Visiting Chinamada in Tenerife is an excursion linked to natural beauty and rural simplicity of the Northern part of the Island.
There are hundreds of hidden corners on the island that have no name or have a name that is barely pronounceable or that you cannot remember because you have only read it once, and that is why these attractive, spectacular and colourful areas hardly get any visits from the average tourist.
Chinamada is a perfect example of what I want to say above. Hidden behind numerous hillsides, inaccessible via the ocean and raised high above sea level, you really have to go looking for it. This village has nothing to do with China; not a single Chinese person lives there. In fact, few people live there, which is what makes the location so attractive. Abandoned but not completely dead. And yet there is something strange in that godforsaken hellhole. There are a few dozen people living there and they all live in lovely little houses, with flowers on the windowsills. You almost imagine yourself in the fairy tale of Hansel and Gretel, so sweet are the houses.
Chinamada can be reached via the main road and yet tourists don’t find this hamlet. First from La Laguna to Taborno on the T F-13, then left, via the TF-145 to Las Carboneras. The road continues indefinitely until Chinamada cuts you off at the pass. A hamlet with less than 100 inhabitants at 500 metres above sea level, where time seems to stand still.
Where the inhabitants have become one with nature, seamlessly. They live behind gracefully simple facades but once inside you find yourself in a cave house. You knock on the door and step into a cave. Two-room cave houses: entrance, lounge and kitchen are one room, the bedroom is another. They have the same temperature all year round without the use of appliances to control the temperature.
There is a little church – or do I call it a glorified chapel? – and this structure marks the beginning and also the end of the built-up area. A creation of the inhabitants who single-handedly erected the structure and brought the building materials with donkeys. Back then there was no road, just a sandy path. The road to Chinamada was paved only in the early 1990s.
A footpath runs from in the ‘village centre’ to the cliffs of ‘Punta de Hidalgo’ where you look out over the ocean from a Mirador. Many hikers pass by on a number of hiking trails, also called senderos, cross there. To feed the inner man, drop into Demofilo and Carmen, the only restaurant in the area. The name of the establishment is apt: at restaurante La Cueva, you can eat in a section carved out of the mountain.
So the people of Chinamada live in holes dug out by fathers and grandfathers, by uncles and great uncles, who through their diligent labour provided shelter for their families because there was no money to build a house. They then solved that by building a facade for the dig complex. The final result satisfied everything and everyone.
I once spent the night in a cave bedroom. Falling asleep is strange, you stare at the rock ceiling and when you wake up again you stare further. Older locals laugh off unsavoury remarks about a cave dwelling. No matter what weather comes upon us, the cave does protect us. This is the hamlet where we belong.
Those who still live here have connected with nature in their own way. The whole village exudes a rare tranquillity that both harmonises and contrasts. A wonderful feeling!
This feeling strikes us and we go for something to eat in the cave of the restaurant aptly named ‘La Cueva’.
Guy Devos © Photography
Visiting Chinamada in Tenerife ©
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