marc de ridder photography

Piscina Natural de Hermigua, the natural swimming pool at Hermigua, is one of our favourite and one of our most visited spots on La Gomera. The natural sea water pool is not only wonderful for a refreshing swim on a hot day, but is also set amongst the most spectecular scenery. The pool is flanked by steep cliffs on the South, impressive pillars that are reminicent of the island’s banana era to the East, grande waves crashing against the rocks to the North and stunning views to Playa Hermigua, cliffs at Santa Catalina and picturesque Agulo to the West.

These images hopefully give you an appreciation of the pool and it’s location, although they do not fully convey the scale and sheer wildness of the place. My next blog entry will be showing the views to the West, a typical Gomeran view of towering cliffs with hamlets and cultivated terrace clinging to them.

The towers are a leftover from the early twenty century when the banana trade on La Gomera was flourishing. Metal constructions on top of the cranes enabled the loading of bananas onto cargo ships anchored in the deep waters out in sea, safe from the treaterous rocks.

For anyone going to La Gomera, this is a must visit spot. One word of caution though. With high winds and/or rough seas, the pool and adjacent area is a no go zone. I will pursue a future blog entry showing the rough side of the sea from previous visits.

Casa Bencomo is one of the traditional townhouses built around a central courtyard, typically found in the old heart of San Sebastian. Standing on the corner of Calle Real (one of the three main streets) and the square in front of Iglesia de Nuestra Señora de la Asunción (the great church of San Sebastian), the townhouse commands a more prominent position than most other townhouses.

So it was very welcoming to see that after standing empty for many years, the townhouse is finally being restored and renovated. It transpires that the council is restoring the outside of the townhouse to preserve it’s original looks and, unfortunately, renovating the inside to facilitate a library. It is a pity the inside is not restored to it’s original state. Then again, preserving the building is better than for it to remain derelict and slowly degenerating to rubble as is often the case.

The first twelve images were taken during our visit to La Gomera in Ferbuary 2006 when the doors to the central courtyard were open and we got a chance to venture inside to explore the derelict building. With hindsight, I wish we had spent longer inside, as opportunities to access such abandoned and derelict townhouses is proving to be a rare opportunity.

The final four images of Casa Bencomo were taken during various visits to La Gomera since then. The first image taken a year and a half later, on 30th September 2007, shows Casa Bencomo boarded up and it’s prominent location on the corner of the square and Calle Real.

The second image was taken another year and a half later, on 9th March 2009, showing very little change apart from a few more billboards on the doors and a few more broken panes in the first floor windows. It also illustrates the pace of life and change in La Gomera, with little change year on year.

The final two images were taken on our last visit another year later, on 20th March 2010, clearly showing the restoration and renovation work in progress. These images also show the mix of materials used, ranging from concrete and breeze block to strengthen and rebuild the walls to high quality timber for the new roofs.

After seeing these scatterred, abandoned Gomeran crofts along the ridge from Jerdune overlooking Barranco de Chinguarime a few years back, a wander to explore these crofts has always been on the list of to-do’s on la Gomera. The exceptional setting with stunning views combined with the ability to explore the derelict crofts made for a fantastic lazy afternoon’s wander this time.

In some ways, La Gomera reminds me of Highlands. In one way it’s sad to see the abandoned communities of derelict crofts scattered everywhere around the land, but in other ways these make for interesting wanders with fantastic photographic opportunities. While eating some fruit in the shadow of one of the roofless crofts, admiring the stunning view, we were actually wondering wheher we should maybe buy one and do it up. The heart screems yes very loudly, but the mind says no due to the remoteness and impracticalities.

Here is a set of monochrome images of the abondened, derelelict crofts with some interesting relics left behind by the owners. I have only dabbled with monochrome once in a blue moon, so any feedback on these images, especially on how to improve them very much appreciated.

In the next week, I aim to add another blog entry from this afternoon’s wander with a set of colour images that should give you a much better appreciation of how specteculer this place is.

Roques (volcanic rock spouts), barrancos (deep glens) and cumbres (long pinacled ridges) define the spectecular landscape of La Gomera. The barrancos and cumbres radiate to all sides from the centre of the island, Alto de Garajonay (1,487m), and the cumbres finally plunge steeply into the ocean. The nature of the barrancos vary enormously, ranging from lush and cultivated to covered in dense cloud forests to barren and sunburned.
The panorama above is a typical vista of this mountainous landscape surrounding La Laja. This panorama and the more detailed images below were taken from the old road beside the first tunnel of the new road from San Sebastian in the East to Hermigua in the North.

The three roques that are visible are Roque de Agondo, Roque de Carmona and Roque de Ojila. Together with Roque de la Zarcita that lies just behind Roque de Ojila when viewed from this position, these four roques are know on La Gomera as Los Roques. Roque de Agondo is the most impressive one, especially when viewed from the road that meanders between Los Roques. I will dedicate a future blog entry solely to images of Roque de Agondo.

It was a very hot day in town, so, after lunch, we decided to go for a wander in the cool, or sometimes even cold, laurel forest of the Parque Nacional de Garajonay, a UNESCO world heritage site. We drove to and parked at Les Creces, near Las Hayes, for a circular walk through the laurel forest.

These forest are magical, grown as nature would dictate, without the intervention of any human cultivation. In fact, the only visibility of human presence is the walking trails through these forests. Dead and fallen trees in these dense woods form the basis for regeneration and new growth. Mosses and leichen trive on both dead and live trees. The only noise is comes from the wind in the trees and the deafening songs of birds everywhere. The sunlight streaking through the canopy and at times the clouds blowing through the trees complete the magic of these forests.

These images show the work being carried out on extending the pier/quay in the harbour of San Sebastian de La Gomera during the first two days of our stay. The hazyness of the images is down to the presence of El Calima on both days, of which you can read more in the blog entry entitled El Calima.

Our guess is that the pier/quay is being extended to enabled more and/or larger cruise boats to moor in the harbour and let their hordes of tourist flock into the town to spend their money. In fact, during our last visit, a very large cruise boat had to moor outside the harbour and ferry passengers to the shore in small boats. Even before the last tourist was sailed to shore, other tourist were already being ferried back to the ship again. A very time consuming and tourist unfriendly process.

On the first day, a tug towed a new concrete block, probably from Tenerife but maybe even from further afield, to the harbour of San Sebastian de La Gomera, a very slow and very time consuming journey. Another concrete block that was moored in the harbour was moved by two boats from its position to close to the end of the pier/quay to make way for the new concrete block.

On the second day, the tug and the ‘power’ boat moved the prepared concrete block in place at the end of the pier/quay after which it was held in position and sunk. This positioning and sinking of the concrete block took the best part of the day.

So now there are two new blocks in place at the end of the pier/quay, with a third one being prepared before added at the end. The question is how many more blocks, or how far, will they be extending the pier/quay.

As you can see from the image on the right, even the locals are very curious as to what is happening.

During the first couple of days of our holiday in San Sebastian de La Gomera visibility was very poor as you can see from these two images (one in colour and ‘antique’ monochrome). You may think this to be mist, low cloud or even rain, but it is in fact a sandstorm called the Calima.

The Calima is a hot, oppressing dust and sand-laden, southerly to southeasterly, sometimes easterly wind in the Canary Islands region. It is particularly prevalent in winter. Like it’s ‘big brother’ the Sirocco, the Calima blows out of a high-pressure over Northern Africa and the Sahara and is normally drawn northwards ahead of a passing cold-front or depression north of the archipelago. It’s fine yellowish-brown dust is even creeping through doors and windows. Outside visibility often reduces to null.

Sometimes a rare small depression forming south-west of the Canary Islands increase wind-speed and intensity of a Calima event. Such storms and the rising warm and humid air can lift dust 5,000 m or so above the Atlantic blanketing hundreds of thousands of square miles of the eastern Atlantic Ocean with a dense cloud of Saharan sand, many times reaching as far as the Caribbean.

This abnormal hot and humid Calima is often associated with fog and patchy drizzle and the Canary people are heavily suffering from respiratory problems. Conditions could become even so bad that they might force public life and transport to a stand-still. On January 8, 2002, the international airport of Santa Cruz had to be closed because visibility dropped to less than 50 meters.

View of El Cumbre through El Calima from San Sebastian (Monochrome).