El Medano – Sunbathing / water sports paradise on Golden beaches.

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Since we have got ourselves a little more organised at home, we have been trying to visit new places around the island of Tenerife.

Yesterday we decided to visit El Medano.

El Médano, formerly port of Granadilla, is now a tourist resort in the municipality of Granadilla de Abona in the South of the island of Tenerife. It is 11 km from the town of Granadilla de Abona, reaching a maximum altitude of 10 meters above sea level. It has the largest natural beach of Tenerife and is about 2 kilometres in length. This beach of fine white sand which is frequently windswept. The area is popular for the practice of windsurfing and kite surfing. There are many bars and friendly restaurants close to the beach and many hotels of varying sizes nearby. The price of food and drink here is unbelievably low.

El Medano is a rock that sits parallel to Tenerife South Airport and can be seen from the balcony of our apartment. To the right of the rock there are two nice beaches. We can see the waves to these beaches from our balcony as well. These have been visited on a previous occasion. The rock is unusually shaped and is called Montaña Roja.

To the left of the rock is the small village of El Medano. This is where we went yesterday.

The village is mainly apartments with a mixture of tourists and people who live here. There is a wide variety of nationalities living here. We have heard that this is a popular day visit place for people living elsewhere in Tenerife.

Like most places in Tenerife, there were many free parking spaces in the centre of the town.

We took a small walk around the village then the plan was to walk along the coast towards the rock as there is a water sports centre next to the rock.

We stopped after about half a mile to get a coffee in one of the few coastal cafes and two hours later we were still there.

We met John a local expat there. He has lived in Tenerife for about 11 years and, like us, believes in living the Spanish way. Not like some of the Brits who try to live here as they would live at home. John is very knowledgeable and was able to help us a little more with our integration into the island. He has given us details of an accountant who can move our tax affairs over here and also someone who can help us with the decision regarding the healthcare. We were provided with a whole wealth of other local information.

Three coffees later and a couple of beers for John, we decided that we were no longer in the mood to walk the further couple of miles down the beach so returned to the apartment.

Today, Wednesday, we decided to revisit El Medano and complete the walk to the water sports centre. We stopped at the same café again and John was there again with his wife this time. We only had one coffee and a small breakfast before completing the rest of the walk.

Whilst we were at the café we watched a coastguard sea rescue. They had a two seater Jet Ski that they used to attend to a water sporter who appeared to be in difficulty. Attached to the back of the Jet Ski was a small stretcher which they used to take the person back to dry land. We were impressed with the speed with which they attended to the incident and the amount of people that appeared apparently from nowhere in case more manpower was required. Looks like they have a very smoothly run rescue service here. Hopefully they do not need to use it too often, but with the winds around the area, you can see why a novice could have problems.

The warm winds at El Medano seems to be much stronger than anywhere else in the island, so the windsurfers and other water sports were in popular demand. A real picture to watch. Unfortunately, the wind means you cannot stand for too long as you get covered in sand from the wind and can very easily get burnt.

Yesterday when we were here there was a local building a sand sculpture. Today he was back putting right any overnight wind damage to them. It’s amazing what they can do with sand over here.

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