If you think that Canary Islands aren’t something hikers would ever consider as their destination. Think again.
La Palma (which Madonna called “La Isla Bonita”) is north-western island of this volcanic archipelago. Small and friendly, it contains everything hikers wish to find when on holidays. Well prepared choice of hiking paths, including both long (over five days) and short (some paths can be made in few hours), easy and challenging (both physically and technically), good prepared web of camping places, stable and warm weather, astonishing views all the way through and some extra attractions, including observatories. As if things couldn’t be better, it is also rather cheap, not that far away and easy to access.
The route we took (GR 131) leads from the bottom (south) of the island, beginning in Los Canarios (Fuencaliente) by Tenequia volcano (last time active in 1971) where you can look into the eye of the beast. We moved towards the north following mountain ridges. The path led us through volcanic, moon-like areas, proper rocks of Caldera de Tiburente, some temperate cloud forest, right back to seaside in Puerto de Tazacorte.
It took us five days to reach our destination, but there are several possibilities to hike parts of the same path or, if you like more technical routes, you can go inside Caldera de Tiburente, where you can also exercise some of your climbing skills.
To get there from the UK we flew to south Tenerife, then took the ferry from Los Cristianos to Santa Cruz on La Palma island, but La Palma Airport serves flights from London and Manchester.
Official language: Spanish, but most of people around will communicate in English and German too.

GR131 info: bit.ly/IxIueB
Google map: bit.ly/JHvliU

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