Ireland day 1126. Monday 28 October 2024- Vallehermosa 1

Today’s summary	Our first walk in La Gomera. Just a short circular outing round a nearby reservoir, but very interesting and worthwhile, with a decent ascent at the start. Lots of heavy showers, which we weren’t expecting, but managed to find shelter in a picnic area at the critical moment. Dinner at Bodega Agana in the evening
Today’s weather	Heavy rain and stormy wind all night. Sunshine and occasional heavy downpours during the day. Strong north easterly wind. Appx 20c

Today’s overview location (The green mark shows the location of our route)		Close-up location (The orange line shows where we walked) (Click button below to download GPX of today’s walk as recorded, or see interactive map at bottom with elevations corrected): Presa de la Encantadora

Commentary

In a somewhat unexpected development, we woke up this morning to the sound of driving rain lashing against our bedroom window. We had come here mostly equipped for hot sunny weather, so it was a case of diving into the inner recesses of our bags to retrieve fleeces and waterproofs to do some layering in anticipation of a wet day’s walking.

So we had a leisurely and enjoyable breakfast in the hotel and decided, in view of the weather, to do a shorter walk today, so that if we did get soaked, at least we wouldn’t be too far from redemption at the end.

Our morning was spent having a look round the town of Vallehermosa, where we are staying, and picking up some essentials (like shower gel) from the supermercado. I’ve been pleased with two developments over the last 24 hours – first, my Spanish is actually passable and although I can’t understand much of what is said to me, I can at least make myself understood. And secondly, prices of everything here – drinks, restaurant meals, supermarket goods – seem to be about half what they are in Ireland. Quite a revelation.

Once we got going on our walk, we hiked up a narrow and steep path (actually it’s part of the GR131 long distance path) up over a saddle and then down to La Presa de la Encantadora. Which roughly translates to The Enchantress’ Reservoir. We had some sun on the way up, which was pleasant and warm, but mostly it was overcast.

Round the far side of the reservoir, we came across a beautiful picnic area, where we stopped for our sandwich lunch. Fortunately it had a good wooden shelter too, and our stop was perfectly timed because at that very moment the heavens opened and it poured down with rain. Anyway we stayed dry while we had our lunch and then once we had finished, the sun came out again.

From the picnic area to Vallehermosa was a short, straightforward, walk and we were back in plenty of time to get a quick drink in the Hotel Tamahuche before returning to the Hotel Anaterve. Now we’re back in our residence, it’s time to get changed out of our walking things, possibly grab a couple of Pringles(!) then set out for dinner at the Bodega Agana.

We’re hoping to do a longer walk tomorrow, in which case this blog will be shorter than normal as, really, I am supposed to be here on holiday not to spend time hacking away on the computer!

Today’s photos (click to enlarge)


The view from our room at 7am as the rain poured down.	The same view an hour later. Fickle!

The dam retaining the Presa	Sculpture of a Guanche , keeping watch on the lake

Laughing in the face of adversity	Roque Cano, which is a spectacular volcanic feature which dominates the local landscape. “Cano” seems to mean “Spout” but it’s not exactly certain.

On the high pass, looking down to the reservoir