Only Canuks and Englishmen...

San Sebastian de La Gomera.

Gesa and I decided to take advantage of the grandparent's babysitting skills and leave the kids in town whilst we went for a walk in the hills, up to a viewpoint 1000m above the harbour, and then catch a bus down after a leisurely beer. We should have started in the cool of early morning, but after sleeping in and a slow breakfast, we didn't set off until 11am.

La Gomera is proud of it's extensive, well marked hiking trails, but it should be a little less proud of it's maps. We missed the start of the trail, and decided to take a side path marked on the map that would lead us up to the main trail on the ridge. What we thought was the path rapidly dwindled to a goat track and then to nothing, leaving us scrambling through prickly scrub and over steep rocky slopes before finally breaking through onto the ridge. The views were, indeed, spectacular, and we enjoyed walking along the top of the island, until we finally deduced where we were on the map and realised that instead of being nearly there, we were about halfway!

A long, parched trail led us over a series of peaks with ever more spectacular views, but the day was growing longer and we were a little concerned about getting back to recover what would be quite grumpy children by the time we got back down. We finally made it to a cafe perched on the side of a precipice, and enjoyed a beer, ice cream and bottle of water before asking about the buses. The last bus had left Valle Gran Rey 15 minutes earlier and, not knowing the route too well, we thought we'd better get out to the bus stop. Consulting the map there, it looked like the lengthy series of hairpin bends would take quite a while, and there was no sign of a bus for a long time.

After about half an hour, we did what we should have done right away, and hitch-hiked. The first two cars waved, but were full, and the third one stopped. 'Ola' says everyone. 'San Sebastian?' 'Si', and in we get having exhausted all of our Spanish short of 'where's the laundrette' which wouldn't have made great conversation. However, it rapidly transpires that the driver and his companion were German, so Gesa chatted merrily away to them all the way down the mountain. 'Buy you a beer?' we say, but no, no need, just do something good for someone else one day, they say. We like that attitude.

We'd walked for 5 hours in a hot, dusty and spectacular landscape. We hadn't seen another soul on the paths. Perhaps hiking is more popular in the cool of autumn than the 'midday sun' reserved for mad dogs and englishmen.