La Palma

One of our best Ramblers’ holidays – great walking with a super crowd, enjoying splendid views through a wide variety of terrains: undulating pine and laurel forest tracks, lava flows, steep rocky climbs, dark, mysterious gorges. Very good hotel and a truly excellent leader.

For us the highlights included:

Emerging from damp clouds into the bright, warm, crystal-clear, sunlit uplands;
Gentle strolls through elegant back streets and plazas of Santa Cruz, knees still all of a tremble from the long, steep descent from San Pedro;

The seemingly endless zig zag path climbing Pico Bejenado (1854m) to be rewarded by fantastic views over the Caldera be Taburiente and the clouds tumbling spectacularly like a massive waterfall over the Cumbre Nueva ridge into the valley below;

Stumbling like 16 blind mice in single file along a pitch-black tunnel carved through the rock to emerge into the awesome deep, sheer-sided, fern-festooned gorge of Los Tilos;

Flora and fauna: spring-time flowers, feeding the lizards, watching kestrels, buzzards, aerobatic choughs, listening to tuneful canaries (in Los Canarios – where else?) and admiring the rare (but remarkably fearless) Bararozzi pipits on Pico Bejenado;

Scrumping cumquats; the evening carnival procession through the village (40 drummers and an inflammable octopus) followed by fireworks; and bracing swims from Los Cancajos beach – and warmer wallows in the Hotel’ heated pool.

Lowlight: leaving for home!