Hiking on La Palma, Canary Islands I was on a hiking holiday with my father on La Palma from January 10th to 17th. Though the weather was not perfect (we had two days of rain) we both enjoyed the time tremendously. We stayed in Casa Sara, a small traditional cottage in Puntallana about 10 kilometers north of the capital Santa Cruz. It is part of the turismo rural network of 80 cottages which have been renovated. The doors were a little too low (I am 1.95 m tall) so that I had to bend down when going from one room to the next but at least the bed was 2 meters long. The Cabildo La Palma (local government) recently signposted many hiking paths on the island. At the tourist office in Santa Cruz we got the map "Hiking paths of La Palma" (online in 4 parts: NW, NE, SW, SE) which shows all the major paths on the island. We tried to create round trips by joining different paths together which usually worked quite well. There are two long hiking paths on the island. The first one, the GR 130 (gran recorrido), does the tour of the island and is about 200 kilometers long. Usually it follows the old foot paths. The GR 131 starts in El Puerto de Tazacorte in the West of the island, follows the volcano crater which surrounds the national park Caldera de Taburiente via Roque de los Muchachos (2,423m, highest point of the island) and finishes after 100 kilometers at Faro de Fuencaliente at the South coast. We walked along parts of both paths. From the barbecue and picnic place Refugio del Pilar in the pine forest in the centre of the island we followed the GR 131 North and South. To the North we went along the ridge past Reventon with a radio/tv broadcast station. After that there was a steep descent on a stone track to the church La Virgen del Pino in the caldera. We then walked past the visitors' centre back to Del Pilar on a small road and later on a beautiful hidden path in the woods. From Del Pilar to the South we followed the Ruta de los Volcanos. The first volcano with the steepest ascent was Pico Birigoyo from where we had a beautiful view of the Teide (Teneriffe) above the clouds. We went passed the Crater del Hoyo Negro up to La Deseadas. From there we could see Teneriffe, Gomera and El Hierro. After a small descent on the ridge we turned left to descend another 600 meters in altitude. After more than one and a half hours we joined the runway to the left which lead us back to El Pilar. We did some more hikes. Maybe I'll make an extra page on the holiday.

La Palma is a phantastic island for hiking tours. As temperatures are always around 20 degrees Celsius the occasional rain which often almost immediately evaporates on the skin is quite bearable. In the mountains the weather is nevertheless unsafer. Often Roque de los Muchachos is in the clouds and it rains around there. In the caldera three Germans drowned last year end of November when 120 liters of rain per square meter fell in six hours.

Some other more detailed travel accounts of La Palma:

• 8 day hiking holiday in 2000.
• 1999 trip report of a bird and butterfly watcher.
• Photos plus travelogue.
• 15 days hiking in 1996 in German.
• Links to nine travel accounts in German.