14th January 2017 Home today, not much to say. One more tasty breakfast at Casa los Herreras, one more time we turned the bread, cheese and ham into a sandwich for our lunch (much easier than faffing with local supermarkets, our breakfasts were so large we could always use half of it as our hiking » » »
Archive for January, 2017
20 January 2017
On the edge of the land
13th January 2017 Last hike on La Gomera! And the weather, which has been so strange and variably wonderful throughout the week, has reset back to day one: clear blue skies overhead, the odd poofy cloud, but a haze upon the sea that means Tenerife and 4km high El Teide isn’t even visible a few » » »
20 January 2017
These mist covered mountains
12 January 2017 It rained in the night. This morning we see a new side of La Gomera’s weather – it’s overcast, with plenty of mist and the occasional drizzle of rain. It’s even cloudy over the south western Valle Gran Rey, which is where we had settled on for today’s hike. We started up » » »
20 January 2017
The owl of Chipude
11 January 2017 Yesterday I really buggered up my knee on the downhill slog, so the plan today was to explore by car and maybe find a short and easy walk along the way to keep us exercised. Hmm… four hours is I suppose not very short, but since it only climbed 450m it certainly » » »
20 January 2017
Downhill all the way
10 January 2017 I enjoy trying to fathom out the history of an area from clues around me. The recent history of La Gomera seems to be depopulation and changing agriculture, from subsistence to cash crops. We’ve passed loads of high mountainous terraces on our walks, tiny slivers of ground, some about the size of » » »
20 January 2017
Gorge and the dragon
9 January 2017 Our room at Casa los Herrera is pretty good. The hotel is an old restored building opposite the little church in what perhaps passes as the centre of Hermigua, which is more like a set of contiguous hamlets winding down the valley bottom than a proper town. The room is handsome with » » »
19 January 2017
Rocks and prickly pear
8 January 2017 Our first hike on La Gomera. We picked one that started nearby (a mere 20 minutes twisty turning drive up mountain roads) and concentrated around an area called Los Roques. It was a stunning walk, taking in ancient laurisilva forests with lichen and moss trailing from the branches, huge vistas from the » » »
19 January 2017
La Gomera via Tenerife
7 January 2017 Wow. I have never seen such a GREEN hire car! We had four hours to kill between the airport and the ferry, so there was time to drive to the top of Tenerife and back again. The top of the island is the volcano El Teide (which I have really struggled all » » »