Island-Hopping: La Gomera Part 2

First Impressions

After everyone had arrived and we were all in the bus, the driver started our tour around the island. As I had understood in the tourist agency, we would really make a tour around the whole island, stopping at the most interesting and most beautiful parts to take pictures and enjoy the atmosphere. The guide started to talk in different languages about a lot of things - I tried to pay attention but after a while it was just too much information in too many different languages. I concentrated on enjoying the view as we were starting to get up into the mountains, and I also took some pictures out of the window of the bus - even if they weren't as good as normal ones I didn't have a choice as I had no idea when we would stop for the first time. 

First stop - artichokes??

The first stop wasn't far away, after about 25 or 30 minutes the guide told us that we would make a short photo-stop - just ten minutes in order to enjoy the landscape and take some pictures in order to show them friends and family. It was an incredible view from up there to the sea; as the island La Gomera wasn't that large one could see almost half of the place from up there and it was amazing. We took some pictures and selfies and the guide told us something about a particular plant that was growing at the walls - he called it artichoke plant. My Vietnamese friend and I were confused, we had never seen artichokes growing, but we were sure that it wasn't at walls somewhere in the nowhere. Back in the bus we asked Google and found out that it was only a name for plants growing like that, not the plant of the vegetable called artichokes. A bit more intelligent now, we continued our way and the guide told us that it would take 20 minutes until the next photo stop and about 1,5 hours to a larger stop in the famous laurel forest. I couldn't keep all the names of the places and important things in my mind because I was simply too tired, so please excuse my vague description of what we were visiting. 

Second stop - quite a large rock

After 20 minutes we arrived at our second stop which was an incredible large rock next to the highway. At the important places they had already considered the tourists while they were building the roads through the mountains - there were always some parking spots next to the highway to stop and take pictures. Unfortunately, it was Saturday and we weren't the only ones there, so the bus didn't find a space to stop - but as we were in Spain also, he just stopped at the road and we had 15 minutes to explore the place before we would continue to our first large destination. We crossed the road and took some pictures - one person from our bus who was travelling without any friends and was the only other German asked us if he could take a picture with the two of us. He seemed to be quite nice, but we didn't want to find friends, we wanted to explore that island, so we just said thank you and continued to the panorama platform, because we didn't have a lot of time left. The view was still amazing and we took a lot of pictures before we finally had to return to the bus. I was happy that our group was small, so the possibility that someone came too late wasn't too high and our schedule didn't suffer that much. For the moment we were still on time and nobody was annoyed or anything. With a larger group that would have been different I guessed, as I had already experienced in France when we did the tour through the Normandy. 

Large Break in the Laurel Forest National Park

When everyone was back in the bus we already continued our trip to the first large stop - the Laurel Forest National Park. Those Laurel Forests were something special, only existing on Tenerife, La Gomera (the biggest one) and in California. With my Dad I had already visited the Anaga mountains in Tenerife where you can also find that kind of tree, but as I had heard the National Park in La Gomera was even larger and more interesting, so I was looking forward to that stop. But as the guide told us, we had to get into the mountains a bit more and it would take us one more hour until we would arrive there. So my friend and I had some cookies and relaxed while we were looking out of the window and enjoying the sunshine and the nature passing by. Agains my expectations it had become really hot and I regretted a bit that I had chosen such warm clothes. But the bus was climatized, so it wasn't too bad, and in the evening it might become cold, because we would come back around 9 or 10 pm when the sun had already set and it would be dark. 

After many much too small streets in the mountains and many metres height we finally arrived at the Laurel Forest National Park, right at the visitor's centre. The guide gave us some instructions and told us when we had to be back at the bus, and then we walked down to the main part of the centre together. It was a large area with picnic and barbecue places like a freetime area, and then there was a small café and a visitor centre with a lot of interactive information about the Laurel Forests. The guide had also told us that we would find two or three routes to hike a bit and enjoy the atmosphere amongst the special trees. After having been to the toilet, my Vietnamese friend and I decided to try one of the hiking paths to see something of the beautiful nature. We started to walk down the path, but after a short while it became too hot and too exhausting, so we changed the direction and walked back upwards. Because it was about 12 or 1 pm the sun was burning a lot and it wasn't really the best moment to move that much. Furthermore, the paths were full of stones and not that easy to walk on. Paired with our tiredness we were a bit afraid to break a leg or something, so we sat down next to the café and watched the tourists around us. We had some cookies and crackers and made a short break before we decided to try the other hiking path - it wasn't downwards and it was in the shadow, so we strolled a bit around there and enjoyed the atmosphere next to those special trees. 

But after a while it all looked the same and we walked around the large area without really knowing what to do. We listened to a German tourist guide (they seemed to be people from a cruise ship) a bit, but it became boring soon. Fortunately, it was time to walk back to the bus already, so we went up to the highway and entered the bus. We weren't the first ones, obviously the others didn't know what to do in that visitor centre neither. When we were complete, we started our way to the next stop - a little village where we would have a traditional Canarian lunch that was included into the price. As we had only had cookies and crackers for the whole day so far, we were both looking forward to that warm lunch and hoped that it would taste good. 

Photo gallery