Heady days in the Canaries
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AS WE are now e nt e r i ng t he “magic tunnel”, Rob — our tour guide — tells us coach-load of sceptical holidaymakers: “It may look dull and overcast here, but when the coach emerges, the sun will be shining.”
Pull the other one. For days a pall of mist has hung over our walking trip to La Palma, the most north-westerly of the Canary Islands, broken only when we rose above the cloud line on the rim of the island’s highest volcano.
But Rob is right: astonishingly, there is, quite literally, light at the end of the short — 1,100m — tunnel. The sky is blue and the sun is blazing.
The dramatic weather change is just one of many contrasts we witness in our week on this small but surprisingly varied island.
On a heart-shaped piece of land no bigger than Anglesey, we trudge through snow and bask on black sand; walk through lush forests and across barren lava fields; pick our way down a mule track and window-shop on a sophisticated Spanish high street.
The world’s steepest island — it is impossible to move more than a pace or two on La Palma without either climbing or descending — is perhaps not the obvious place for a middleaged novice to test her walking abilities. And my anxieties are not alleviated by the first night’s health and safety talk.
“If you become separated from the rest of the group, stay where you are and make as much noise as possible,” advises our guide Peter, a retired RAF engineer with the build of a whippet and the sure-footedness of a mountain goat. “And remember to carry plenty of water. Dehydration can be fatal.”
The week’s high point — literally and metaphorically — is a walk along the rim of the Caldera de Taburiente, once believed to be a vast volcanic crater but actually a semi-circular ravine 8km across and up to 2,000m deep.
Below us there is cloud — dense and inviting as a cotton wool bed — a sight normally seen only from an aeroplane. By our side, the jagged black teeth of the 2,350m high Pico de la Cruz pierce