Island-Hopping: La Gomera Part 3

Exhausting Bus Drive

After our longer break and the hiking test in the laurel forest we were back in the bus and the guide told us what we would do next. Fortunately, he told us that we would start our way to the small village where it was planned to have lunch. The exhausting part of that plan was just that there was one photo stop inbetween and that it would take us about 1, 5 more hours to arrive. My Vietnamese friend and I were incredibly hungry, because only cookies and crackers weren't sufficient food for a whole day, and it was already about 2 pm. But we didn't have a choice, so we still had to wait 2 hours in that warm bus with bad air and a guide that didn't stop talking for more than 10 minutes in a row. I could surely understand that - he had to say everything in German, English and Spanish, but it was annoying anyway, especially when you are able to understand all three languages and can't just ignore the others. As we had gotten up that early it started to be exhausting to sit in the bus all the time - even if we ha da lot of space and the bus had an air conditioner it wasn't quite comfortable and I would have preferred to lay in my bed and sleep. But we wanted to see something of the Canary Islands, so for one day it was okay to be in the bus.

Photo Stop Three

While the guide was talking about the history of the island and obviously telling us something about the place where we would stop soon, we were driving on incredibly small roads and had to stop several times when there were other buses driving into the opposite direction. I didn't really listen to what the guy was saying, as I was simply too hungry and too tired to pay any more attention. I watched the landscape, took some pictures and tried to nap a bit - something that didn't really work out due to the microphone and the curvy streets. When I almost slept we finally stopped at the photo point number three - the highest point on the island. There was a small parking for tourists, as always, and we had 15 minutes to take pictures and walk around a bit. Even if we both didn't really want to get out of the bus we finally left it and had a look at the landscape. As we had crossed the island already a bit, I wouldn't have expected that something had changed, but it really looked a bit different. It was still fascinating to look down the mountains until the sea and have all the nature around us (at La Gomera you didn't find a lot of villages, but there was no bigger city or something - only small towns with 10-100 inhabitants; even the capital was incredibly small). We took some pictures and went back to the bus - we just wanted to have some food now!

Touristic Lunch in a small Village

After some more time in the bus the guide told us that we were about to arrive at the restaurant. We were all happy and the atmosphere in the bus changed from tired and without motivation to active and excited. We all knew that the lunch couldn't be something incredibly delicious, but we were happy about having something warm to eat soon. Before we arrived in the small village we had some amazing views over the landscape, the little town and the sea. I took some more pictures and couldn't wait until the bus would finally stop and the guide would tell us that we had arrived.

Fortunately, that happened soon and we left the bus. We had stopped right after the entrance of the village at a parking next to a common restaurant - it looked a bit like a Guachinche (traditional Canarian restaurant) from down there. We received the permission to enter and the guide told us to sit down at the "German table" - a table where my Vietnamese friend and I were sitting, and a bit later also the strange Bavarian guy that had taken some pictures for us. It was an embarrassing quietness at the table because my friend and I had already had the chance to talk during the whole day, and we didn't really know what to say to the other one, as he was much older than us and seemed to be a bit weird in fact. So we didn't say a lot, just talked a bit about the atmosphere and our expectations about the food. It didn't take long until we were served a vegetable soup and some bread with Almogrote - a traditional cheese dip from La Gomera. The soup wasn't bad, but it wasn't anything special neither. But I guess for a lunch that is include in the excursion price, in a restaurant where obviously ALL the touristic buses were passing by and having lunch, you cannot expect anything better than "okay". We were just happy that we had something warm to eat and enjoyed the wine we had gotten together with the food.

It took some more time until we received the main dish, but after a while the waiter arrived and we got a plate with some rice, meat and vegetables. It was nothing special but it tasted quite good. It was just not a lot, so we were still a bit hungry when we finished the dish. We hoped that there would be a good dessert - the guide had told something about ice cream! But we waited in vain: for dessert the waiters brought one (incredibly large) banana for everybody. We were more than disappointed; we would have been incredibly happy about a cold, refreshing ice cream on that hot day. But we had to live with our healthy dessert and waited for the next point of the agenda: the presentation of the native whistle language.

The Whistle Language

After almost everyone had finished eating (there were some people from other buses that had arrived after us, and we couldn't wait for everybody) our guide told us that they would start the presentation of the traditional whistling language now. He made a large problem out of the fact that they couldn't do it in German, too, but we didn't care and told him that, so he finally went away and prepared everything. They talked a lot before they really demonstrated how the language worked - history, some information about how it is used today in real life etc. They invented a small history and demonstrated together with the owners of the restaurant how to say "Hello, how are you? " and other simple things. It was interesting, but nothing very very special; just two people looking at each other and whistling. After the most important sentences with explanations in English and Spanish they told one of the owners to leave the terrace and hid two things from tourists - the other owner should tell the other guy where to find it and where to bring it. He whistled and the other guy came back - the game started. Actually, they could really communicate with that language, as after some "sentences" he found the two hidden things and brought them back to the right person. After that game it was over, and the guide told the people from our bus (as always, in three languages) to slowly return to the car and be ready to continue the trip around the island.

Last Stop - San Sebastián de La Gomera

We were all back in the bus and continued our tour. The guide gave us some important information about the rest of the trip. As it was already 3 pm there wasn't a lot of time left and he explained that we would now drive back to the capital of the island, where we had started the trip, and would have the possibility to spend some time there. It would take us about one hour to get there, and at 5 pm we would have to be next to the entrance of the ferry to return to Tenerife. As the small capital didn't offer a lot to do one hour was more than enough and we were all looking forward to have some free time to move and walk around a bit, maybe buy some souvenirs or have a coffee. But before, we still had one hour to spend in that incredibly annoying bus and see the same landscape as all the time before. Of course, at the beginning it was fascinating and everything, and the landscape was still amazing, but we were so tired and exhausted that we couldn't see any more mountains and trees and villages. But it was just one hour left, so we would survive that, too. At least the guide had told us that he would stop talking for the rest of the trip and let us sleep a bit before we would arrive in the capital. We were more than happy about that and finally had some time to nap in our seats.

Of course, he couldn't stop talking for the whole last hour, but at least he was quiet for some moments. We could already see the capital down the hill and knew that we would arrive soon. The guide told it to those who didn't know already, and repeated the instructions concerning the last hours of the excursion: free time until 5 pm, getting on the ferry, leaving the ferry in Los Christianos and getting back to the bus. It wasn't that complicated, but anyway he repeated it in all three languages 2 or 3 times until everybody knew his words by heard already. We arrived at the small city and left the bus. The Vietnamese girl and I didn't really know what to do, so we just went up the street the guide had described as "the only interesting street in San Sebastiàn". As we found out after a while it was really the only interesting street there. We walked around the small flea market at a square and entered in one of the souvenir shops. All the other things were closed as it was siesta time now. We didn't find anything special, so we continued our tour and decided to have an ice cream - we were still disappointed because of the boring dessert after lunch. The ice cream was delicious, and while we were eating we walked over to the small beach. It wasn't a special beach, and we were both wearing long trousers and sneakers, so we didn't even want to put our feet into the water as we only had about 30 minutes left. We just watched the people who were relaxing there and decided to start our way to the ferry - we had already seen everything.

I was wondering about one thing: there was not one single supermarket, not even in the capital! Where were the people living there buying things? Did they have to take the ferry to Tenerife just to buy things? We didn't find an answer for that, so we sat down in the shadow, finished our ice cream and waited for the time to pass. After a while it was time to get to the entrance of the ferry, and we could also see all the passengers of the large cruise ship to return to the harbour. We were too German - we were the first ones to be next to the entrance and it was only 15 minutes before departure time. As there wasn't anybody else and they already opened the doors, we waited some more minutes, but then decided to get on to the ferry. We hadn't received any instructions where to wait or if we had to wait for everybody etc and as we were already "adults" and there wasn't any other possibility than taking the boat we didn't care. We chose a similar seat as the way to La Gomera and relaxed in the last sun rays as we had done it with the first ones. The way back was more exhausting than the way to La Gomera, as we were even more tired and just wanted to get back and be in our beds again.

After one hour we arrived at Los Christianos and wanted to leave the ferry as fast as possible. Unfortunately, the exit we wanted to use didn't work out of some unknown reasons and we had to wait more than 30 minutes until we could leave the ferry via the car exit - as almost the last ones. The guide was waiting for us next to all the buses and he seemed to be released to see us. He had treated us like small children all the time as we were the youngest ones in the bus, but this time it hadn't been our fault that we had been too late, as all our exits had been closed before we could use them. We entered the bus and started our way back to Puerto de la Cruz. It would take us about 2 hours to arrive there and as there was nothing more to tell, the guide just told us that he would let us sleep until our arrival. As it started to become night again, it was easier to sleep now and soon we all slept. It took a bit longer to arrive as we had to pass by a lot of hotels outside of Puerto de la Cruz, but finally the bus stopped next to my house and after having said goodbye to my Vietnamese friend I went to my appartment and fell into my bed. I guess it took me less than one minute to fall asleep after that day full of experiences and adventures.

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