Our second day on La Gomera started like anyone could ever wish.
It was great weather and we woke up to the noise of seagulls flying over La Calera, one of the few villages situated in Valle Gran Rey. After refilling our water supplies and checking out from our hotel room we took the backpacks and started our adventure…
While still in the valley we came by the beach from yesterday but also various banana plantations. We later found out, La Gomera has lots of them as many of its farmers are organized in agricultural cooperatives in order to fulfill larger demands by customers from mainland Spain. After walking a couple of minutes on the main streets my hiking navigation system Komoot told us:
Turn left in 100 m. I was a little bit shocked as I did not expect the app to work like an actual navigation system and kind of felt bad for not using a map like our parents would have probably done when they were our age.
I did not get to think a lot about the astounding fact that my generation uses an application for almost everything as our path suddenly went upwards.
I already knew what that meant because I checked out our first route the day before. We were right at the beginning of a 1000m climb to reach the top of the mountain you can see on the right hand side of the image showing the plantation below.
You can probably imagine that climbing the mountains on the first day of our tour was not the most pleasent thing to do. Even during February it can get freaking hot in the sun and a sunburn is very likely that close to the equator. Luckily we put on enough sun screen before we started the hike and reached the top of the mountain range short after noon.
Finally on top we enjoyed our first gorgeous view over Valle Gran Rey.
As the path in front of us flattened we walked more quickly through a field of yellow flowers. Old stone formations on the side of the trail indicated the existence of a former village where we now walked through pure wilderness.
Besides the sporadic sounds of animals from far away we only heard our footsteps in the dirt. There was no wind at all.
As soon as we reached a shady place we decided to take a break and take of our rucksacks. Although they were not as heavy as on previous thru-hiking tours it was a relieving experience. Our lunch consisted of a couple of fruits from the island, a few slices of bread and a traditional Spanish fuet sausage. As our backpacks only held 38 l in volume and we did not purchase special trekking food for our trip on the small island we were forced to refill our supplies daily. This had two advantages:
- We carried not more than 12 kg of weight with us throughout a relatively mountainous tour.
- We could alter our diet and purchase fresh food every day.
You know may now say what kind of argument is that?
Well, if you have ever hiked more than three days through total wilderness just eating trekking food like Travellunch or Trek’n’Eat you know what a pleasure fresh fruits and vegetables can be.
As the day came to an end we reached the world heritage laurel forest of La Gomera. Close to the national park we got to spend a night at one of the most prestigious stays for isiders – Jardin las Hayas. Efigenia, the owner lives there since ages and her place has been described on various travel blogs as one of the oldest but nicest of the whole island. She offers relatively affordable accomodation but not only that! Her restaurant is famous for making the best vegetarian dishes of La Gomera. All ingredients of her well-known vegetable soup are grown in her backyard. Although hiking all day long, we had difficulties finishing her generous dinner. We went to bed tired but happy that we managed to finish day one without any injuries or accidents already looking forward to Efigenias breakfast in the next morning.
Did you enjoy reading about the first part of our La Gomera hiking trip?
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Stay tuned. This series is to be continued.
A special thanks goes out to Anselm for taking some of these amazing pictures.
