The road that leads from San Sebastián, the capital of La Gomera, to the north of the island clings to the aridity of the landscape as it leaves the city behind and penetrates into the ground through tunnels that allow it to circumvent an orography that is rough.
However, not even half an hour has passed when, upon exiting one of these underpasses, the landscape begins to turn green.
The terrain is still rugged and the road winding, but the tones change.
A sign on the shoulder welcomes you to the Hermigua valley and announces that you have reached the place "with the best climate in the world."
Strong assertion that, according to the locals, is due to Belgian meteorologists who, last century, came to this conclusion.
Historical temperature data seem to support such an assertion.
The maximum of 28 degrees in summer is rarely exceeded here, and in winter the thermometer easily rises to 21. And with the minimum, more of the same: between 22 degrees in August and February 16, the coldest month .
enlarge photo cova fernández
With so little thermal fluctuation, it is not surprising that such a meteorological statement defines this narrow green plain flanked by steep slopes in which terraced crops have made a hole.
These are broken only by the scattered white, yellow and pink facades of the houses of the nearly 20 scattered neighborhoods that make up the town of Hermigua.
There are, above all, banana trees, but also vines, which benefit from a climate that is largely responsible for the trade winds that, coming from the North, penetrate from the sea, transporting the humidity that gives fertility to this part of the Canary Island. .
The humidity also explains the current place name, since the pre-Hispanic inhabitants of the valley, the Guanches, baptized the place as Armiguad, which means "with plenty of water."
enlarge photo The natural pool of Hermigua.
alamy
Despite the good weather, Hermigua is small.
There are fewer than 2,000 registered inhabitants, when in the 1940s, just before emigration became a forced obligation for many Canaries, there were close to 6,000.
Today the town continues to live from agriculture and, increasingly, from rural tourism, although not from the one that seeks sun and beach, but tranquility and being able to walk through the Garajonay National Park.
If you go down the valley to the coast, one discovers that there are no beach umbrellas and deck chairs, but black stone beaches, reminiscent of the volcanic origin of La Gomera.
To bathe in the Atlantic Ocean, the usual thing is to go to the natural pool created next to the old davit pier built at the beginning of the 20th century to load the merchant ships with the bananas grown in the valley and of which today only its sober columns remain.
The other option is to venture by car up the twisted and steep track that climbs one of the slopes of the valley and then descends to La Caleta, which they claim is the best beach in the north.
Returning towards the interior of the valley, the road runs through the elongated center of the town next to banana trees, the yellow church of Nuestra Señora de la Encarnación and small supermarkets well stocked with mangoes and sleeves —the former, smaller and more fibrous;
the latter, sweeter.
There are also slender palm trees from which its sugary sap is extracted, a precious liquid called guarapo which, when heated over a fire, becomes the tasty palm honey that sweetens the desserts of La Gomera.
As the distances are short, you will soon reach the church of Santo Domingo de Guzmán, a timid building whose interior with whitewashed walls and Mudejar coffered ceiling reminds us that there was a Dominican convent here in the 16th century.
Just 200 meters away are Los Telares, an old manor house converted into a hotel and restaurant that has an exhibition on past life on this island.
enlarge photo Roques de San Pedro, in the Hermigua valley getty images
Volcanic legend
A little higher up are the rocks of Pedro and Petra, so close to each other that a legend speaks of a lightning bolt that split the volcanic stone in two, turning them into lovers who never touch.
After these volcanic landmarks, houses are more and more sporadic and nature leaves less room for crops.
The valley ends to make way for the Garajonay National Park, one of the most fascinating forests in Spain, declared a World Heritage Site by Unesco in 1986. In reality, we are facing a vestige of the Tertiary that occupies, with its nearly 4,000 hectares, 10% of the total area of La Gomera.
The trade winds push the clouds to it, leaving their precious cargo in the form of horizontal rain, as that natural process is known in which humidity, when hitting trees, lichens and moss, condenses into small drops of water that fall to the ground allowing an unsuspected fertility in a land where there is little rain.
From Alto del Garajonay, the highest point on the island — 1,487 meters above sea level — and whose archaeological remains testify that it served the first inhabitants as a ceremonial and religious center, you can see this forest, whose thickness can also be crossed along marked paths.
The one that joins the points known as El Cedro and Contadero (5.8 kilometers in length that can be lengthened by 1.4 kilometers more to the top of Garajonay) allows you to enjoy a good part of the botanical wealth offered by the two forest ecosystems most peculiar of the park: the laurel forest and the fayal-heath.
In the first one, laurels, viñátigos, linden trees, barbusanos and holly trees dominate, along with ferns and mosses.
In the second, drier, beech and heather.
Botanists say that Garajonay is home to 75 endemic plants of La Gomera.
The fauna (made up of 2,000 species of insects and other invertebrates, a type of frog, 3 reptiles, 4 bats and some 40 birds) also has endemic species, up to 150, but seeing them is much more difficult without the help of a guide and a good dose of luck.
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