Only those who are capable of avoiding the vertigo will be able to lean out of the window while the bus ascends through broken places, regaling the eye with a whole parade of ravines and cliffs, rocks and throats, steep slopes that plunge into valleys where banana trees grow. We are in La Gomera, that small and round Canary Island that appears on the map, bordered against Tenerife, and somewhat protected from the open sea by the back of El Hierro.
Here, in the second younger sister of the archipelago, the orography not only gives meaning to the customs but also to the culture of the place. Even character: understanding La Gomera's idiosyncrasy requires knowing the sentence of isolation to which its landscape condemns it. This strange and alien territory, sometimes hostile, is made for those who are capable of shivering with the wind beating against the peaks or with that enraged ocean that attracts whales and dolphins a few meters from the coast.
One fine day, Christopher Columbus arrived at La Gomera before crossing the Atlantic. He did it bordering Tenerife and leaving behind, majestically, the silhouette of Teide. And so this tiny island became the last stopover towards one of the great milestones in human history: it is here that the admiral stocked up on the water with which, months later, America would be baptized.
Also in La Gomera, according to gossip, the discoverer had a passionate encounter with Beatriz de Bobadilla, to whom historical gossip also attributes love affairs with King Ferdinand the Catholic. Be that as it may, the Colombian trail can be followed in the capital, San Sebastián, where we will find a historic center with a colonial flavor and discreet houses that climb the mountain.
This peaceful town constitutes the main urban nucleus, but not the only one. Hidden in the folds of the ravines, the island surprises with delicious populations. Agulo, in the north, is perhaps the most beautiful, with its picturesque popular architecture and its position on a rocky amphitheater through which waterfalls flow. And in the extreme south, Alajeró stands out, clinging to a hillside, and Playa de Santiago, with a seductive marine air.
Beyond the villages, it will be better to discover the nature that has forged the personality of this winterless territory, which, by the way, the British newspaper The Times chose last year as one of the 15 best destinations in the world to visit in the cold months. A personality to whom we owe a unique communication system in the world: that of the Gomeran whistle, declared an intangible cultural heritage of humanity.
This language based on modulated whistles, today threatened by technology, was born from the art of necessity, when life on this island was nothing more than an isolated passage between dozens of ravines: long distances were covered with the whistle and messages were exchanged. , messages, messages of love... Today, such is its value (and its danger of extinction) that it is even taught in schools as a school subject.
It is therefore time to explore the great landmark of La Gomera: the Garajonay National Park, which occupies ten percent of the island's surface. An impressive laurel reserve, the largest known, dating from the Tertiary era. Yes, the one about the Earth quake and the extinction of the dinosaurs. The one that covered the solitary places of southern Europe and north Africa with a dense jungle.
Entering this park is discovering what life would be like 20 million years ago. Mosses, lichens, ferns, heather, hollyhocks, vines... and up to forty plant species carpet the bottoms of a forest covered in mist, in which the rain occurs horizontally: the trees, as if their branches were sponges, retain the water transported by clouds, propitiating steam curtains.
Garajonay is also a love story. The one that tells the legend that is associated with his name. A kind of Romeo and Juliet in a Guanche version, in which Gara and Jonay star in a dramatic story. She was a princess from La Gomera; he, a prince of Tenerife. But their respective families were opposed to their romance. Not content with this circumstance, they flee to the highest point of this forest to melt into an eternal embrace piercing their hearts with a cedar rod.
There are many walks that can be done in this park, all of them lasting a few hours: linear and circular, short and long, simple and demanding. But the most coveted is the ascent to Alto de Garajonay, the highest spot, where the young aborigines chose to die of love.
More modest, but no less rich, is the Majona Natural Park, to the northeast, with its beautiful tabaibas forest, and the Benchijigua Nature Reserve, in the interior, with a photogenic giant, Roque de Agando, which only the most daring dare to climb. And for those who do not want to exercise their legs, but do want to enjoy the views, there is the spectacular viewpoint of Abrante. A sort of glazed corridor from which an incomparable panoramic view is obtained, suspended in the void.
With so much beauty on the retina, the stomach will already be ready to discover the gastronomy of La Gomera, which hides differential nuances compared to the rest of the Canary Islands. A racial cuisine that is famous for the almogrote, a paste made with hard cheese, garlic, oil, tomato and paprika, all patiently pounded. Also for its variety of fish (a typical dish is the gomeran crop, with tuna guts) and for its cheeses, smoked with heather and tabaibas. Not to mention its heroic wines, adapted to the steep terrain: its vineyards, at 500 meters above sea level, are a hymn to popular engineering.
