Boca del Paso

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A highland viewpoint above the barrancos

Boca del Paso is not a built-up lookout but a natural opening on a ridge, right beside the steep step—the Risco de la Boca el Paso—that separates the Adeje slope from the Ifonche plateau. From it the ground falls away into a system of ravines, with the Barranco de las Torres and the Barranco del Inglés incised directly below. The setting is open and arid: stony ground, low scrub and bare rock with no trees to offer shade on any stretch, which is exactly why the panorama feels so unobstructed.

On a clear day the view runs out to the south-western coastal strip of the island, giving a striking contrast between the windswept highland you are standing on and the resort coastline far below—a helpful reminder that Adeje climbs gently all the way from the beaches toward the foothills of the Teide massif.

Walking the Boca del Paso–La Quinta trail

The classic outing from this point is the PR-TF 71.1, a point-to-point trail that heads northwest for roughly 1.7 kilometres and takes around 30 to 35 minutes at an easy pace. It is rated medium difficulty on the MIDE scale, though the effort is modest: about 95–100 metres of ascent and a similar fall, between altitudes of around 908 and 950 metres. The official trail is reached only on foot, following the white-and-yellow PR markings off the main Camino de Teresme (PR-TF 71).

What makes the walk rewarding is the ethnographic trail of the old agricultural economy. Along the way you pass eras (threshing floors), bancales (cultivation terraces), atarjeas—irrigation channels built from stone and timber—aljibes (cisterns) and the ruins of rural dwellings, all evidence of a time when the high hamlets of La Quinta and Taucho supplied the lower valleys and the coast with grain and forest products, while the sea sent fish and subtropical crops back up.

La Quinta and the chapel of Santa Margarita

The trail ends at the historic hamlet of La Quinta, whose origins go back to the 16th century. The name itself is later: this upland settlement and neighbouring Taucho were once known together as Taucho, and 'La Quinta' only took hold toward the end of the 18th century when the land passed to the Marquises of La Quinta Roja.

The finishing point is the Ermita de Santa Margarita, a small late-16th-century chapel that preserves two notable religious images inside—Saint Margaret of Antioch and Saint Lucia. Around it you will find a large circular threshing floor and old communal washing places (lavaderos), which together make the hamlet a tidy little open-air museum of rural Adeje life and a fitting place to rest before heading back.

Getting there and tying it into a longer walk

Boca del Paso itself has no road access—you reach it on foot along the PR-TF 71, with the usual starting points at the hamlet of La Quinta, the old town of Adeje, or Ifonche. To drive to the area, leave the south motorway TF-1 and make for Taucho via the TF-82 and TF-583 toward La Quinta; there is no public transport in this part of the hills, so parking is in the village at the end of the trail. The approaches from Adeje centre or Ifonche are considerably longer and follow the PR-TF 71 with its 71.1 and 71.2 variants, so allow more time if you want a full-day hike rather than the short balcony-and-chapel loop.

The route lies at the edge of the Parque Natural de la Corona Forestal, the largest protected area in the Canary Islands, and Adeje's recovered network of municipal paths (Camino de Teresme, Camino de Ifonche and others) threads through this same upland landscape, making Boca del Paso a useful base for exploring the quieter, historic inland half of a municipality better known for its coast.