I don’t know why I’m showcasing the hotel, for the most part it has been underwhelming, whilst the room was large and entirely acceptable other things haven’t been so. Some staff are pleasant and lovely, some are seriously grumpy. The whole buffet thing is a frustration, and to make matters worse we were told off for not making a breakfast reservation – never ever have we stayed in an hotel that required a breakfast reservation! The final insult is being screwed for a bottle of wine they shouldn’t have charged for, no-one was able to fix this as we left, however it will feature in my Google review! The setting is nice, with five or six pools and for the majority I’m sure it is a great place, but it’s just not aligned to this particular writer.
We stop in the town 2000 ft above the hotel, Los Canarias, for lunchtime provender, before driving on LP1 toward the capital, past it and up North. We enjoy recognising where we walked on our February cruise visit, and then driving beyond to the delightful village of San Andrés where they are preparing to fiesta this evening. In fact it’s not our intended destination, just a happy find less than a mile away, so we walk on to Charco Azul, where we’ve come to see the natural pool, which is famous. The sat nav has a tricky time as we leave, but an interesting tour of the local banana farms is quite fun!
After these we park in at Cubo de la Galga information point, chat with the lovely ranger who gives us her opinion on what to do, photograph the walker’s map and then head up this wonderful canyon. Having been stripped by subsistence farmers in days gone by, this canyon has returned to nature, and it’s quite exceptional. One could easily expect a velociraptor to run past, or a T-Rex emerge from the ravine.
Instead of reaching the end of the pasthway and returning, we decide to continue the hard-way back to make a circumnavigation – it’s all on the map so not too reckless, although the second section is precipitous in parts – trip up and you fall to your certain death 100s of feet below. Clearly we don’t, and enjoy this lovely trek.
Returning to Santa Cruise we feed the car for an hour whist we take a walk south past the harbour, seeing Saga’s Spirit of Adventure parked next to our ferry already waiting for us. Our third walk, very different, is equally nice as we enjoy our last hour of almost solitude and reflect on how wonderful and different the two closest islands are.
We’re making 38 knots, 45 mph back and arrive in Los Cristianos ahead of schedule and home within 15 minutes!
