The ship came to a standstill in the middle of the night. I've made my way to shore half asleep in the crowd welcomed by yawning taxi drivers. I haven’t lost a moment on them and without regret headed downtown on foot. All relatively inexpensive boards were either full, or closed hours ago. But it was warm outside and I felt safe in the city, especially among the white walls of houses with typical wooden balconies and some still open pubs underneath. A charming sound of a harp, guitar and an accordion was filling the restaurant yard. A group of locals was either celebrating, or just enjoyed singing late into the night. In a heartbeat I’ve changed my quest for a place to sleep into a beer mug in my hand and joined the happy group. The strong voice of the waitress was louder than all of us and she passed the bottles of local brew around with ease, while singing a solo in Latino-Spanish rhythms, which were spontaneously echoing through the warm January night. When the bar was closing, I had no worries at to where I’ll sleep, for I could just head down to the beach, but instead I went along the only road leading through town, towards the distant mountains you could sense far away.
At the break of dawn I tried my luck hitching a ride and soon enough a lovely girl with a huge off road vehicle “Laura” picked me up for the ride. We headed the winding road inland. With my lacking skills at Spanish I mostly nodded, when she started her monologue:
I’ve worked at the hotel reception on Tenerife for quite a number of years. The pay is better, but the prices are higher too. When you’re young, you just have to try it. It was the way to discover what I have on my home island. The Palm is not called »la isla bonita« - the beautiful island – for nothing! It’s much greener, less crowded and not so over flooded with tourists as Gran Canaria and Tenerife.
Money isn’t everything, so our quality of life is better here, even if we get paid less. But there’s no nervousness, haste or grabbing the cash here, so everything is much more relaxed. We always have enough money for friends, chatting with neighbours and guests spending the night at our place. A part of the house is arranged so we can rent out rooms. There are just enough guests throughout the year, so we can survive without having to find a job in town. I prefer the village. Fuencalienete is quite visited due to the volcano cones, even though it has only 10 houses. 30 years ago, when the volcano erupted, just a few miles away, it didn’t scare me at all. I was still little, and it was the best firework I’ve ever seen. It also posed no danger for the village, but it did harm the nature, which became a black desert straight down to the coast. Still, the nature fights it back and this is now one of the most picturesque parts of the island.
La Palma is one of the less tourist places in the Canaries. There are few other attractive islands as well, with pine trees and crevices – the westernmost is El Hiero, or the generally unknown Gracisosa, just a few km2 large, but proud with its long sand beaches. There are more than enough challenges here, to have a few weeks of exploration. The costs aren’t high either, for the car rent is very low and you can even sleep under the starry skies, if you’re in the lightly populated areas – still I recommend a good sleeping bag, for winters can be cold. But summer nights are pleasantly cold, with the mountain breeze cooling you down – which might be quite often. You can easily reach the islands with less than 200€ from most larger European airports (it’s the price for a return ticket).
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