Last night the resort of Los Christianos on Tenerife was a throbbing mass of humanity on holiday, mostly elderly, out to have a good time. The streets were busy with mobility scooters and lined with outlets for intoxicants.
Sucked into the vortex of the unholy alliance between cheap drink and holiday Bon homme I hung out for awhile in a dispiriting English karaoke bar where a slick suited and haired master of ceremonies tried to whip up some enthusiasm. I liked the sign announcing that due to local “noise pollution” laws, the doors would have to shut at 12!
I retired upstairs to the Irish bar where the fun was warm and open and I enjoyed a Jameson’s and a Guinness.

After all the excitement I had a good nights sleep in a dorm with six others at a sea front dive centre, and after a few errands in the morning ( I found a great replacement for my lost long sleeve top in a charity shop) I was back on a ferry.

Just over an hour later we dock at San Sebastián on Gomera with just enough time to get the bus to Vallehermoso where the route starts at the beach.

The bus journey took me through a big chunk of the island and my first impressions were of wild green lushness. High topped with deep canyons and jagged peaks. Palms and cactus and cloud over red tiled roofs.

Signs for hiking routes that snaked away through the mountains, orange trees gone feral and vertigo inducing switchback roads.
Steps of neat and fertile, stone walled terraces stacked one above the other in the water fed ravines and across the mountain slopes.

The seafront was windy with crashing waves, certainly no call for the thatched sunshades or loungers.
The cliff bottom road to the strange Castillo del Mar had been completely destroyed by both the sea and the crumbling cliff. Originally built to process, store and load bananas onto boats it had become a private property and is now a cut off folly.

Certainly no sheltered spots down on the coast so I started to walk up the valley and found myself a little abandoned finca to call home for the night.

It’s another 1500mt climb tomorrow so I shall let the croaking of the frogs in the barranco serenade me to sleep.