Volcano Life Experience - the Teide national park's new website for its range of activities

[Janet]

The Tenerife Cabildo has announced that the Teide national park has launched a new initiative with its own website for visitors to learn about and choose from the wide range of activities that are available. The national park is the most popular in Europe, attracting some three million visitors each year. The new Volcano Life Experience initiative is intended to offer information in a one-stop online portal – the first specialist one for Teide – to choose and prepare for the real experience.

As can be seen on the website itself HERE, these experiences are ordered in six categories: walking, excursions, stars, teleférico (cable car), adventure, and Cueva del viento (cave of the wind). Some twenty different activities are available all with Teide as the dominant common factor. There is also an option to sign up for a newsletter to be kept up to date with new offers, and news about existing ones.

One of the first set events will be on 14 May when the shadow of Teide is projected onto the eastern horizon and lines up with the full moon, as can be seen in the video below. On this occasion, Saturn will be alongside the moon. The phenomenon always generates considerable interest even though it is only visible for a few minutes, and so Volcano Life Experience and the Teleférico have prepared an Atardecer y Estrellas (Dusk and Stars) special to allow the public to follow it online live from 7.30pm with commentary and explanations from the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias and the Teide observatory.

Astronomers say that if the conditions are favourable on this occasion, it will also be possible to see anticrepuscular rays – almost parallel rays which are caused by linear perspective to appear to converge at the antisolar point, fanning out in the light and shade ray arrangement familiar from any picturebook image of sunset. JA