Ifonche Special

The Ifonche Special is our Premium Experience flown from the other side of the mountain. You get the same twenty to thirty minutes in the air, the same relaxed pace, and the same pilots, but you launch from Ifonche instead of Taucho. The takeoff sits higher, above the pine forest on the ridges that rise over the Barranco del Infierno, and the whole flight feels closer to the mountain. It suits anyone who wants the full Premium flight with a bigger, wilder backdrop. No experience is needed, and we fly passengers from six years old.

The launch is the first thing you notice. Taucho is open coast and grass; Ifonche is forest and rock, quieter, with the smell of pine and the ridgelines close on either side. You run off the same way, but the ground falls away faster because you started higher. Once you are up, the flight settles into the Premium rhythm: your pilot looks for the rising air that forms along the slopes through the middle of the day, banks the glider into it, and lets it carry you. When a thermal is working, you climb, and the pine forest and the rim of the barranco turn slowly beneath you. It is the same calm, unhurried flight as the Premium. The difference is what is under you and around you.

Below and ahead of you opens the Barranco del Infierno, the deep protected ravine that cuts up into the Adeje mountains, with the valley falling away toward the coast. Ifonche gives you more of the island's interior than the coastal launches do: the pine forest, the folds of the ridges, the volcanic ground, and El Teide standing over all of it further inland. The sea is still there, out beyond the valley, but from Ifonche the mountain is the main event. Then your pilot brings you down the way every one of our flights ends, gliding out toward the coast and landing on the beach at La Caleta, about ten minutes from where you started the day.