Pictures of La Dehesa

La Dehesa

Yesterday we ended at the coast, in Pozo de la Salud. Today, we will have a walk on the plateau called La Dehesa. But first we have to get there. From Pozo, it would be a climb of 900 meters. Today we are sissies and take a taxi to Sabinosa.

Two doors

Cookie break

From Sabinosa, the climb is only 600 meters. On the way up to the plateau we stop several times for a cookie break.

But it is worth the effort. After an hour of climbing it flattens out and we have a great view over La Dehesa, which is remarkably flat, especially for El Hierro standards.

Flower

The meadows are filled with flowers. After all that climbing it's very nice to walk on the same horizontal level again.
	From the Mirador de Bascos we look down to the shore, and we see our hotel again. All that effort, and still only a few hundred meters (vertically) from the place we started!

Strangely bent tree

On La Dehesa lies El Sabinal, a place where you can find lots of trees bent by the wind. Two things are strange:

although the trees are close to the shore, they are bent towards the shore, by a wind coming from the mountain;
a little further away a lot of trees are standing straight.

Strange trees indeed

These strange trees inspire us to imitate them. Don't think that's easy. The same wind that bent the trees is now trying to knock us off our feet.

Also on La Dehesa, you can find the sanctuary of La Virgen de los Reyes. La Virgen is carried once every four years over the island, as a kind of prayer for rain. As we walked part of the way that she is carried, we like to go and see her, and to burn a candle.

Sign: this is where the señora is

Easy to carry

The caretaker of the ermita is a little bit bored. He's happy we speak a few words of Spanish, so he can have a talk with someone. He's really pleased we we came here walking from Sabinosa.
	After leaving the ermita, we have to walk back the beginning of La Dehesa. And then all the way down to Sabinosa again. The bar is open, an ideal place to wait for the taxi that will bring us back to the hotel. The schoolbus driver sees us and informs us our taxi driver will arrive 15 minutes too late. Yes, El Hierro is a small island.