The Volcan Templo walk is a good 3 – 4 hours or so, mostly flat and for the most part well marked. There is one tricky part using an old hunters path over a section of lava flow. Also there is an optional scramble over Volcán Templo, but the views are well worth it. There are two coffee and cake options here, the Asador Grill Tinguatón or the Teleclub de Masdache.
Directions
Follow the LZ-30 from Teguise, straight over at the Casa-Museo del Campesino round a bout heading down through La Geria for Masdache. Once through the village take the next turning on the right for Tinajo, LZ-56. After about 5.5km you see a car park on the left, Parque Natural De Los Volcanes, just before the village of Tinguaton.
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The Walk
Cross the road from the carpark and take the dirt track at 90o to the LZ-56, not Camino Tisalaya. You are travelling parallel to the base of Montaña Tabaiba. The track loops away for 5 minutes before coming back directly to the base of Tabaiba. There is a rectangular field reaching up the hillside, some ruins, the remains of a fence and a rough lava path running right.
Take the rocky path, it’s a little tricky under foot in places. Keep the shoulder of Montaña Tabaiba on your left and the stark black lava flow on your right. Eventually the path stumbles out into an old field. Walk up the field with the stone wall on your left and you soon break back out to the base of the hillside. Follow the path 20m or so and you pick up the old hunters path across the lava flow.
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Now for the tricky part, you want to get to Volcán Templo, but the route across the lava flow is in two parts. For the first leg you are heading roughly for some ruined buildings where the lava flow butts up to an old farm track. About 30m across the bend in the farm track you find the 2nd part of the hunters path, now heading towards the base of Volcán Templo.
Even here you see examples of farming ingenuity, with grape vines and fig tress growing in cracks and gullies in the lava flow. The lava flow trail ends in a short famers volcanic path. At the end turn right to skirt the base of Volcán Templo in an anti-clockwise direction. From here you have two options, both routes meet up again at the far side on Camino las Quemadas.
The short scramble up to the lip of the Templo crater is well worth it for the views. South overlooks the lava field and edging clockwise around the edge, north yields the farm land between Macha Blanca and La Vegueta.
Volcan Templo – History
To read more about the history of the island you can check out Historia de Teguise and Historia de Haria websites. The sites are in Spanish, so if it helps I have tried to summarise a few topics of interest in the History section.