Sardina del Norte — Puerto de Las Nieves

Cave house at the end of the promenade, Sardina del Norte

I did this easy hike several times already, sometimes alone, sometimes in a small group. It is not very long, less than 11 kilometres, and doesn’t have that much ascent and descent, below 500 metres of both. Both villages are reasonably well connected by public transport, so you can do the hike in either direction. Just keep in mind that Sardina has a nice sandy beach, but fewer places to eat versus the pebble beach, rocky natural pools and disproportionate number of restaurants per square head of population of Puerto de Las Nieves.

Beautiful water over rocky seabed

When we first came to have a look around Sardina del Norte, many years ago, it failed to impress, very likely due to massive roadworks which were happening along the short promenade. Over these years, the works were advancing very slowly, but now they finally seem to have been finished, sometime over last year. You can now walk till the end of the promenade without squeezing past piles of pavement blocks and plastic walling. So this time round I did just that, and discovered that there is a small white cave house at the end of the promenade, and a rocky outcrop which is used by fishermen. Apart from the sandy beach, there are a couple of stone steps leading from the piers to the water in rocky areas. It is something to be grateful about, rocky seabed makes for beautifully clean water, but is absolute torture to get in and out.

There is also a small free museum of sorts inside the cliff bordering the promenade, but it is open Thursday to Sunday in the morning, so I didn’t have a chance to inspect it.

Parking for rowboats at the end of the promenade

This time round, I found Sardina del Norte a very agreeable place, and I recommend a walk around it.

After checking out the village, I started towards Puerto de Las Nieves. It is not an “official” walk, so there are no signposts and no single established path, but there is no getting lost either. Note: the ocean is the obvious thing to guide you. Apart from that, you need to be aware that there is a lot of livestock movement close to Sardina, so look for human paths and not the ones used by goats, of which later.

The path starts from low railings of a ground parking plot at the south edge of Sardina village. There is no gap in the railing, I needed to go over it. Once you look over the edge of the plot, the path is obvious. You first go down to a smaller, practically unused, beach, Playa de Juan Delgado, and then up again on the other side.

View back towards Sardina, once you are past the small beach (to the right, invisible).
You can just about see the path going down to it, just below the blue house.

Next landmark is Farallón, or Roque Partido, The Broken Rock. It is a quite impressive vertical chunk of rock sticking out at the end of a small cape. I know there are some “active holidays” companies that take you there to climb and abseil, keep it in mind if that’s your thing.

It stays visible for a goodish long while.
You can come to the edge of the cliff to admire it without your climbing gear.

After passing close to the Broken Rock, the path carries on along the edge of the cliff, coming closer to a vast farm where they keep large quantities of animals, mostly goats and sheep. Here the path is separated into multiple ones, mostly made by animals, so this is the stage when you need to look out to humanly passable ones. You are still moving along the coast, of course. The paths go up and then descent towards a cobble beach, Playa del Lagarto, passing a small rocky inlet, Playa Arrastradero.

This zone, I am told, used to be one giant rubbish field. Quite successful attempts to recondition it were made, plus some wind generators installed. Overall, it is a huge improvement, but what used to be one, very obvious, coastal path, was lost in the process.

Look back at Farallón and the caves and grottoes of the cliffs

The rock is quite beautiful at this point. It is not as spectacular as the sandstone of Punta de Las Arenas Blancas, but it is a lot more accessible, so there is that.

And it is at this point where I saw an absolutely YUGE group of goats and sheep moving between, I assume, two grounds belonging to the same farm. They go without shepherds or dogs, so there are probably some goats that are leading the way.

See what I mean when I say use humanly passable paths?

And I must add I saw this at least the three last times I was there. Because I use public transport, I find myself around this point at roughly the same time, soon past midday. Since there are no sheperds, there is nobody to ask what is the point of the exercise. Maybe they need just that — the physical exercise? If anybody knows, drop me a comment, I am curious.

My pics fail to show the number, but there are easily a few hundred of them

After coming down to a cobble beach called Playa del Lagarto, the human path and the paths of the animals split again. The livestock path goes inland, and the route continues along the coast, along a mixture of dirt tracks and paths. On the other size of Playa del Lagarto there is an archeological site called Costa Botija, a dry shadeless patch on the top of the cliff, protected from the animals by a low wall with a gate. There are two of three ruins of aboriginal houses, but without an explanation they are not really interesting to look at. The views are nice though.

Another look at Farallón from Costa Botija

After Costa Botija there follows a relatively short stretch, maybe kilometre and a half, of just trudging along. The views don’t change and it seems to me that the people who used to dump rubbish in the now-recovered area now dump it closer to Puerto de Las Nieves. There are certainly a few places where building materials were disposed of, and there were more such places than just a few months ago. I hope this trend doesn’t continue.

Soon enough the path comes to a deep inlet with a cobble and boulder beach called Playa del Juncal. The water is beautifully clean, but being cobble and boulder, it is a tricky place to enter and exit the water and spread your towel. There is a dirt track leading to it, so it is possible to arrive by car, and I never saw this beach completely empty. Still, in comparison to the teeming “natural swimming pools” of Puerto de Las Nieves, this is a lot quieter, and the swimmable area is a lot bigger.

Playa del Juncal from the side closer to Puerto de Las Nieves

After Playa del Juncal, there is just a short walk left till Puerto de Las Nieves and/or Agaete. The path splits a few times, but here all the paths are passable by humans and all you are risking by taking a wrong branch is lengthening your walk a bit.

The most obvious path will take you past a cave, Cueva del Moro.

The cave is natural, but quite obviously enlarged, the floor and the walls smoothened etc.

Apparently, there is a couple of aboriginal petroglyphs in the second chamber of the cave. Maybe for this reason, some rocks were used to form a low barrier at the entrance, not barring it completely, but preventing you from just casually wandering in. I only found out about the petroglyphs right now, so I didn’t enter to check them out. Next time I am there, I will definitely enter.

There are a number of routes on wikiloc, for example here.

That’s all. Just one more pic of my walking companions this time.