Well this was out of the blue! I make it sound as if Julia and I were magically whisked away from wintery Stoke to the idyllic island of La Gomera. That wasn’t quite how it happened, but from first considering the idea to climbing onto the ‘plane was a mere ten days: Julia noticed an article in The Times about Sherpa Expeditions’ self-guided walking holidays; on the same day, we filled in an online expression of interest and booked the flights; there followed two days of telephone liaison with Trina in Sherpa’s Wandsworth offices; and that was that!
So, during the early hours of Wednesday, 3rd February, 2016, we were making our half-awake, dreary way through the rain to Manchester Airport. But from there, the journey unfolded without a hitch: flight to Tenerife, minibus to the port at Los Christianos, and finally ferry to La Gomera’s main town, San Sebastián.
We were staying near the port at the Hotel Torre del Conde, and so we walked. The hotel is an unprepossessing box, but our room looked over the park with its torre.
After a restless siesta, we mooched around the town primarily scouting for a place to have an evening meal. But along the way, we visited the Torre del Conde and its park, la Iglesia de La Asunción, La Ermita de San Sebastián, and Casa del Colón (which was shut). In this old, colonial part of town we stumbled upon Restaurante Breñusca serving wonderful cake (blueberry cheesecake, and chocolate) with coffee. The lady of the house showed us the fresh fish available for consumption that evening and…..mission accomplished!
With a plan for the evening, we were both looking forward to a relaxing hot bath to wash away the grime of travel. But the water pressure was poor, and the run off from the hot tap before warm water appeared was many minutes. This seemed to go against the island’s well publicised policy of taking great care of their wet stuff! We settled for showers.
In any event, we felt reasonably clean when we returned to Breñusca . We ate very well in the simple, rustic room.
The starter, rancho canario (a traditional Canarian broth with noodles, chick peas, tomatoes and potatoes), had we but known it, was sufficient for our needs. This was followed by dorada (bream) and red mullet fillets. Naturally, we passed on dessert
We were both full of a cold, and cursed our luck that we had gone through the winter without any illness, until we came away on a break. So we were relatively early to bed – we had a big day ahead.
Day 1, Thursday, 04.02.2016. Circular walk from Hermigua (“1” on the map) to El Cedro
Day 2, Friday, 05.02,2016. Rest day in Hermigua (“1”)
Day 3, Saturday, 06.02.2016. Agulo (“3”) to Vallehemoso (“3”)
Day 4, Sunday, 07.02.2016. Los Loros (“4”) to Chipude (“4”)
Day 5, Monday, 08.02.2016. Chipude (“4) to Imada (“5”)
Day 6, Tuesday, 09.02.2016. Imada (“5”) to Playa Santiago (“6”)