Caldera de Taburiente National Park

The northern half of La Palma is hollowed out by an immense amphitheatre of rock. The Caldera de Taburiente is a basin roughly ten kilometres across, ringed by crests that stand in places some two thousand metres above its floor, so that from the rim the eye drops through layers of cloud and forest to ravines far below. The highest point of the ring, the Roque de los Muchachos, reaches 2,426 metres, and on the bare summit ridge beside it stand the domes of one of the world's great astronomical observatories, placed here for the exceptionally clear and dark skies above the island.

Despite its name, the caldera was not created by a single volcanic explosion. Over several million years, a series of overlapping shield volcanoes built up a mountain in the north of La Palma some 3,000 metres high. Around half a million years ago its south-western flank gave way and slid towards the ocean in a gigantic landslide, and running water has been widening and deepening the resulting hollow ever since. The basin drains to the sea through a single deep gorge, the Barranco de las Angustias, and streams fed by springs flow year-round inside it, a rarity in the Canary Islands. Because of its importance for the history of volcanology, the International Union of Geological Sciences named the caldera among its first hundred geological heritage sites in 2022. The slopes are clothed in forests of Canary Island pine, with rare Canary Islands junipers on the cliffs and laurel pigeons and red-billed choughs in the skies.

The caldera was also the last stronghold of the island's first people, who called La Palma Benahoare. When the Castilian forces of Alonso Fernández de Lugo landed in 1492, most of the island's cantons came to terms, but Aceró, the canton of the caldera, held out behind its walls of rock. Its chief, Tanausú, was captured only after being drawn out to negotiate under a promise of peace, and tradition says that he refused food on the ship carrying him to Spain and died of hunger. The caldera became a national park in 1954, at the urging of artists and scholars; it was enlarged in 1981 to around 4,700 hectares.

Getting there

The park lies in the centre-north of La Palma. The nearest town is Los Llanos de Aridane, about 11 km to the south-west, and El Paso nearby is the base for the park's visitor centre and the road up to the viewpoint of La Cumbrecita. The nearest airport is La Palma Airport (SPC), about 19 km away on the east coast; the island also has ferry links from Tenerife to the port of Santa Cruz de La Palma. A road climbs from the north-west coast to the Roque de los Muchachos on the rim.