Mom and Dad at the End of the World

#elhierro #islascanarias #fulbrightspain

The next stop on our family trip was the smallest island, my home of El Hierro!

When I tell Spaniards where I live, I often hear: "Ay! Es demasiado tranquilo", which means: "it is too calm". Which makes me laugh, because when I first moved to Spain all I head was "tranquila": calm down. :D Type A Americans are about as different as small-town Spaniards as it is possible to be, so there was a lot of adapting to do in regards to punctuality, work, errands, and opening hours. But I love it here, it is a nice little community with lots of events, beautiful nature, seafood, and rocky coasts. My parents liked it too, and I think we are well on our way to disproving this "demasiado tranquilo" rumor.

We went up to my apartment in Valverde to drop off some things my parents had brought me (including American Mac & Cheese and a bunch of children's books in English for my kids at school, courtesy of my grandma). We also passed by the odd cement statue the bus always speeds past, a monument to the pilgrimage to our patron saint's sanctuary that happens every four years.

Our AirBNB was in Tamaduste, a beautiful fishing village that is the main beach town for people from Valverde. It also has a rugged hike along the coast, over volcano rocks and next to interesting sea arches and blowholes.

The next day, we ventured up to the tiny mountain town of Sabinosa to try out paragliding. While the weather wasn't ideal, we had a great day anyway :) We saw banana farms, a cute little church, some stunning views, and my dad had a nice glide down the canyon.

After paragliding, we had a great beach day! First, we went to Charco Azul (translation: blue puddle), a beautiful little swimming hole in a cave with crystal clean water. It is a lovely place for a dip, and the tidal pools were full of little fish, limpets, and tiny hermit crabs with snail shells as homes!

We also went to Pozo de las Calcosas, a beautiful swimming area that is also used for fishing. It was quite a walk down, involving a very steep volcanic rock path, and, amazingly, there was a whole little town down there! The houses had thatched roofs, and there was a giant statue of Neptune! A very interesting place--we have no idea how they even got the building supplies down there.

Swimming in Charco Azul! It was a glorious day, and we hit right at low tide. :D

The next day, we walked part of the famous Ruta del Agua (route of water – the hike to the famous Sacred Tree). It was a lovely day, and we went through an interesting little maze of volcano rock walls that were built hundreds of years ago to keep cows out of the crops. There are tons of volcano rock walls all over the El Hierro countryside, which seems like a lot of work!

The countryside is always beautiful, and there were quite a few blooming flowers, including Hens and Chicks (which I didn't even know grew flowers), Forget-Me-Nots, and more! The tree itself is always impressive, and I love this hike because it takes you through ocean views, red desert, a foggy forest, and finally to the big city of Valverde.

En route to the Garoé, we met a runaway sheep! He escaped out of a hole in his fence, and he was hobbled (his legs were tied together), meaning that he was a bad sheep who tries to make the Great Escape pretty often. A dog jumped out of a passing truck and chased him all around, but eventually he made it up the hill and baa-ed his displeasure. We could have used a real sheepdog!

After our hike, we had lunch at Mirador de la Peña, a great restaurant made better by the stunning view of coastline of El Hierro. We ate fancy chicken, crab soup, and banana mousse, and took lots of pictures of the beautiful view!

After lunch, we drove down to La Restinga, a small fishing village that is the main diving spot on the island. We saw some cool volcanic formations, walked out onto a pier, and found an amazing crab shell that was perfectly intact, sans crab! Even the eye bubbles were preserved. He must have molted, but I didn't know that their shell was preserved so well. Super interesting!

On our last day, we drove to the west tip of the island, which I have spent very little time in because it is not very accessible by bus or even by car. There are only a couple main roads, and they are all twisty and oftentimes on the edges of cliffs. But it was a beautiful drive, through a pine forest with fire-resistant trees that rely on burning for the forest to grow, and past more stunning views.

We even made it to the Ermita de Nuestra Señora de Los Reyes, the sanctuary where the patron saint of El Hierro resides. I never even thought I would make it here because it is so out of the way, but it is a lovely little white chapel covered with the symbol of the Virgen (the intricate symbol by my feet). Around here, people who have completed the pilgrimage on foot have flags and stickers on their cars with the symbol on it.

We also drove along a pretty rough and narrow dirt road to finally reach the symbol of this island: el Sabinar. It is a unique juniper forest, the only one in the Canary Islands, and full of bent and twisted but very much living trees that have adapted to the constant wind on this part of the island.

I was so glad I got to see this tree at last, since it is on so many post cards, stickers, and photo books but among the most difficult sites to actually get to. And the wind was certainly strong!

After the windy junipers, we went to the true end of the world – the Faro de la Orchilla, the lighthouse at the Zero Meridian and a place once known as the westernmost point in the world (before Europeans found out about America). :D It was amazing to see, because from my house in Valverde I can sometimes see a shadow of La Gomera or even the tip of the volcano Teide on a clear day, but at the lighthouse, there's just ocean and sky as far as the eye can see.

So Mom and Dad made it to the true end of the world!

We took a scenic, twisty, and mountainous road down from the lighthouse, past rocky coastlines with beating waves and lots of black sand hills.

Lunch was back in Valverde at a little restaurant next door to my school. We had slow-cooked meat and garbanzas, garbanzo beans in a broth with pork and tomatoes. Yum!

One of our last stops was La Caleta, a beach town in the north, very near to Tamaduste. We found lots of crabs, saw the beautiful pools built into the shore so that people can swim even when the sea is rough, and even saw some petroglyphs (up high on the rock in the second picture).

It was a great week in El Hierro and I loved showing my parents my little home at the edge of the world!

Next up: La Palma, another small western island! :D