Tenerife’s life-giving pine trees. Photo by Ann Williams

Tenerife Island, one of Spain’s Canaries, gets almost no rain. Though the Canaries lie along the African Sahara coast, Tenerife enjoys wondrous pine forests and a generous underground reservoir. That’s because wind and water currents bring dense clouds, and the pine trees help themselves. Their needles are so adept at sucking in moisture, excess water drizzles out through their roots—enough to support cities, crop lands, even passing cruise ships. These pine trees are also exceptional in that their wood is dark and strong.

Fortunately, Tenerife is blessed with exceptional wisdom as well as trees. The first agenda item for so many settlers to new regions is to get rid of those pesky trees. Had Tenerife’s pioneers sheered their mountainsides before someone discovered the secret of the trees…well, we’d be able to see a lot more of Tenerife’s cool rock formations.

Rock formations in Teide National Park. Photo by Ann Williams