Walking La Gomera - of subtropical yetis, cats and coat sucking pigs

"Laus Deus

  Santa Clara en la montaña 

  esta sola y bien se amaña"

The sign by Santa Clara's chapel mentions her solitude up on the mountain, but in fact, she is not alone at all, the lonely sanctuary being guarded by cats. These beautiful, clean, yet strangely corpulent cats welcome hikers in the middle of nowhere, mundane and friendly, against a share of the walkers picnic. 

On the way up, you meet sparse (mostly German) hikers going down (you hate them - not for being German but for being on their way down), you're sweating, red in the face, out of breath and praying any god you've ever heard of for the next sign to tell you that your ascension is finally ending. You don't even look back down the steep rocky path, and when you look up, it seems never-ending. 

You're just swearing in silence for having had the silly idea to do this walk. 

And then, all of a sudden, the miracle happens, you see an opening, the sun, a sign, four fat cats and a breathtaking view of the ocean. And you're so happy! You talk to cats! Give them half of your food! ... Before you start going down on the other side (where you swear again, but you have a mean satisfaction when you cross someone going up).

That's what we did all week. Going up and down litteraly devouring the stunning beauty of the island  and inhaling its celestial perfume of tropical fruits, salt, ocean and distant shores.

It would  have been a quite relaxed time if we didn't have to come back at night to our village, Lomito Fragoso (Rocky Ridge), where we were awoken every night by a strange (scary) sound, a rough, raucous complaint,  to which some goats responded bleating. (In the middle of the night. Ok I am no goat life specialist, but still.. why would they be up at night?!)

We heard it first from afar, from another valley, while having dinner on the terrace. Then just before dawn, we heard it as close as if it were on the road, beneath our little house perched on the mountainside. 

We asked the villagers and they talked about usual animals we know, which didn't seem credible. We definitely heard some sort of mountain monster coming down every night from the high misty mossy forest of mount Garajonay. 

To cut a long story of night watches and sound recordings short... We never found out what it was (sorry, I know this sounds like a shitty story) but we couldn't risk going out in the pitch dark night and be kidnapped by some local subtropical Yeti. 

Apart from that, the island was full of other surprises:

death by flea bites

...which made us forget our night monsters.. Yes there were also those monsters that sneaked into my bed, like a flea that ate me alive.. I couldn't decide if I got it from the goats or the hippies playing "music" on the beach.. 

the coat sucking pig

Along our walks, as we were studying some local restaurant menu, we did learn of two animals we had never heard of before: the "coat" (served in this case as a stew) and the "sucking pig" served with "papas canarias"-potatoes boiled in sea water, and the best potatoes I actually ever ate.

Behemoth in person and the best guarded pool

Half way down from Ermita de Santa Clara, on the Vallehermoso beach (where you don't want to swim because the beach next to it is called Playa de la Sepultura (the Sepulchre beach - most certainly for a good reason..) you (sweaty and with shaky legs from the descent) suddenly see a turquoise seawater swimming pool right above the black volcanic beach. Of course, all you want to do is start running downhill and jump in, until you find out it is closed. 

Now... only one look at Sarajevo was clear : we are definitely trespassing - there's no one around but a couple foreign (German) hikers struggling on a slope somewhere above. And as you're perched on the gate, you catch the severe look of this entirely black (and fat) cat sitting on the wall by the entrance. 

Behemoth probably died laughing at our faces when we ran in the pool and found out the water was beautiful AND freezing. 

And so did the coat sucking pig (A.K.A subtropical Yeti) and all the village when we were trying to lure  him closer to our house at night by imitating his guttural sound...

the thousand and one smiles or walking upside down

"L’homme ne peut découvrir de nouveaux océans tant qu’il n’a pas le courage de perdre de vue la côte."
 André Gide

I know well there is no perfect place on earth. I know it even better - for no place will probably be perfect for me. While some are scared to leave their hometown, and move elsewhere, I am scared to be stuck in one place for longer than..I wish to stay.

Move in.. while thinking of moving out. Whenever the wind starts to blow again.

At the same time, I wish to find that place, the one I will not want to leave.

I think it should be south, warm, by the ocean. Now I bumped into one of these places,  but unlike all the ones I knew already, it functions. It's not perfect, sure it's not, let's not get started about their refugee policies, or the very ugly colonisation history the country (as we know it now) has built itself on.

It is on the other side of the planet and people walk upside down, which is weird, but when I was a child and wanted to put myself to sleep, I did not count sheeps, because it wouldn't work: I was picturing myself walking around the globe until the moment I walked upside down and fell asleep. The planet was approximately the size of Little Prince's asteroid B-612, obviously.

I flew in on a friday evening, just on time to see a resplendent Darling Harbour by sunset from the sky.

Just on time to be handed a glass of red wine by my ex-sevillana Italian partner in crime, who seems to have received the same pair of wandering shoes as me from the Fates upon birth. The deal included beautiful curls, too. (Except mine came with 3 years delay..never told about my sister calling me a lamp bulb? but that's another story..)

I had arrived just on time to swap my winter outfit for a light summer dress.

The next day, I woke up with the sun, to the sound of an (unknown) (Australian?) bird chirping samba (?!) "tututu tutututu.." oh..jetlag!

From then on, I was to see more smiles in 3 weeks than in the past 3 years. 

Big smiles, cheeky smiles, sexy smiles, stunning smiles, unsettling smiles, funny smiles, that made me beam, or as we say in Czech "smile like the moon above a pile of manure" (- don't ask why).

It is a serious upgrade when people are nice to you and smile, wherever you go and whatever you do. Unlike certain European countries where civility and good manners are a requested norm, the general Aussie attitude feels more genuine than just courteous. You can now imagine how bad I felt, when I remembered all these nice Australian tourists who called us mates in Prague back then.. and we..  from atop our bar stool would tell them with contempt "Who are you? I am not your mate. Move." (No, being just nice and smiling at strangers was not our definition of being cool - but maybe, maybe, they were drunk and obnoxious? can't tell  - yet what I do remember,  is that their wish to be friends with everyone annoyed us and made us laugh.)

There's no point in telling all I did (and didn't do) down under, this is no travel log. I am just trying to transmit a tiny bit of my impressions or better said, why I felt so happy there. 

Tell the fantastic time I had!

Soaking in great energy from the people, from the everlasting natural elements. Sun, rocks, sand, ocean. Getting surprised and amazed by the ever-present and bizarre local wildlife. 

Bringing back old memories when meeting friends I hadn't seen for 15 years, discovering they remained true to the essence of what brought us together in the beginning of our sweet twenties. Well, as to the memories, we realised we didn't remember much more than one long blurred party, but still..It was about time to get the old forgotten stories right!

Learning ...always... things like "it does actually feel fantastic to do yoga". (=all my friends were right, for ages! yet.. I have to be interesting, and find out by myself, in Canberra!)

Witnessing so much beauty. Unexpected landscapes, breathtaking beaches, fine artworks I'd have loved to steal (they were actually huge canvases, but they would be still easier to take away than the rest..), spectacular skies, oh these skies that made me thank out loud so many times for their splendour, and for my eyes to be able to see. 

Catching up with old friends that I've been following across the world as an apostle would Jesus (that's my vision- they just call me a stalker), and diving back with them and their friends into Triana and its flamenco feel for a brief moment. (Now when you think Triana at the antipodes...it's far-fetched I reckon, but it works in Melbourne!)

Meeting new, inspiring, fun and lovely people..  

Wait a second, I can already foresee the thoughts of some.. "Bullshit, it can't all be that positive and great" "that's just a way to make everything sound awesome" "there must be a flaw to all this".

Well that's right, my journey was not perfect. I did experience some true distress and disgust, followed by sadness, because there's absolutely nothing to be done about it.

Now I know it will sound stupid but...

There's only one fact I completely forgot to consider:  that because it's warm, I am not the only one who likes the place... big brown fat cockroaches don't mind walking upside down either! 

But maybe these cockroaches are smiling, who knows.. I didn't check!

cross my heart, hope (not) to die, if I..

....
last post in February 2014... where did my words go?
Was I talking too much for two years and releasing them too fast?
(hmmm, no.. a million words a second is what I've been doing all my life...)
Did they run out, did they jump aside, did they hide?
I've eaten a lot of beautiful words instead. Now my head is full of them.
So I have to write it .. (that's just to make sure I will):
I'll pull my derelict words back together before two years of silence are complete.

"Magda recorta palabras de los diarios, palabras de todos los tamaños, y las guarda en cajas. En caja roja guarda las palabras furiosas. En caja verde, las palabras amantes. En caja azul, las neutrales. En caja amarilla, las tristes. Y en caja transparente guarda las palabras que tienen magia. 

A veces, ella abre las cajas y las pone boca abajo sobre la mesa, para que las palabras se mezclen como quieran. Entonces, las palabras le cuentan lo que ocurre y le anuncian lo que ocurrirá."

Eduardo Galeano in "Las palabras andantes"