La Isla Bonita

No wonder La Palma is called La Isla Bonita – The Beautiful Island. Palm trees, banana plantations, gigantic ferns, dragon trees, pine woods, vineyards and laurius trees all conspired to beautifully disguise this reversed Xmas tree shaped volcanic island. The gaily coloured houses resemble Christmas decorations. To complete the picture, the star decoration would be the beautiful salinas at the southern extreme of the island.

Although sunny throughout the year and abundant in sea life, La Isla Bonita is not exactly the ideal place for sun seekers. This is mainly because it lacks the much sought after golden sandy beaches. These are replaced by black volcanic sand beaches. This is not a bad thing as the island attracts outdoors enthusiasts instead – less numerous than the sun seekers.

During our friends’ one week visit we took full advantage of their company and of the hired car to explore the inland’s beauty. 

 

 

 

The National Park La Caldera de Taburiente, one of the island’s main attractions, is impressive. The La Caldera crater, displaying an incredibly abrupt mountainous landscape, has a well cared for network of footpaths, with various levels of difficulty. These will always meander amongst some sort of green oasis and lead to breathtaking vista points. 

The island’s skyline is topped by Roque de los Muchachos that boldly rises to 2,442 meters above sea level from its base 4,000 meters below sea level. The ‘volcanists’ are being kept on their toes with the last eruption (dating 1971) still in living memory…

According to experts, it is only a matter of time before the entire western part of the island detaches itself from the rest and slides catastrophically into the Atlantic! It is true that there is a feeling of precariousness as one explores the island but still hard to imagine such natural disaster…

The main part of the National Park is the head of the Barranco (ravine) de Las Angustias, a semi-circular ravine 8 km in diameter and 2,000 meters from top to bottom; this resembles a gigantic volcanic crater (‘caldera’). The top is punctuated by fascinating crests (‘roques’), the result of uneven erosion of the diverse volcanic materials. 

We camped overnight in the ravine surrounded by the ‘roques’ and admired the extraordinary quality of the pollution free skies. It was a challenge to reach the deserted campsite. Sorin drove for about 15 km on a very narrow single lane twisted road along the deep ravine to reach a tiny parking; luckily there was one parking spot available. We left the car there and we walked for over 5 km to reach a small and empty campsite by a river. Since we arrived there without pre-authorisation (from the Park authorities) we were asked to obtain it online there and then.

We had the sweetest sleep in a long time under the starry skies, lullabied by the meandering river. Paradise! The next day Sorin told me that he fell asleep worrying that the huge rock behind the tent may collapse on us overnight…I could only feel grateful that he had not shared that thought with me. Saved me from a sleepless night!

The following day we walked on a river bed and amongst daunting rocks to reach the picturesque Cascada de Colores. Water is scarce throughput the island and this is not really a cascade, but a water stream along a rocky wall containing dissolved ferrous salts; these turn the water course a ruddy orange colour. 

 

Our friends and their 1.5 year old daughter, Luna, were a delightful company; well for most of the time as Luna did not always agree with our long drives and late evenings. 

We sealed the end of their vacation with a bonito (small tuna) feast and baked bananas for desert. Surely the local rum was not missing, which meant that I fell asleep on their couch after the second glass of Cuba Libre! Thank you for the lovely time, dear friends!

The universe must have taken offence on them leaving the island so soon, as since Saturday (when they flew back to England), the skies opened throwing on us torrential rain, howling winds and an upset and hungry ocean that completely swallowed the local beach (waves of between 6 and 9 meters).

We are now actively waiting (lots of prep work!) for things to settle to untie the lines, hoist the sails and head south west with the Trade Winds across the pond, to cover a distance of about 4,800 km.