Stephan Paukner :: syslog

This day we had our visit to Tenerife’s western neighbor island, La Gomera. When we were picked up at 7.55, we were the first ones in the bus. We were brought to the ferry in Los Cristianos, where we cast off at 9.30. Reaching La Gomera about one hour later, the ferry docked in San Sebastian, where another bus was already awaiting us.

La Gomera is still a pristine island. The road that lead us through the country was only a few years old; there was none before. The higher our tour took us, the colder it got. Gitti warned us to wear warm clothes, but we, being stupid tourists, simply forgot about that and went in shorts and sandales. But it wasn’t too hard to bear the temperature when we watched La Gomera’s fascinating nature. The climate literally changed within only a few kilometers of drive, due to the mountainous landscape that only allowed dedicated paths for the clouds to go. We stopped at the famous La Roque de Agando that was partly shrouded by quickly wandering clouds. Pines with long needles were fishing the moisture out of the air.

We had another stop at the Laguna Grande, where we took a short walk through the misty wood. Due to the permanent presence of clouds the trunks and branches of the trees were covered with moss. Later we visited a botanic garden, and after that we stopped at a restaurant where we had lunch. After the meal we were presented the local whistle language, but as usual at such presentations with tourists as target audience, one cannot be sure about the originality.

Before we returned to the harbor, we had a stop at a banana plantation. I was fascinated, as I never had seen such trees before. Back at the harbor we were impressed by the crystal clear water, where lots of fishes were cavorting in the blue sea. On the ferry back to Tenerife we had some coffee indoors.

In the evening we had dinner at the restaurant La Brasserie that had a good-looking appearance, but it turned out that the waiters were rather unobservant, mixed up the checks, and also charged drinks to our account that we didn’t order.