Orotava valley

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The Orotava Valley with a view of the Teide (left)

The green and fertile Orotava Valley ( Spanish: Valle de La Orotava ) is located in the north of the Canary Island of Tenerife .

The term “valley” is misleading, since the Orotava valley is actually a sloping plain with an area of ​​approx. 10 × 11 kilometers, the formation of which has nothing in common with a valley. The Valle de la Orotava runs from the sea to an altitude of almost 2,000 meters to almost the beginning of Las Cañadas with the Pico del Teide , the highest mountain in Spain at 3,718 meters.

View over the Orotava valley to the Ladera de Tigaiga and the Teide

Emergence

The Orotava Valley is closed off in the west like a wall by the huge “Ladera de Tigaiga”. With the “Ladera de Santa Ursula”, the valley is also bordered in the east by a steeply rising edge. These are the tearing edges (“amphitheater”) of a huge avalanche of debris that caused the “valley” filling to slide down the north sloping plain 540,000 to 690,000 years ago (Middle Pleistocene, Quaternary), and its deposits today at the northern foot of the island lie in over 3500 m water depth. The volume of the Orotava debris avalanche is estimated at up to 500 km³.

Places and Tourism

The valley is named after the traditional and representative town of La Orotava , which lies at an altitude of 340 m and has almost 40,000 inhabitants. The city of Puerto de la Cruz , the former port of La Orotava, is today's capital of the valley and the tourist stronghold in the north of Tenerife. In the west of the valley is the city of Los Realejos .

Despite the many tourists, large parts of the extensive valley and small villages, especially in the middle and higher elevations, remain quiet and lonely. In particular, the places above 600 m altitude are usually shrouded in trade wind clouds in the winter months, so that there is no “risk” of mass tourism. The splendor and diversity of vegetation of the valley can be explored on the existing good hiking trails.

View of the Orotava Valley and Puerto de la Cruz from the Mirador Humboldt

Alexander von Humboldt

In 1799 the German naturalist Alexander von Humboldt spent a week on Tenerife for research purposes before his multi-year trip to South America. His way led from Santa Cruz de Tenerife to La Laguna , then along the north coast via La Orotava up to the summit of Teide. At today's Humboldt-Blick (Mirador de Humboldt) there is a memorial plaque with the following indulgent words by the researcher in Spanish translation:

“I have seen landscapes in the hot earth belt where nature is more magnificent, richer in the development of organic forms. But after wandering the banks of the Orinoco, the Cordillera of Peru and the beautiful valleys of Mexico, I must admit that nowhere have I seen such a diverse, so attractive, so harmonious painting through the distribution of greenery and rock masses ... I can compare this sight only with the gulfs of Genoa and Naples, but the Orotava Valley surpasses it by far by its dimensions and the richness of its vegetation. "

- Alexander von Humboldt

Individual evidence

  1. a b D.G. Masson, AB Watts, MJR Gee, R. Urgeles, NC Mitchell, TP Le Bas, and M. Canal: Slope failures on the flanks of the western Canary Islands. Earth Science Reviews, 57: 1-35, Amsterdam 2002 ISSN  0012-8252