Ireland day 1128. Wednesday 30 October 2024- Vallehermosa 3

Today’s summary	After an early breakfast, we took a taxi high up to the village of Chipude, amongst the summits of La Gomera. Walked along the top of the island, pausing for coffee and cakes at Casa Efegenia in Las Hayas. Then through the laurisilva forest and down a long ridge back to Vallehermosa via the Presa de la Encantadora. Just time to nip down to El Kiosco for drinks before heading back out again to Restaurante Agana once more for dinner
Today’s weather	Warm dry and sunny all day. Light easterly wind. Appx 20c in Vallehermosa but cooler at the top

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): Chipude to Vallehermosa

Commentary

(Summary blog only. Last full blog was Day 0368).

The weather seems to have settled down now, as today we enjoyed a perfect Canarian autumn day of warm sun, no rain, and clear skies affording fantastic vistas. An ideal opportunity to head off on a long walk from the top of the island.

Actually, we cheated a bit for today’s outing. We had an early breakfast – 8:30 rather than 9am – and then jumped in Dulce Maria’s taxi which did the hard work for us, lifting us over 1000 metres from Vallehermosa, to Chipude – a small village nestled high among the cumbres (summits) of La Gomera.

It’s a fantastically elevated spot, and once we scrambled out of the car, we were treated to wonderful views to the west and north, all the way from the island of El Hierro, right round to La Palma. And to complete the trio, we spotted Tenerife with the distinct summit of El Teide poking out above the clouds, a little further round on our walk.

Once we’d admired the view, we sought out the GR131 long distance path, which was our constant companion for today’s walk. From Chipude, it winds its way up and down the barrancos between the various villages which dot the highlands. We stopped off in one – Las Hayas – and visited Casa Efegenia, a highly rated café where we got coffees and almond pasteles to keep us going for the rest of our walk.

Shortly after leaving Las Hayas, we entered the laurisilva forest of the Garajonay National Park. It’s quite a remarkable transformation – one moment you are in the bright sunshine and blue sky of the highlands, then a couple of footsteps later you are enveloped in dark world of laurel and tree-heather vegetation, covered in dripping moss. Quite a contrast.

We took our time plodding though the woodland before starting our descent into Vallehermosa down a ridge which starts soon after the GR131 crosses the CV-18 road. After a couple of hours in the shade, it was quite nice to emerge once again into the warm sunshine as we dropped down the ridge, so we decided to call a break at this point and have lunch in the sun by the pathside. Although there were a lot of hikers in the forest and on the highlands, as we descended we left them all behind and had the mountains completely to ourselves. Quite sublime.

After lunch, we continued our descent. We took our time and didn’t rush our progress, partly because we wanted to savour the views, but more prosaically because we didn’t want to slip on the ball-bearing-like gravelly path. Eventually we made it safely down to the Presa de la encantadora, which we had visited on Monday. We paused here again to finish off our refreshments before completing our walk down the valley to the hotel.

There was just time for some of our group to visit El Kiosco for beers then in a few moments time we will be off back to the Restaurante Agana for dinner. Altogether, a great day!

Today’s photos (click to enlarge)


*First a flashback to last night – Parroquia de San Juan Bautista* – the Catholic church in Vallehermosa – looking impressive on our walk to dinner at the Hotel Tamahuche**	Setting out from Chipude this morning – perfect walking conditions. Lots of sun, warm but not too hot, and brilliant visibility

We stopped off for coffee and cakes in the Casa Efegenia in Las Hayas. A stunningly beautiful spot and excellent refreshment, but the service left a bit to be desired	In the laurisilva forest. Most of it has been declared a National Park, on account of its unique ecology. We followed the GR131 long distance path all the way through it, and indeed for almost the whole of our our walk today

*Probably an Amanita* species and probably toxic. But looking happily enough on its treestump home in the laurisilva forest**	Back at the Añaterve hotel – still looking pretty bright and fresh!

This section, in the barranco just before Las Hayas, was said to be “dangerously exposed” in our guidebook. But despite the thousand metre drop to our left, provided you kept your eyes straight ahead as you walked, it wasn’t too vertiginous at all