, is the entrance to the Taburiente caldera. We take a gentle walk into the base of the caldera and will get the extraordinary opportunity to observe the deep structure of the submerged stage of development of the island, a seamount. We will see pillow basalts, dykes and low-level metamorphism along the side of a beautiful stream that is eroding out the gorge. After an hour and a half of walking we will turn around and retrace our steps back to the vehicle.  We then return to our hotel near Santa Cruz de La Palma.

Day 8 - Rocque de los Muchachos. Today we drive to the highest point on the island, Rocque de los Muchachos, on the summit rim of the Caldera de Taburiente. On the way we stop to observe reddish scoria beds that are rich in the mineral hematite and resemble Martian rocks. Eventually we arrive at the summit of the caldera rim, where the views are amazing. On a good day Mt Teide on Tenerife is visible, as is the island of El Hierro. Here we walk for about an hour enjoying the spectacular views into the caldera itself. Our final stop on La Palma is a visit to the recently opened Roque de los Muchachos Visitor Centre, which has lots of information about the many astronomical observatories located on the island. La Palma is known as one of the world’s leading locations to observe the night sky. We then take a late afternoon ferry back to Tenerife for our final night of the tour.

Day 9 - Departure. The tour ends this morning. Our hotel is a taxi ride from Tenerife South Airport (TFS) where you can take a flight home, or you might choose to explore the Canary Islands further and take a ferry or a flight to one of the other islands.