February 5, 2017: Goodbye El Hierro. You're Our Hero

“What is that feeling when you're driving away from people and they recede on the plain till you see their specks dispersing? - it's the too-huge world vaulting us, and it's good-bye. But we lean forward to the next crazy venture beneath the skies.” 
― Jack Kerouac, On the Road

A toast to El Hierro

Today we are leaving our home for the last six days--El Hierro, the smallest of the Canaries and the least developed, most rugged and so far, with the craziest weather.

Yesterday, we determined to see everything we hadn't which fortunately isn't too much of a feat in such a small place. With a car.   We started by hiking from Charco Sargos, natural pools on the oceanside to Punta Grande, the big point at the northwest side.  This was about a 2 mile hike along the water with stunning views of the landscape and also of the island of LaPalma. For once, we had lovely weather and clear enough skies to see it.

Looking North from our casita home in El Golfo. La Palma in the distance.

At Punta Grande, there are a number of large rocks just offshore. The largest in the background, Salamor, is home to the rescue colony of giant iguanas. 

This little restaurant, La Maceta, was an accidental find our first day out in El Hierro and a wonderful dining place. For anyone venturing this far out, give it a try. We ate here almost every night.

El Golfo

After this, Paul treated me to lunch at the Parador hotel on the OTHER side of the island. That small coastline was about all there was left to explore.

The Parador in El Hierro. We considered staying here, but it's pretty remote and not conducive to easy exploration of the island.

Let me take a  moment to speak about the Parador hotels. This is a lovely series of accommodations, many of which are old historic buildings such as forts, hospitals, monasteries etc. There are 94 of them scattered throughout Spain, and one in Portugal. Paul and I stayed at the one in Santiago de Compostela and it was so beautiful . But don't do your laundry there unless you have plenty of extra euros. Expensive!  We have also eaten meals in the lovely paradores in Leon, La Palma  and La Gomera. The El Hierro parador looks to be of recent construction, but no doubt is the best hotel on the island. It might even have climate control, a feature rarely found in the Canary Islands.

After our lunch, we were off to see the Roques Bonanza, the "symbol of El Hierro." Basically, it's two big rocks in the ocean, but..

Los Roques Bonanza. The symbol of El Hierro. This lead to a discussion of the TV show, Bonanza. And that of course, led to a discussion of Pernell Roberts who quit the show because he thought it was ridiculous for three adult men to live with their daddy and ask his permission to go into town. Sadly, both he and "Little Joe" died of pancreatic cancer. Hoss had "the big one." 

I think the lovely natural arch we saw on our morning walk would make a better symbol. But what do I know?

Natural arch near our casita

From here we ventured to the very northern tip of the island to see Echedo, the wine growing area of El Hierro. We enjoyed a lovely seco blanco from the Frontera winery on more than one night here and figured it wouldn't hurt to look at their version of Napa Valley.

Let's just say it's pretty scrappy here. Made me appreciate that they can make wine at all on this rough terrain.

From here we traversed to our final destination, Pozo de Calcosas. This is a very tiny town indeed with some more natural swimming pools. And the world's smallest church. And a totally deserted village near the ocean at the bottom of the cliffs.

Dwarf church with Paul "darkening the door."

Coastline and turistas

This village at the foot of  the cliffs is totally deserted. We don't know if it opens in better seasons or if it's just been abandoned. You can see the natural ocean water pool in the upper left hand corner. There are many of these volcanic pools in the Canaries.

From here, it was all over but the crying and packing up to go home. One last trip to our tiny restaurant, La Maceta though:

Sunset from our tiny 8 table restaurant: La Maceta

Salad in a tomato basket

The seafood pasta. The place is tiny but the presentation is large.

So today we are off El Hierro and starting our first leg of the journey home. Should you be inspired to go to El Hierro, here are a few tips:

1. There's plenty of hiking, but it's mostly up and down--i.e. moderately to seriously strenuous, so poles and hiking boots are a must.

2. There's very little in the way of public transport (they have buses but service is infrequent). A car is a big help. It is possible to hitchhike and is well-accepted amongst the locals and tourists. Be aware that the roads are pretty decent, but there are areas of narrow one-laned tracks and hairpin curves.

3.  The weather here is blustery, rainy and downright cold at times with intermittent bursts of lovely weather and everything in between. Few buildings have any climate control, so prepare with clothing of all types. Or travel in a more weather friendly month, which we are told is March to December.

I'd call this vacation  a resounding success with Paul Pirate Parris functioning as the sole travel agent. Thank you, Babu for a great sixth anniversary.

And now...

Paul's Ponderings:   A grand finale to our latest sojourn in the Canaries and possibly the best weather day for us on El Hierro.    I think we did this island justice in multiple ways, including dining, some hiking, sightseeing, etc.    It is by far the most remote of the islands and certainly fairly remote for the world as well.    Driving was pretty easy I have to say, as it was VERY well marked.   

What's next?   As far as the Canaries, probably Lanzarote and Feurteventura, the last two islands.   Time will tell.   In the short term, trips to the UK and South Africa are on the horizon, so plenty more to come if all goes to plan.    High hopes as the restaurant manager in Los Lllanos said every time he set down a plate of food or a drink :-)