La Gomera

Anita and I spent a week of November on the Canary Island of La Gomera. A very atypical style of vacation for us, comprised mostly of chilling at the pool, slurping cocktails.

Harbor of Los Christianos on Tenerife.

The Fred Olson express ferry about to pick us up. The world's first trimaran ferry and likely the most elegant and fastest ship I've ever been on.

Breakfast on the Hotel terrace.

One of our pools. The Hotel Jardín Tecina is really nice ;-)

Sight seeing at San Sebastián de La Gomera, the tiny capital of the island.

Hiking up to the Ermita de Nuestra Señora de las Nieves, a sixteenth century hermitage with beautiful vistas over the island.

Dinner at a restaurant built into a cave at Playa de Santiago, directly at the harbor. Historically the cave was used to store and clean fish - and that's what we had for dinner ;-)

The beach club belonging to our hotel.

An abandoned fish factory in one of the many canyons cutting through the island. The island is of volcanic origin and nearly perfectly circular in shape. Erosion has produced an incredibly steep and varied topology.

Pilot wales.

More pilot wales. Anita wanted to keep one of the babies.

Sangria on the roof. We also got to jump into the ocean and barbecue on deck. Don't be mistaken by the seemingly calm sea. Four people on the boat threw up and balancing around on deck required quite a bit of dexterity on the bobbing boat.

Garajonay National Park, the largest park on the Northern slopes of the island. The trade winds create a very special climate here, giving birth to a subtropical forest shrouded in a perpetual mist on an otherwise desert like island. It feeds the only significant creek and is vital for the irrigation systems further down.

Hermigua and Santa Catalina on the Northern shore.

Did I mention we were lazy? We still hiked through the entire national park in a day for ~35km and +-1200m elevation. Anita on the trail after leaving the forest and following the irrigation pipes towards the village of El Cedro.

Cool goat.

View from our room.

Anita overlooking the cult mountain of La Fortaleza.

Nice vistas from the westernmost point of the island.

Double-selfie.

A place in the shade just above an 800m near vertical drop to the ocean.

The Chorros de Epina enchanted spring. According to legend you need to drink from the fountains in just the right sequence and you'll get love and happiness in your life. Mess it up and you'll be turned into a witch or warlock. This is complicated by the fact that the sequence is different for men and women.

Anita tempting fate. Empirical evidence since the vacation indicates we got the sequence right ;-)

Chocolate fountain as one of the many dessert offerings. All you can eat dinners every day are dangerous...

This was standard fare for our breakfast (!) buffet.

GPS track of our explorations.