| Las Hayas - Las Creces |
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An easy walk, that was what we needed with our muscle-pain. This trip from Las Hayes to Las Creces and back was ideal: short and almost flat (for La Gomera, at least). |
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| Day 4. Las Hayas, Las Creces, Las Hayas. Time: 1¾ hours Distance: 5 km Ascent: 150 m Descent: 150 m |
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The
trip goes right through the heart of Garajonay, the National Park covering a
large part of La Gomera. The laurel trees and beardy mosses on the trees are
typical for Garajonay.
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| Trees that fall down are not removed. At the busier parts of the park, the parts that stick over the footpath are cut away, but the rest remains there. Dead trees are great for all kinds of fungi and insects. |
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We see some other people walking with a leaflet with some explanations about all those botanical phenomena. We guess they got those at the visitor center Juego de Bolas. A few days later, when we visit the center, we don't see any. So, they must have gotten it elsewhere. |
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This walk is a short one, but also very diversified. In less than two hours we see several landscapes: forest, a small ravine and hills with red soil.
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Our trip starts and ends in Las Hayes, a little
village with one famous bar/restaurant called La Montaña, or Casa Epifimia
(which sounds a bit like a nasty veneral disease). It is praised in all the
books for its real Canarian (vegetarian) kitchen, although you have to wait
almost forever for your meal. As we thought one trodden path on one day was
enough, we went to Playa Santiago for our lunch (and some sightseeing). When we drove back to Valle Gran Rey in the afternoon, we saw two ladies hitchhiking. These were the Dutch ladies we'd seen at Casa Epifimia. They told us they (as we had expected) had to wait forever, but the food was worth it. They also told us the reason there are so many good places to eat on La Gomera: it's because there are so many German tourists. And we thought Germans only ate Bratwurst. No, the ladies teach us, there is another kind of German tourist, the "reform-German". Later, when we walk at La Playa in Valle Gran Rey, we discover the ladies are right: there are lots of middle-aged, alternative looking types here. |
Nevertheless, at dinner, Mirjam decides she wants to taste what Canarian vegetarian food tastes like, so she orders a La Gomera vegetarian specialty, with Gofio as the main ingredient. Warning!! Don't try this! It's horrible! Yak! |
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