La Palma – hike, run, relax – repeat
Even our honeymoon couldn’t have been spent completely without hiking or trail running.
Day 1 – Hiking (25 km, 1200 m altitude difference)
After one week of relaxing and doing nothing, we started with a 25 km hike, on a Monday. No clouds on the sky and the sun was heating us hard. Nobody else was on the paths. A normal person doesn’t really start hiking at lunch time, when the sun is the strongest. But at least the paths were very well marked.
The restaurant where we were hoping to eat something was closed. An ice cream and a Cola gave a bit of power for the last 3 long km until the next restaurant where we refilled our batteries.
Day 2 – Trail running (Alexandra 15 km, 600 altitude difference; Thorsten 30 km, 1600 altitude difference)
On Tuesday we did a trail run.
We started again late, very late, almost 1 PM. Running at 28 degrees is not funny. I ran 15 km and it was enough. Thorsten ran 30. We were finished when we reached back home. The sun was really cruel and we kind of got a feeling what hell means. There are a lot of trail paths on La Palma (https://www.senderosdelapalma.es/en/), but there is no water on the way. We really had to save and calculate how much we can drink, depending on the distance left to run.
I didn’t take the long route because I was afraid I will not have enough water to reach back home. I found some plumbs on the way and they helped a bit to reduce the amount of water I drank. Thorsten had no water for the last 3 km and had to walk. Might have been a good training, but a bit dangerous.
Day 3 – Rest day
For Wednesday it was planed to do nothing, and we respected the plan :D.
Day 4 – Hiking (6 km, 500 m altitude difference)
On Thursday we wanted to do a long hike, mostly above 2500 m altitude, with a Mars landscape, from Roque de los Muchachos (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roque_de_los_Muchachos) to Pico de la Nieve. We woke up too late for that, so we went down to the harbour Tazacorte, on the path used by the trail runners during the Transvulcania (https://transvulcania.es/en/) trail run event.
It was a short but steep hike and we felt what 500 m altitude difference means for a 3 km hike. It was so hot and we drank so much water, that we could role down. Too bad we had to go up.
Day 5 – Hiking (11 km, 500 m altitude difference)
On Friday we decided to finally do the long hike. We pretty much all the time have part of adventures. When we reached the summit Roque de los Muchachos, where you can see some of the worlds largest telescopes (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roque_de_los_Muchachos_Observatory), we found out that all the hiking tracks were closed due to fire danger.
Not very happy about it, we changed the plans. We did a shorter hike in Santo Domingo, a small harbour in the NW part of the island, where we hoped to take a bath. The ocean was too wild.
Again a hot hike, but this time we had a water “tank” with us.
Day 5 continuation – Fire
The most interesting part of this day was yet to come. On the way up to our vacation home we saw smoke in the forest and helicopters carrying water. We were like ooooohhh s….it. Totally fascinated, we looked at what was happening, not thinking for a moment that this could affect us.
But once we reached our accommodation, we observed that no other cars were parked and the person taking care of the houses told us to quickly pack and drive back down to a near village. Staying there might be too dangerous. The fire could extend fast, since near the houses was a pine forest. So we forgot about sweat, hunger, tiredness and quickly packed everything and drove down. It was a strange feeling, almost surreal: uncertainty, hurry, fascination, a bit of fear… is this really happening ?
The night that came was long. We met other people who were evacuated, we exchanged opinions, we listened to stories. The last forest fire was in 2016 and it happened because some guy decided to burn the toilet paper somewhere in the woods ?♀️ .
Our hosts reacted quickly (thanks Christian ☺️ ) and we got another accommodation around midnight. From their terrace we looked at the fire until almost in the morning. During the night the helicopters were not flying and the fire was extending. Only the firefighters on the ground couldn’t really control it.
Day 6 – Hiking (12 km, 700 m altitude difference)
On Saturday we hoped they will manage to extinguish the giant, but the Calima, the Sahara wind (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saharan_Air_Layer), didn’t make that easily possible. The day was so hot, the air was full of particles, it was smelling strongly like smoke and ash was falling down from the sky.
We decided to do a hike to another small harbour, Puntagorda. Steep and hot. On our way down we visited a lady living in a cave. It was pretty fascinating to see that she had everything she needed: bedroom, leaving room, bathroom, internet, TV, pizza oven, everything. And the air in the cave was so pleasant to breath.
Life on La Palma is so different from what we are used to. This made us realise we need so less to be happy.
The harbour was very nice. The ocean was a bit wild, but there were some “natural” pools where we could refresh a bit and prepare for the hot and relatively long hike up.
On the way to the harbour we could also see how the helicopters were taking water from a huge tank and flying fast to the places where the fire was still strong.
They couldn’t extinguish the fire by evening, so we had another night to observe it. But it was loosing power and looked like at some point will give up.
La Palma is the island where we will for sure return quite often. It is small, but it has so many places waiting to be discovered. It offers you peace, connects you with the nature and shows you how less you need to be happy.
See you soon, dear La Palma !
- Continue being sporty with two small children - January 31, 2024
- “Training Camp” Vacation as a family of four - January 28, 2024
- First Hike as a family of four - November 21, 2023
