Colours of the volcanic landscape

A panoramic view from Montaña Blanca up to Pico del Teide, 3,715 m – a landscape that looks as though the earth had held its breath for a moment. The light-coloured fields of pumice rise gently, like frozen waves, before merging into the dark, rugged flanks of the volcano. There begins the realm of fire: jagged lava glowing in the sun, as if it still bore the memory of its once-molten origin.
Above it all stretches the vast sky of Tenerife National Park, a deep blue that surrounds the Teide like a crown of light. At this altitude, the world seems clearer, more immediate, almost archaic. The wind carries the scent of stone and sun, and the silence is so profound that even a single step sounds like an echo.
Here, in the World Natural Heritage Site on the island of Tenerife, in the Canary Islands, in Spain, in Europe, one encounters a landscape that is both ancient and contemporary. A place where the forces of the earth become visible and one’s gaze stretches far enough to perceive one’s own smallness as something comforting.