La Gomera is the second smallest of the Canary Islands and the closest neighbour to Teneriffe. It covers an area of just 378 square kilometres and rises to 1478m above sea level at the peak of Garojonay.
The island is not as popular with tourists as its near neighbour and as such, is a great place to go hiking.
We arrived there late in the evening via a flight to Tenerife and a subsequent ferry ride to La Gomera – our flight had suffered a delay! Not worry though, our hosts were ready and greeted us with enthusiasm.
Most of the walks were long and hot, but fortunately not too many ascents! Taxis would drop us off and we’d spend most of the day slowly descending to our next destination. Weather was as hot as an English summer most of the time and the sea temp was ‘cool’.
Each day, wherever we walked we could see Mount Teide hovering on the horizon (Tenerife)… this was our final destination after we were ferried back to that island and found our accommodation high up in the lava fields next to the extinct volcano!
The islands economy is mostly down to agriculture and tourism so the pace of life is slow and quiet. There’s not much traffic so even when the route took us down the winding mountain roads the vibe was ‘chilled’.
