Once again we escape from snow and frost and go to our favorite island, La Gomera. This time, in January 2022, we choose the easy way, with Ving as tour operator and full board at the hotel Jardin Tecina located on Playa de Santiago, on the south side of the island. As a bonus, this is an area we have not visited before. See La Gomera hiking about Valle Gran Ray and La Gomera hiking- Vallehermoso about other parts of the island.
Jardin Tecina is the only major tourist hotel on the island, but fortunately it do not ruin the landscape. It consists of a series of small two-storey buildings located on a cliff overlooking the sea. There is a lift down to the beach so you do not have to sweat in the stairs up again to the hotel.
If you want to get to La Gomera in an easy way, this is a good alternative. You fly to Tenerife, the bus delivers you at Fred. Olsen’s fast ferry terminal, with a ferry ticket in hand. But you will be picked up by bus when you arrive in San Sebastian at La Gomera.
If you stay here, it can pay off with board, ie breakfast and dinner. The option to have dinner is to take the elevator down to the beach and walk 10 minutes to the town, or take a taxi. Both lunch and dinner buffet are sumptuous. If you wish, there is champagne for breakfast. Quite crowded, but the service is extremely efficient and helpful. If you choose to go down to Santiago, there are 4 restaurants to choose from, but the most popular quickly become full. Many people live down in Santiago where there is a sand beach and apartementos to rent.
The hotel has a golf course, tennis courts and many activities, but we prefer to go hiking. Of the Canary Islands, La Gomera is the island with the best offer in that respect. Before the roads to the island were built in the late 1900s, feet and donkeys were the only way to get around. And the island is very hilly. Long valleys cut in with steep rock walls. Due to the rainfall at the top of the island it is also very fertile, but today tourism is the main income.
Previously, fishing was important, and the old Norwegian shipping company Fred. Olsen, who also owns the hotel, started the fishing industry here early 1900’s.
A superb trail system
Trails cross the island in all directions. They are well maintained and reveal the wonderful work that has been put into building them. Hundreds of thousands of hours must be spent building high walls and carving the path into the rock wall. In the steepest parts, stairs have been built, and long parts have been paved with stones. It makes it very easy to walk, and you can get around in the wonderfully beautiful landscape. But La Gomera is not the right choice if you have a fear of heights. Most of the trails are partly very vertigous, but still safe. But watch out for the weather. It can change quickly in height, with strong winds and rain. Then it can be dangerous if you are high up in the mountains.
For hikes near Playa De Santiago read more here:
Hiking up Barranco Santiago
La Gomera – Circular trip at Mirador Degollada de Peraza
Parque Nacional de Garajonay
This national park is the most unique of La Gomera. It covers the higher parts of the island, and is the remains of a multi-million year old primeval forest that once covered the entire Mediterranean area. The forest consists mostly of laurel trees that absorb moisture directly from the clouds that often covers the higher parts of the island. It is relatively cool up here, and often light drizzle, so bring a jacket. Read more about the trip and the park here La Gomera.
Hiking from Targa
Out of Santiago you have two hiking opportunities, both part of GR 131 that goes around the island. We chose to start a little cautiously and took a taxi up to Targa at 750 meters height, then went down to the hotel. This is a very easy path, mostly just downhill. The first part of the trail is very beautiful, but then it goes out into an old dirt road that zigzags down through a barren landscape of old, abandoned agricultural areas. Great views both up towards the mountains, and down towards the sea. But quite boring. And the dirt road was washed out and consisted of very sharp gravel which made the feet quite sore.
You will find more beautiful landscape if you take a bus or taxi even higher up, to Imada at about 900 meters, and walk from there. Here it goes more up and down with dramatic landscape. There are several opportunities for round trips, and easy to get a taxi or bus from Alajeró or Targa, so you avoid the endless road down again.
Towards San Sebastian
The other part of GR131 goes from Santiago in the direction of San Sebastian. On day two of our stay rain was forecast and then it is not wise to go up into the heiger parts. It can be quite slippery, and the fall height is great in many places. So instead I walked from the hotel and up. Or up and down since the first part of the trail crosses several valleys.
These valleys end at the sea and here there were many motor homes that wild camped. Mostly German and Spanish plates.
Eventually it started to be cloudy and I felt raindrops, so instead of climbing further up the hill I followed a small path in one of the valleys down to the sea, to Playa De Chinguarime. According to my map app, read here Locus Maps, there is a path along the cliffs and the sea back towards the hotel.
Down on the beach and in caves in the rock wall, a number of hippies had their camps. I do not know if they call themselves hippies anymore, but it was young people who lived a carefree (?) life in their improvised tarpaulin tents and cave dwellings.
Back at the hotel, both clouds and raindrops disappeared so the forecast missed a bit here. And a reminder that the weather can change quickly here on the island, and certainly difficult to predict.
If you are fit, you can follow GR131 all the way to San Sebastian and take the bus back. It is almost 20 km, and many altitude meters to overcome.
Bus and Taxi
The buses at La Gomera are called Guaguas. You can take the bus in two directions from Playa Santiago. Line 3 runs from Imada above Alajeró to San Sebastian and stops right outside the hotel, with quite a few departures each day. With this you can reach the area of Alajeró where there are many hikes, or the top of the island in the direction of San Sebastian.
In addition, you have two airport buses. One goes to San Sebastian and the other goes to Valle Gran Rey. To take the bus to Gran Rey you have to take a taxi or line 3 to the airport first. The airport buses only run twice a day, in the morning around 10 o’clock and back at 4 o’clock. Departure times change quite often, depending on the flight times, so check times at www.guaguagomera.com, lines 6 and 7.
With a little planning, it’s fine to take a bus to some of the nicest areas on the island, go for hike, and take the afternoon bus back.
The times are only stated from the place of departure, but the driving times are about:
Airport – hotel 10 min
Playa Santiago/hotel – Mirador Degollada de Peraza 20 min
Playa Santiago/hotel – San Sebastian 40 min
Imada – hotel 35 min
The alternative is taxi, which is not very expensive. We paid 18 Euro to Targa. To El Cedro and the national park, which you can read about here: La Gomera hiking, it costs about 30 Euro.
Rental car is of course also possible. But prices vary greatly with demand. When I was here in June 2021 I only paid 120 Euro for a week, now they should have 600 Euro. But in June, there were very few tourists because of Covid.
Changing clouds
One of the days I had an errand to San Sebastian and took the airport bus at 10:30 from the hotel. I quickly fixed what I was going for, and took Linea 3 back at 12:00. The plan was then to jump off at Mirador Degollada de Peraza where the GM-3 to Playa de Santiago separates from GM-2 to Gran Ray. There is a nice little round trip here of about 3 – 4 hours, just right to reach the next bus to Santiago. There had been some drifting clouds there when I drove towards San Sebastian, but by the time I got back it had become dense fog with very little visibility and strong winds. The view from here is formidable when it’s clear, so this was a drag. Instead I stayed on the bus and got off at Las Toscas, a little further down.
Here the sun was shining, but it was blowing quite a bit. There is a path upwards to the top of the island, that is divided into several paths so the possibilities are many.
It was a very nice path,stone paved, not very steep and easy to walk. It wound its way through the mountain landscape, through cultivated areas, and soon it was only mountains and bushes. Very beautiful, overlooking a deep valley on one side. The sun was shining, but the wind grew stronger and stronger. So I decided to turn around.
Unfortunately it was now two and a half hours to the next bus so I chose to walk a narrow gravel road in the direction of the small village of Benchijigua. This is one of the oldest settlements on the island and is spectacularly located under the majestic cliff Roque de Agando. The road went along the valley on the edge of a cliff. The wind got speed down the valley worse than ever, and even though the road was quite wide, I chose to turn for safety reasons.
The lesson of this is: Be careful. The weather can change abruptly, and strong winds or rain can make the trip dangerous. It is often far down to the bottom …
As I walked along the road I could see a path winding up on the other side of the valley. It must be spectacular to walk. If I get time I have to try it. It starts at Pastrana which can be easily reached by taxi from Playa Santiago. The trail goes to Benchijigua and on to Roque de Agando and the main road GM-2. There is also a path down in the valley.
Read about this hike here: La Gomera – Barranco Santiago
Back at the bus stop I sat and waited. Two hours until the bus should arrive. After 5 minutes a car came and I tried to hitchhike. No luck. I have hiked here before, and it is possible to get a hike, but not with tourists in rental cars. 10 more minutes passed and a new car arrived. Oh happiness, a vacant taxi!
Down in Santiago the sun was shining and it was just a light breeze. So it is not possible to judge the weather at the top of the island based on the weather down by the coast.
Flere artikler om La Gomera: la-gomera-no
