Happi hippie paradise La Gomera--circular walk

This was one of high lights of our holiday--- big circular walk. I was really looking forward to this. Last year, we couldn't finish this walk. We heard so much about it through walkers we met last year. They all told us, on this walk, there was a church and a big water fall. I really wanted to see the beautiful water fall with my own eyes. But Marcus got his back hurt during our walk, so we didn't walk any further than maybe 2hours from the coast.

 But this time, we ended up doing the whole walk. It took us about 9hrs from the coast. We walked along the sea from the Vueltes harbour to the next beach.

 Cor, blimey, it was long walk, longest and hardest walk I  ever done. Well, I haven't done many walks in mountains or rocks (literally NONE) anyway. Only recently, started walking. Then realised walking in mountains were good fun.

 Apparently, there was even bigger circular walk than we did. Maybe next time, we'll do the bigger walk with camping gears. We started from the coast; Playa de las Arenas. there was walk path towards mountain. Just followed yellow line.... there were fairly clear markings to start off with, along with walkers' stone markings. 

Last year, there were waterfalls, and beautiful clear rivers. But this year, it was very dry. There was no waterfalls. But, when I was standing in the middle, I could almost feel and hear the sound of water.....☺ We were walking where water was, and first a couple of hours, I found fairly easy to walk up the dry river.

 We saw a few people including a German guy in his 60's with walking gear and outfit. He thought we were naughty without having walking map with us. We thought we just could walk to the water fall, and it would've been about 4 hours walk, then back to the coast. That was our "plan". After waking passed dodgy path, this German guy came back and said " there was no proper path here, so, not doing the walk." And told us not to go either. People we saw last year said the same thing, if I remember right. It's me, If someone says don't do it, of course, I want to do it even more.

 So, we went ahead. We pottered a lot. Then we saw a German couple with walking outfits. They seemed to know where they were going. Well, they had a map. When we reached the water fall place, took us about just under 5 hours including pottering time and snack time.

 The most of time, we were climbing rocks with our bear hands and my walking sandals. Thing was, as soon as climbed up some rocks, the yellow markings disappeared. We walked a bit anyway, then usually, found it somewhere else. It wasn't very clear where to go. I sometimes just followed foot prints people left and stone markings.

 Anyway, Marcus asked the German couple where they were going and they told us they were doing the circular walk, get to the church then going down back to the valley "El Guro".

 Apart from them, we didn't see anyone else by this point. We saw a couple with a young baby earlier, but they went back to the coast long time ago. So, we kept walking and climbing the mountain. It was peaceful and very quiet.

We kept walking and walking. It was hot. We were sweating. We saw lots of caves on the walls of those mountains. Awesome views!

At this point, this German couple were in front of us. We didn't want to interfere, so we walked a bit behind. After this, they stopped for break under the tree. We were still walking. By then, path wasn't too bad. Although it was a bit rough path, there was no more rock climbing.
 

Then we saw.....(sorry about quality of my photo, my camera's knackered, need a new one)

Houses! Civilisation! I really thought when I saw a few houses, it was the end of the walk, just going down the road. Easy! But reality was, opposite. It wasn't the end of the walk, just coming out of the national park, and still needed to continued to find the other side of the park to get to the church.

We weren't sure about where we were going, then we saw hippies! They called us to walk where they were going, so we followed hippies.

 Then we saw.... the church! It was cute! It was called: Ermita N.S de Guadelupe. We saw more people. It seemed like it was popular spot for walkers. We even met a few English people! 

Unfortunately, this cute church was closed. Couldn't get in!!!! By then, I was so excited we were nearly the end of the walk. I knew we just needed to go down the mountains. no more going up! So, this English guy we met at the church, him and his German mates gave us direction which way to go back.

So, we did. After 30mins or so, we saw about 10 people walking around already, everyone looked knackered. We were the only ones(and the German couple) came from the coast.

 Again, we got lost a bit. I saw a couple coming towards us, so I asked which way to do back to Valle Gran Ray, again, this couple, (they were English!!!) kindly gave us directions. And they were impressed we came from the coast, and she said the walk, me and Marcus did was the hardest walk in the whole island. Ooops, I didn't know that, I did it with my pair of keen sandals! (love my Keen, good shoes for walking like this!) No wonder my feet hurt afterwards.

 Anyway, I had energy back again when I saw the houses under neath the valley. I could do with some nice smoothies....

I really thought it was guanna get easier, yes, it was easier than where we were walking, but I was tired!!!!! From that point, it took us probably another a couple of hours to get down. 

These houses were in the El Guro. When we got there, we walked along the road. we didn't get a bus back. We didn't cheat! We continued walking. By then, I could feel my legs were going, I knew if I'd stopped, my legs would've collapsed. So carried on.

I started feeling a bit grumpy. I was hungry. We saw people drinking beer in a bar. First time in ages, I felt I really fancied a pint of chilled beer. Looked so nice. But we didn't go in. We bought bottles of water instead. It tasted soooo nice we drunk the whole bottle in one go(500ml)! We carried on walking.

 Then found a nice green grocers, got ourselves some fruits and veggies for our dinner. It took me another week to process what we did that day. I now really proud of myself, actually finished the walk. The view we saw there was phenomena. It reminded me going up Mt. Fuji with my family when I was a young girl. I couldn't finished the walk, I was too tired. We could see the top, but we walked down. My dad didn't speak to me for a few days after that. When I was growing up, my dad used to bring up the Mt.Fuji story every time I wanted to give up doing something. My dad thought I couldn't finish nothing. I really thought I was useless and felt always guilty I didn't finish the walk. But now, I know I can do anything If I really want to and I'm not useless. Moreover, this walk was harder than Mt.Fuji, although smaller, these path were lot steeper. I slept well that night. I became SNORIE NORIE again. Poor Marcus, he had to put up with me snoring......

 Next time, I would like to do the walk again and try different walks too. It was fantastic experience.

 

I recently purchased a walking book called La Gomera by Klaus and Annette Wolfsperger. This walk is on p114 black31, and it has more detailed information. I think it's a great book, I defo recommend if you go for a walking holiday.