Friday, February 21, 2014

A high old time ...


Before it vanishes into the dream-like recesses of memory, a few words on our January holiday. We were walking with a holiday company called HF - no reason for originally choosing this lot other than the name, familiar from my parents' tales of pre-war holidays in the Highlands, but now a firm favourite. We had a week in Gran Canaria, staying in Puerto de Mogàn, which is apparently one of the prettiest of the former fishing villages on the south coast. As I've found on previous winter breaks in the Canaries, I think I would soon have been bored had we spent the entire week in this pretty village - there was a beach, and it was sunny, and there were cafés and tapas bars, but ...

But in the interior of the island there were mountains. A fantastic, volcanic landscape of huge calderas and bright green and red streaks of volcanic deposits, of steep-sided valleys and beautiful villages high on the shoulders of the mountains, where the almond-blossom told of much longer hours of sunshine than their opposite numbers far below. We spent five days walking there on wonderful paths - not your Munro-baggers' paths to a summit here or a distant peak there, but real paths built for communication, for mules and donkeys and people to pass between the valleys and the villages. Dramatic balcony paths used the split between two layers of rock to creep across the precipitous hillside; the occasional levada carried water across dry high plateaux. And we were able to walk here, to traverse ridges and ascend peaks and come down in quite another valley from where we had started, because we were being guided and because we knew that the mini-bus would turn up for us in some village square at an appointed time and whisk us back to our hotel.

I loved every minute of it. The walks, as promised, went on getting better as the week progressed, culminating in a hike to the dramatic Roque Nublo in the geographic centre of the island - we could see El Teide on Tenerife floating in the blue west from our path as we walked.  Our two leaders - for there are always two groups, so that the less energetic can choose a less strenuous option - were wonderful, setting just the right pace so that we progressed without feeling pressured, covering the miles with an easy stride that left plenty of energy for the hilarity that seemed to accompany us wherever we went. (It might give some flavour of said hilarity that one day was occupied by an argument as to whether or not Paul was riding a beast at the time of his conversion on the road to Damascus ...)

Most of our pick-up stops had a café, but whatever the day brought it ended in icy cold beer before we changed out of our boots and dusty clothes. We would march into our hotel bar like something out of a Western, and line up along the counter. Then the inevitable baths/showers/cups of tea/making sandwiches for the next day before the evening briefing and the scamper down to the neighbouring hotel for dinner. (Our hotel, where we had whole apartments as opposed to mere bedrooms, was refurbishing its dining room). We ate prodigiously and went to bed early. And then we'd rise in the chilly dawn (for it was chilly at 6.30am!) and start all over again.

We must have walked between 50-60 miles that week, and climbed or ascended several thousands of feet (people kept talking, confusingly, in metres ...). We were fit, and we all caught the sun despite our shady hats. I loved every minute of it. And I've just booked another HF holiday for May ...

No comments:

Post a Comment