La Gomera, Spain 2025

We had a 5:30pm arrival at the La Gomera airport from El Hierro, via TFN, and somehow managed to collect the rental car, drive down to the Spar supermarket in Playa Santiago for grocery items and then drive up the hill to Alajeró and our rental house for 4 nights, all before dark. Once again, our Cicar rental of a Fiat 500, was an alternative Opel.

On our first day, we hiked from our house in Alajeró up the Barranco de Santiago to Imada.  I determined that there was some road walking to create a loop, so the plan was to walk up the canyon and have lunch in Imada and catch the 1:30pm bus back to Alajeró. We walked through the hamlet of Targa and then plunged down to nearly the valley bottom and then walked up the canyon, that at times had similarities with the USA Grand Canyon. Once the canyon widened, the slope eased and we reached Imada for a deserved lunch. We enjoyed Canarian food: goat stew, wrinkled potatoes and chickpea stew. We caught the same bus down the hill with a group of British walkers. They had taken taxis from Playa Santiago up the CV20 and then walked up the ridge to the east of the Santiago canyon. Our splendid hike was 7.5km from the house to Imada with almost 500m of descent and over 500m of ascent.

In the afternoon, we drove up the main road and  walked to the Drago de Agalán. The large dragon tree was protected from graffiti artists by a significant fence.

We drove up to 1,000m and then down a narrow road  to the village of Arguayoda at 400m to walk the Barranco Negro on a section of the GR132 that had caught my attention. We walked down to the bottom of the canyon, the site of an abandoned small farm and returned on a slightly different route that totalled 7km, with 300m of ascent. We encountered two German through-hikers on the atmospheric section. 

From  Arguayoda we drove over the top of the island past the Roque de Agando, down the GM-3 onto the gravel CV-10 to Benchijigua. We didn't encounter any other vehicles on the CV-10 on the drive in or out. We wandered around the dreamy Benchijigua area, taking in the views before proceeding to Playa Santiago. The beach front area of Playa Santiago is quite pleasant with a moderate number of visitors when we were there.

We drove up to the upper area of the island on the GM-2 for a cloud forest walk. We walked 5km in the area of the Cañada de Jorge including a short section of trail that we had walked 4 years earlier. On this occasion, we skipped visiting the highest point of La Gomera, Alto de Garajonay, as we had been there before. Sheila wasn't feeling well, so she waited in the car, while I did a green 7km walk out of Pajarito, that included  views of Benchijigua and Imada.  We returned home and later I walked around Montaña de Tagaragunche near our rental house. We wandered to the edge of Alajeró to watch the sunset.

We had seen much of the south, and it was time to head west for an apartment that we had booked for 3 nights in Valle Grand Rey. We drove up to the top of the island and passed above Chipude and then down to a road's end at the edge of plateau to the Hermitage of Our Lady of Guadalupe. We started walking from the dramatic view point. We descended into the Barranco de Argaga and then made a gradual ascent to a gap on the ridge west of Valle Grand Rey. We carried onto a feature called Las Pilas and then retraced our steps back to the ermita. During the course of the 7km walk, we encountered a surprising number of walkers (about 15, largely Germans) who had all come up from Valle Grand Rey.  

We drove the twisting turning roads to  Valle Grand Rey including a couple of tunnels that make access easier. We had a code to enter our Villa Aurora apartment. We had the opportunity for a swim at the harbour beach of Playa De Vueltas, then we collected a few grocery items at a small shop that was open on Sunday.  The west facing Puntilla beach was a 5 minute walk away and we began a routine of watching the sunset there at day's end.

Monday was designated a rest day and we didn't make any use of the rental car. We walked the length of La Puntilla beach and had a look at the Playa del Ingles (not safe swimming when we were there). We tried out a Thai restaurant for lunch that did not live up to the high reviews and hung out by the Villa Aurora pool and lovely gardens for the afternoon, followed by another sunset at the main beach.

We walked down the beach in first light to buy some multi-grain bread at a bakery, then drove up out of  Valle Gran Rey to 1,000m to cloud forest. We made a short cloud forest walk ( Los Barranquillos) before proceeding to the base of Montaña Blance. We walked out-and-back for a couple of hours below a ridge, that featured expansive views and a variety of vegetation. We met two other walkers on our walk out. 

In the early afternoon, we drove through Alojera (not the same place as Alajeró, where we had stayed at a few days earlier). to the coast and we stopped to wander some of the rugged country above Taguluche. Back in Valle Gran Rey, the waves kicked up and we enjoyed another fabulous sunset.

It was time to move on; I had booked a night in Vallehermosa, in a truly beautiful valley. We had seen some of it on our previous trip. But first, we walked the length of the beach for more bread from the Panadería Pan de Vueltas.  Once we reached Vallehermosa, we drove up a narrow road up the valley and parked near a dam. Gorgeous scenery unfolded for us as we proceeded upwards, however clouds rolled in quickly obscuring our views, then it began to rain. We opted to return to the car.  It was our first rain in 4 weeks. The Hotel Triana allowed us an early check-in. The rain stopped by 3:30 so we drove down to the Vallehermosa beach and looked at the old structures, then walked up the hill for views. We had dinner in a restaurant, the first time in weeks, at Tasca El Carraca.

The Hotel Triana put on an excellent breakfast and we were on the road before 9:00am under blue skies. We stopped at Agulo and walked through the historic area and then carried on through Hermigua. We knew Hermigua well from our previous visit and we carried to a pullout on the GM-1.  The Cuevas Blancas hike was one of our favourite hikes on La Gomera. The 13km walk with 550m of ascent was big on views with plenty of variety. It passed through an  abandoned hamlet and all kinds of abandoned fields from days gone by. The outline of Mt Teide on Tenerife provided a distant backdrop. We didn't see any other people on the trail.  Thereafter, we drove towards San Sebastián, but turned off for the hospital and provisioned at a well stocked Spar supermarket. We had a house booked in La Laja and drove up the valley to Chejelipes. Then the  road went to a single lane, but we didn't encounter any descending traffic. The house was an excellent choice in a remarkable narrow valley, though it felt cool at just below 500m.

We woke to up rain and a blustery morning. It started to clear in the early afternoon, but even then it was punctuated with wind & showers. We walked up from our house. Glenn had courage and took the trail up to Los Roques;6km return with 450m of ascent, sometimes taking shelter from cloudbursts. The change of vegetation was impressive;  in an hour I walked from cactus, through healthy pine trees into cloud forest. More showers ensued.

On our last full day on La Gomera it was once again blustery. We delayed our check-out and didn't leave the house till near 12:00pm. Although storm Emilia was hitting Morocco and the Iberian peninsula, we got some strong downpours till mid-afternoon and we had take shelter in San Sebastián a couple of times. We took in some of the "city" vibe and watched storm waves before stopping in at the harbour. The World's Toughest Row, across the Atlantic had delayed the start by a few days because of the strong winds associated with Emilia. The boats were lined up for the next day's start We had spent a night in San Sebastián on the previous Gomera trip and we stayed at our old favourite Hotel Hotel Torre del Conde. Unfortunately for us, the hotel was hosting a group dinner, so the dining room wasn't open to the public, but we managed a sit down restaurant  dinner.

We missed out on the terrific Hotel Torre del Conde  breakfast because we took the 7:00am Fred Olsen ferry to Tenerife.  We were able to see the snow that had fallen on the 3,700m Mt Teide over the last few days. We walked part of the way out of Los Christianos and then took a cab to the airport for our fourth Ryanair flight of the trip, this time to the UK.