This Ole House

At last I’ve got a chance to give you more details of our current location! We’re on La Gomera in the Canary Islands. Our accommodation is just inside Garajonay National Park which covers a large percentage of the island. To get to the house you have to walk 15 minutes uphill on a public footpath, some of it very steep and quite precarious. That I managed to hike up with my backpack is nothing short of a miracle! The old stone house is pretty basic but it’s nice to be somewhere of our own. It can be very cold at night – we had a petrol stove to keep us from freezing but on Friday (18th) we fixed the wood burner. It was quite exciting seeing the first smoke coming out of the chimney! We’re doing good rustic things like collecting firewood (no shortage when you’re in a forest) and very clean water from a stream at the bottom of the footpath. We’ve also been making excellent use of the radio I got for Christmas and listening to the World Service and a few English language stations from Tenerife.

The farm is 30 minutes walk downhill from our house (which means a 30 minutes uphill struggle home). Our hosts are Peter and Anna, a German couple who have been here for about 10 years I think, and their two daughters, Melanie (16, fostered) and Lea (11). Anna works part-time at a tropical fruit garden on the island. There are two very large dogs, Tronky and Gringo. Gringo is a Rottweiler / Alsatian cross and despite his size and breeding is a real baby with a very expressive face. There are also chickens, goats, cats, guinea pigs, terrapins and possibly others that we haven’t been introduced to. Our hosts are very nice, very generous and full of good humour.

As well as the animals Peter is trying to grow lots of different fruits on his land – he estimates he currently has over 70 varieties and is aiming for over 100 in the next year. He also tries to be as self-sufficient in vegetables as possible, growing many things that the locals wouldn´t think possible. The work has been fairly standard – weeding, digging land, clearing brambles, pruning apple trees. We start at 9am and work through until 3pm with a tea break somewhere in the middle. Then Peter or Anna cook our main meal for the day before we return to our digs.

On Saturday (19th) we climbed to the top of the island. The peak of Garajonay is just under 1500m above sea level which meant an ascent for us of over 600m. The main footpath runs the other side of the stream to our house but the house is too surrounded by trees for us to see any more than the occasional flash of pink from the other side! It was a very well maintained footpath, a lot of which was crafted into steps. 5.9km of steps is a lot of steps! It took us 2½ hours there and 2 hours back and surprisingly we didn’t even ache the next day. From the top we got a good view over the sea to Tenerife and could just make out the top of La Palma. There was also some information about the original inhabitants of La Gomera, including a reconstruction of a sacrificial altar which was found at the site.

We are 7km from the nearest bus stop so going anywhere is pretty difficult. Today, for example, we have taken a lift from Anna to Valle Gran Rey but we have spent most of the day arranging future travels as we have no internet access at or near the farm. This morning we visited the tropical fruit garden that Anna works at which was fantastic. You have to take a guided tour, and as well as explaining about the plants there were also lots of tasters. It is all organic and I would definitely recommend it to anyone who might hop over on a day trip from Tenerife.