La Gomera

[Mac]

I enjoyed Tenerife, perhaps more than expected, because of the
contrast with dark, cold Scotland, because we found some interesting
accommodation, and because we (not always successfull) tried to avoid
the tourist traps.

But La Gomera is something else. I could winter here. Tourism,
although now the largest industry, arrived after the worst excesses of
high-rise Tenerife, and the Island Council seems to be keeping the
infrastructure high quality and low-key.

High cliffs split by deep ravines (barrancos) prevent any coastal
routes, so twisting mountain roads reach the villages in loops and
dead ends, testament to the Spanish road-buildind skills which only
reached here in the middle of the twentieth century. It is a
continent in micro-miniature: north and south, east and west, high
and low, all have their startlingly different landscapes, climate and
vegetation. Today we travelled from dry baked scrub through palms and
planted pines to dense damp tangled subtropical evergreen forest in
just a few kilometers.

We are in Alajeró, a growing village scattered around the slopes of a
deep barranco high above laid-back Playa de Santiago, in the sunnier,
drier south, but at 3000 feet cool enough as evening draws in, Montaña
de Calvario and its tiny hermitage silhouetted sharply against the
purple haze of the curved Atlantic horizon. (And inspiring purple
prose, as you can see. It's just so beautiful.)

Returning to earth, it's almagrote and conejo en salsa with papas
arrugadas and mojo in the bar down the road (see! It's not Spain!)
while watching Real Madrid beat Marseille 3-1, two cheeky goals from
sublime and arrogant Cristiano Ronaldo.

Any today a steep tortuous drive down to the coast through overhanging
banana groves to La Rajita, a former tuna canning factory and company
village, buildings deserted and crumbling, machinery rusted, reminding
me of abandoned whaling stations in South Georgia many years ago.
Mysteriously, the last few kilometers of road is wide and new,
chiselled from from the cliffs and scattered with fallen rocks. I
think a new industry may be coming to this tiny cove.

Drumming practice in the Casa Cultural tonight. Drumming is big round
here.

Bastante ahora. Más sobre La Gomera en la próxima.

Mac