2018-10-28 Madrid and the Canary Islands: November 5 – La Gomera, The Green Pearl of the Canaries

We had a relatively early pick up this morning for our 4-wheel drive tour of the nearby island of La Gomera. Early enough that we caught the sunrise.

There were nine jeeps (and other vehicles) in our caravan. The caravan then headed off to the car ferry...

View of Lanzarote from the Ferry

for a 45 minute cruise to San Sebastian, main port in La Gomera.

We had quite a caravan of jeeps and occasionally we could see a line of the as we went around the curves in the mountains.

We were divided into groups by language and each vehicle had a guide that spoke the group’s language. Unfortunately the jeeps held six each, and we were the two left over in the English group. So we ended up in a group from Belgium and they, and the guide, spoke Flemish. And unfortunately the guide’s English wasn’t very good. He rarely thought to try to give answers in English so we missed a lot, even though we kept reminding him. Fortunately one of the women spoke pretty good English and she did a lot of translating for us. And also, at each of the key stops we would all assemble by language and the main English speaking guide would explain whatever we needed to know about that stop.

Another irritant was the wide rim around the jeep top that interfered with viewing. The tops would come off, but were not taken off because once in the mountains it was quite cold.

Our first stop was up a windy road to a lookout over San Sebastian.

All of the Canary Islands are volcanic but this one, while the third youngest, is also the only island whose volcanos are now extinct. The last eruption was over 3 million years ago. The island has very extreme landscape with deeply eroded hillsides and deep ravines.

The island is very mountainous so in order to farm they have had to build terraces into the sides of the mountains.

We then headed off across to the north part of the island where we stopped at Santa Catalina They grow and export huge amounts of bananas from the island.

We ended up getting a detailed tutorial on banana cultivation. The "blossom" is pretty big on the banana tree.

where we learned that the banana's originally grow down...

and then gradually curl up.

When they decide that the stalk of bananas is big enough they cut off the blossom at the end of the stalk.

Our lunch stop restaurant had great views down into a valley as well as across the water to Tenerife, where we could easily see Mt. Teide.

Just after we finished eating they gave a demonstration of Silbo Gomera, the whistling language unique to La Gomera. The origins of the language are not known but it was developed to allow communication across the vast valleys of the mountains. They said that a message can go all the way around the island in 8 minutes.

The language was in danger of going extinct but an effort by local authorities has brought it back. It is now a required language taught to all school children on the island. It has also be declared a Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity by UNESCO.

To prove that they whistles actually were a language they took three different articles from three different people (a 50€ note, a scarf and sun glasses) and gave them to another person in the room. Then one whistler provided a description (via the whistling) to another person who found the articles and then returned them to the rightful owners. It was a great demonstration.

The language is phonetic in nature and basically mimics the sound of the spoken language. So they can communicate in any language. At the end of the demonstration they said good bye in about 8 different languages. And you could actually understand the “words” being whistled.

The drive then took us to the Mirado de Abrante – a restaurant with a glass floored wing that stretched out over the ravine. Impressive views. In the top picture you can barely see the restaurant sticking out over the ravine (left side of picture).

We then headed into the national park, Garajonay. The main feature of the park is the humid, sub-tropical forest in the upper reaches of the park. The forest is a remnant of the vast laurel forests that covered much of Southern Europe over 3 million years ago. The tiny part of the forest path that we walked was cool and green and misty and beautiful.

A major feature of out stop was Laguna Grande, a large clearing in the forest that is a park. However, in heavy rains if fills with water (hence the name Large Lagoon) that then seeps down through the rocks into aquifers.

On the way back to town we stopped for views of Roque de Agando, one of many volcanic plugs scattered throughout the island.