Orotava Valley
The green and fruitful Orotava Valley (Spanish Valle de La Orotava ) is located in the northern part of the Canary island of Tenerife.
The term " valley " is a misnomer, because in reality it is an inclined plane with an area of about 10 x 11 km is the Orotava Valley, the origin of a valley with nothing in common. The Valle de la Orotava runs from the sea to a height of nearly 2,000 meters to almost the start of Las Cañadas with the Pico del Teide, the highest mountain in Spain at 3,718 meters.
Formation
The Orotava Valley will be completed as a wall across the huge " Ladera de Tigaiga " in the West. With the " Ladera de Santa Ursula" the valley is bounded in the east by a steeply rising edge. It involves the separation edges ( " amphitheater " ) a massive debris avalanche that which made "valley" filling on the sloping north level 540000-690000 years ago ( Middle Pleistocene, Quaternary ) slip, and their deposits today at the northern foot of the island lie in about 3500 m water depth. The volume of the Orotava Debris avalanche is estimated at up to 500 km ³ ..
Places and Tourism
Eponym of the valley is the traditional and prestigious city of La Orotava, which lies at an altitude of 340 m and nearly 40,000 inhabitants. The town of Puerto de la Cruz, the former port of La Orotava, is the current capital of the valley and the tourist stronghold in the north of Tenerife. To the west of the valley, the city of Los Realejos is.
Despite the many tourists stay still large parts of the vast valley and small villages, especially in the middle and higher altitudes, quiet and lonely. In particular, the sites above 600 m altitude are usually shrouded in the winter half year in trade winds, so no "danger " of a mass tourist use is intended. On the existing good hiking trails, the splendor and the vegetation diversity of the valley can develop.
Alexander von Humboldt
In 1799 the German naturalist Alexander von Humboldt spent a week in Tenerife for research purposes prior to its multi-year trip to South America. His path led from Santa Cruz de Tenerife to La Laguna, then along the north coast about La Orotava up to the summit of Mount Teide. On today's Humboldt View ( Mirador de Humboldt ), there is a plaque with the following words bacchanal of the researcher in Spanish translation:
"I have seen the hot lifebelts landscapes where nature is great, rich in the development of organic forms. But after I walked through the banks of the Orinoco, the Cordilleras of Peru and the beautiful valleys of Mexico, I must confess, to have had nowhere so mannigfaches so alluring, so harmonious through the distribution of green and masses of rock paintings in front of me ... I can Compare this sight with the Gulfs of Genoa and Naples, but the Orotava Valley it far exceeds its size and the richness of its vegetation. "