Tenerife Landscapes & Seascapes: Whilst dreaming of Humboldt and Darwin 1

Lots of people will probably think of Tenerife as the home of cheap (ish) holidays in the sun for Northern Europeans โ€“ especially the โ€˜lager loutsโ€™ of Britain. ย And to some extent this has been the case โ€“ Los Christianos and Las Americas still have a little bit of this image. ย 

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Tenerife and the other Canary islands, however, have a lot more to offer. ย My previous blog on Dolphins outlines some of the marine wildlife watching opportunities of the islands. ย The geology is also fantastic, the centre of Tenerife being the volcano of El Teide ย – also the highest point in Spain at 3,718m (12,198 feet). ย The sport climbing is excellent (Iโ€™ll be going back for more of that). ย The history & culture are also great โ€“ especially in the cooler and greener North of the island. ย 

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As you may know from my Galapagos blogs (insert links) Iโ€™m a bit of a Darwin geek and enjoy the history of science, especially environmental science. ย Recently I have been reading Andrea Wolfโ€™s brilliant biography of Alexander Von Humboldt the 18th Century explorer, naturalist and geographer. ย This describes an interesting link between Humboldt, Tenerife, the Galapagos and Darwin. ย Humboldt visited Tenerife for six days in July 1799 on the way to his extraordinary adventures in South America. ย During this visit he climbed El Teide and studied the distribution of plants as the altitude changed. ย This, together with his many other studies of plant distribution, especially on Chimborazo and Pichincha volcanoes in what is now Ecuador led to him pretty much โ€˜inventโ€™ the science of ecology. ย ย Humboldtโ€™s books were a huge influence on Darwin and were one of the main reasons he wanted to travel the world and join The Beagle expedition in 1832. ย The Beagleโ€™s second port of call, after Madeira, was due to be Santa Cruz in Northern Tenerife. ย Darwin was extremely excited to have the opportunity to follow in Humboldtโ€™s footsteps up El Teide. ย Unfortunately the Tenerife authorities refused the crew of The Beagle to come ashore as there had been a cholera outbreak in London, and they feared infection coming ashore. ย Darwin was immensely disappointed not to have the opportunity to follow in his heroโ€™s footsteps. ย Captain Fitzroy wrote that the refusal to let them land:

“โ€ฆ ย was a great disappointment to Mr Darwin, who had cherished a hope of visiting the Peak. To see it — to anchor and be on the point of landing, yet be obliged to turn away without the slightest prospect of beholding Tenerife again — was indeed to him a real calamity.”ย 

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However, Darwin had copies of many of Humboldtโ€™s books with him on The Beagle and these where a big part of his inspiration to study the geology and biology of South America and, eventually, The Galapagos. ย Many early scientists had speculated that species changed over time to suit their environments โ€“ including both Humboldt and Darwinโ€™s grandfather, Erasmus Darwin ย – but it was Charles Darwin (and Alfred Wallace) that eventually theorised that this was a result of natural selection.

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Anyway, back to Tenerife, perhaps I will explore more of Humboldt and Darwin in future blogs – for now enjoy some photographs from my trip. ย The long exposure seascapes are of Tenerifeโ€™s Eastern and Southern coasts and are product of a fantastic day out with Raico Rosenberg. ย 

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Thanks to Raico for both showing me some brilliant locations that I would have never found myself and for helping me get to grips with long exposures and graduated filters.

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