Trail 5: Los Canarios – El Puertito

Discover the route

From Los Canarios to El Puertito beach via Las Caletas: the eastern slope of the municipality, the least travelled, with narrow terraces, tabaiba scrub, red and black lava fields and, at the end, a pebble beach with lupin-drying yards and fishermen’s huts. It is the most demanding of the municipal routes and is done there and back along the same path, because there is no transport at El Puertito.

Fact sheet

• Start: Plaza Minerva (Tourist Office), Los Canarios, at 715 m.
• End: El Puertito beach.
• Distance: 10.70 km there and back.
• Cumulative elevation: 749 m of descent and 749 m of ascent (1,498 m in total).
• Duration: 2.5 h one way; 6 h there and back.
• Difficulty: moderate to high.

The route

From Plaza Minerva take the Carretera General to the right and continue for about 350 m to the first sign. A 1.5 km descent begins to Las Caletas, a small district of scattered traditional houses. Next to the district school you go down a concrete track, without turning off, between farmed plots.

Little by little the xerophytic scrub appears, with the bitter tabaiba as the most abundant plant, and the crops give way to a lava field in red and black tones. On the final stretch, the steep slope rewards you with wide panoramas, with the silhouette of the sulphur outlined on the coast. The track crosses the black lavas of the Búcaro eruption.

The route also has ethnographic value: the narrow terraces that give Las Caletas its name, the lupin-drying yards and the pits for curing them on the coast. The path ends at El Puertito beach; the return is on foot along the same route.

How to get back

On foot, along the same path: at El Puertito there is no bus and no access for conventional taxis.

Before you start

• Bring poles, comfortable clothing, a charged mobile phone, plenty of water and food.
• The 749 m climb back is done in the heat of the afternoon: set out early.
• The waymarked SL FU 112 trail (Los Quemados – El Puertito, 9 km) reaches the same point from the western slope.
• Emergencies: 112.