Canary Island Update - La Palma

La Gomera is a beautiful island everywhere you go and all the hikes are scenic. The trails can be quite rugged and there’s always a big climb to start the day if you set out from anywhere near the sea. The leeward side of the island is arid and desert like while the windward is green and often brushed over with fog like clouds. The dry side can by hot and balmy while the other side can be cool and chilly.

On one day I intended to do a hike out of Vallehermoso but it was cloudy and cold so I just kept driving around to San Sebastian where I was able to hike in brilliant sun all day. You don’t really need a car on La Gomera but it does add flexibility and saves quite a bit of time. The buses are perfectly adequate and workable as long as your attentive to the scheduling which can be limited.

On one day I sufficed to take it easy and just walked around the villages of Valle Gran Rey and Vueltas. I bought a ferry ticket for the Island of La Palma. Every Island has it unique differences.

The drawback for me in Valle Gran Rey is that I find it to be a difficult place to meet people and strike up a conversation. The crowd that stays over in Valle Gran Rey is almost exclusively German. Germans are not the most approachable nor the easiest to chat with. They tend to cluster together with dead pan expressions while simply observing what’s around them. However, they are a well behaved lot. As is the case with most parts of the world these days younger folks speak pretty good English but not so much for the older people. Given that that most of the Germans are older in Valle Gran Rey there is a bit of a language barrier. There’s an old saying that Germans are hard on the outside and soft in the middle. They just take a little more time and effort to get to know.

After 12 nights on the island of Gomera I ferried over to La Palma. Also known as Isla Bonita. For me the first three days were not so bonita.

You would think stepping off the ferry onto La Palma might be a lot of fun considering I was arriving at the beginning of the busiest weekend of Carnival. I suppose had I been up for a raucous drunken couple of all nighters I’d be psyched but really I don’t much care for crowds and drunks. True, Carnival is more than that but I needed to get sorted first.

Well, everything was booked on the island and accommodation cost were grossly inflated. I think I found the last available rental car and figured if I got far enough away from the main city of Santa Cruz I find some kind of reasonable accommodation. Not so.

Instead, I found a good spot to park the car in Port Naos for the night and slept in my compact rental vehicle. To top it off an extreme wind storm full of African dust blew in and settled over the island with a thick haze. La Calima as they call it.

By time my second night on the island rolled around I found an overpriced apartment available due to a cancellation because the airport was closed. In my overtired stressed state I took the room but immediately after paying I noticed it had a strong strange odor. No more than 10 minutes had passed when I asked for a refund. The owner was not sympathetic at all and refused my request. He could care less. He had my money. It was my own damn fault for taking the room in the first place and not being more careful. Bone head decisions are a risk when overtired and not thinking clearly.

However, the room was clean. I did get a shower and some sleep with the windows and door open which helped. I made the most of it. For the third night it was back in the car at Port Naos.

My third night on the Island was the end of the biggest Carnival weekend so I got on the net and booked out my remaining nights in the Canary Islands. Once sorted I focused on the hiking and things have gotten better since.

Two nights in a pension located in Los Canrios where I day hiked moonscape down to Faro de Fuencaliente with a side trip up Volcan Teneguia. From there it was on to Mazo where I booked into an apartment for 4 nights with a grand view for forty euro a night.

The two days I’ve spent hiking in Parque Nacional de la Caldera Taburiente have been top notch with clear skies and splendid views. The African dust and haze had left for the time being. Both days were spent hiking along the rim of the roof of the Island. The loop I did over Pico Bejando was absolutely serene.

La Palma is not a flat island at all and is entirely volcanic so every hike is either up, down, or both. With tired legs I was content simply walking around the old colonial city of Santa Cruz, the main city, today. I found it curiously interesting the 1:1 scale Santa Maria replica turned maritime museum. Columbus was a gutsy guy. The Santa Maria was not that big! And, the Nina and Pinta were smaller.

Of course I’ve worked in a little beach time. I quite fancy Tazacorte. It’s a seaside tourist village of sorts where you can get in a cool swim off a black sand beach and follow it up with a nice Menu Del Dia fish dinner. A beer, bread, fish, salad, potatoes with mojo, and a coffee for 10 euros. The Canary Islands are known for their mojo sauce. One is red and one is green. I have no idea what’s in it but it’s so good! It appears to be a mix of olive oil, peppers and spices of some sort and is made to put mainly on potatoes but bread as well.

In a couple of days I’ll fly back to Tenerife for a short bit to wrap up this trip.

Canary Islands

I felt pretty good about the trip from Dallas to Madrid. The flight was super easy. I had a window seat aboard the Boeing 787 Dreamliner with the middle being empty. The guy on the aisle was from Denver, probably in his 40’s, and very sociable. In the summer he runs a company that does craft beer oriented tours through Italy. On this trip he was on his way to Madrid to spend a couple of weeks with his brother who now resides in the Spanish city.

I changed planes in Madrid with a 2 ½ hour layover. All three connections were smooth and on schedule but by time all the luggage was unloaded in Tenerife my pack was nowhere to be found. All I had on me was a small day pack with a mini laptop and a few inconsequential items.

I filed a lost luggage claim and hopped a bus to Puerto de la Cruz. Upon arrival I quite easily and intuitively found my hotel, checked in, and went for a walk.

Peurto de la Cruz is not a bad place and quite scenic but super touristy. It’s a hot spot for old Europeans to escape the gray and gloom of a the North European winter. The crowd is mostly made up of Germans and Brits along with some French, Dutch, and misc. There are virtually no Americans whatsoever. I thought I noticed one American couple in a restaurant as they were very intent on tipping the waiter. There's a distinctly noticeable lack of younger folk. The crowd reminded of some seaside places you find in South Florida.

The hotel in which I was staying had a wonderful rooftop but aside of that fell a bit short of my low expectations. It was old and of concrete construction which is very common throughout southern Europe. The downside is that concrete buildings, if not designed and configured right, do a wonderful job echoing sound as it bounces off marble or tile flooring. I was on the top floor, in the back, away from the elevator, which wasn’t bad but I could still hear the smoker with a morning hack down the hall. Fortunately the property was non smoking. I was booked in for 4 nights.

Trips to and from the airport, a call back to American Airlines in the USA, a lot of wandering around, a couple of runs and one night of a bit too much to drink. It seemed like a long few days before four nights had passed. Still no pack. At that point I assumed it was gone and had spun into an apathetic travel funk. I pondered the meaning of my existence in the real world and that of the persona “World Traveler and Thinker”. I felt like going home. Weren’t there more constructive things I could be doing? In the meantime I had bought some clothes, a jacket, and misc necessities. On the flip side I felt inspired by how little I could get by on. I decided to wait one more day before letting go of the pack for good and hopping a ferry to another Island.

As luck would have it my pack arrived on day five. On day six I bid farewell to the moderately dumpy hotel in which I had grown to like. I hopped one bus back to the airport for my bag then another to Los Cristianos for a ferry to La Gomera. When I retrieved my pack I stuffed it with the new replacement clothing and necessities I had recently bought which made for a jammed full mess of burden to shoulder.

It’s only an hour ferry ride to the Island of La Gomera. As with all of the Canary Islands it’s a chunk of volcanic made land mass. The island is riddled with trails leftover from hundreds of years donkey trials and foot paths made to get from one place to another. On La Gomera many of the trails have been improved to attract hikers for tourism so you can literally hike all over the Island. One side of the Island is lush and green while the other sided is arid and dry. The top hosts a cloud forest which remains pleasant and cool year round. The year round weather is mostly spring like with little variation.

I arrived in La Gomera in the port of San Sebastian which was Christopher Columbus’s last stop before heading over to the new world. I checked into a cheap traditional Spanish Pension and ordered a local dish of tuna in some sort of sauce with potatoes. I had no sooner received my food and started to eat when some overly friendly guy approached me from a side door talking fast in Spanish and asking me questions. “Was I German? Was I Swiss?” I replied I was Texan and he expressed an over the top positive reaction and shook my hand vigorously. Right at that point a young British girl stepped in with a guitar in her hand dressed like a hippy gypsy and asked me where she can find a cash machine. She then engaged a conversation. By this time I was getting a little irritated as I had barely started my dinner. We chatted a short bit then she walked off. My immediate reaction at that moment was, “Oh shit, where’s my day pack!”. Fortunately it was still with me.

Maybe the guy was a local who was a little tipsy and overly friendly while the girl was simply a girl looking for a cash machine but I kind of doubt it. I was in an area where there were plenty of cash machines. You would be have to be blind not to find one. Regardless, this is how people get ripped off. The ‘ol distraction routine. If anyone ever approaches you out of the blue and is overly friendly the first reaction should be to guard your stuff and hold on to the money belt. For me my pack was in a good spot and the three girls working the restaurant seemed pretty sharp and were to my back so they were probably watching what was going on. There was likely one or two others involved that were no where to be seen. Hit up a couple of tourist then hop the next ferry off the island. The person holding the bag turns out to have never been seen at all. So, catch the two doing the distracting and you find nothing. I’ll take it as a wake up call. It can all happen so fast and the key is to catch you off guard.

I stayed three nights in San Sebastian and spent my first couple of days hiking. I wanted to shake the funk I seemed to be in. Burned out from work, jet lag, and a general feeling of out of sorts combined with lost pack made for an unequable start to the journey.

After 3 nights in San Sebastian I debated what to do but decided to rent a car for a week. The Island is quite small and has a good bus system but the bus doesn’t go everywhere and the schedule is limited. At 22 euros a day fully insured it took no longer than about 3 minutes to rent a car. One piece of paper and one signature. When in Europe or thereabouts I suggest renting the cheapest standard shift Fiat you can. For whatever reason I find them to be very fun to drive and perfectly suited for narrow streets and easy parking.

So, I drove around the Island passing through villages while seeking a desired vibe. The arid beach side village of Valle Gran Rey appealed to me but felt a little hunkered down and congested. The village of La Calera that sits above looked more like what I was looking for.

Valle Gran Rey is very popular with Germans and a few hippies. This is considered high season for the area so I had to walk around and inquire a bit before I located an option but I found just what I had in mind. It’s an apartment situated in the old town of La Calera. La Calera is on the side of a mountain so my place has a marvelous view of the sea. For me it’s perfect so I booked in for a week.

I hike and walk all day, take a swim in the sea in the evening and drink a beer while a crowd gathers to listen to old hippies play drums on the beach as the sun sets. Things have fallen into place nicely for the moment and I feel like my old traveling self. However, I do feel a little older and that my relationship with travel has changed a bit. It makes me question my approach and how it fits in with my current life stage.