LA GOMERA, VISITING GARAJONAY NATIONAL PARK

Tina Picotes in San Sebastián de la Gomera

Today, The Grandma is visiting La Gomera with her friends Claire Fontaine, Joseph de Ca'th Lon and Tina Picotes, who has just arrived to the island.

The Grandma loves volcanoes, native tribes cultures and languages and visiting La Gomera is a great privilege for her because she can visit a volcanic island with an ancient history and with a singular language named the Silbo.

All friends have visited the Garajonay National Park a wonderful an amazing natural site considered a World Heritage Site by UNESCO.

Before visiting the park, The Grandma has studied a new lesson of her Intermediate Language Practice manual (Grammar 16).

More information: Passive 1

La Gomera is one of the Canary Islands, located in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Africa. With an area of 369.76 square kilometers, it is the second smallest of the seven main islands of this group. It belongs to the province of Santa Cruz de Tenerife. Its capital is San Sebastián de La Gomera, where the headquarters of the Cabildo are located.

La Gomera is part of the province of Santa Cruz de Tenerife. It is divided into six municipalities: Agulo, Alajeró, San Sebastián de La Gomera, Hermigua, Valle Gran Rey and  Vallehermoso.

The island government, Cabildo Insular, is located in the capital, San Sebastián. The island is of volcanic origin and roughly circular; it is about 22 kilometres in diameter. The island is very mountainous and steeply sloping and rises to 1,487 metres at the island's highest peak, Alto de Garajonay. Its shape is rather like an orange that has been cut in half and then split into segments, which has left deep ravines or barrancos between them.

The Grandma visits el Castillo del Mar, La Gomera

The uppermost slopes of these barrancos, in turn, are covered by the laurisilva or laurel rain forest, where up to 50 inches of precipitation fall each year.

The upper reaches of this densely wooded region are almost permanently shrouded in clouds and mist, and as a result are covered in lush and diverse vegetation: they form the protected environment of Garajonay National Park, which was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1986. The slopes are criss-crossed by paths that present varying levels of difficulty to visitors, and stunning views to seasoned hikers.

The central mountains catch the moisture from the trade wind clouds and yield a dense jungle climate in the cooler air, which contrasts with the warmer, sun-baked cliffs near sea level.

More information: Turismo de la Gomera

Between these extremes one finds a fascinating gamut of microclimates; for centuries, the inhabitants of La Gomera have farmed the lower levels by channelling runoff water to irrigate their vineyards, orchards and banana groves.

The official natural symbols associated with La Gomera are Columba junoniae, Paloma rabiche, and Persea indica, Viñátigo.

The local wine is distinctive and often accompanied with a tapa, snack, of local cheese, roasted pork, or goat meat. Other culinary specialities include almogrote, a cheese spread, miel de palma, a syrup extracted from palm trees, and escaldón, a porridge made with gofio flour.

The inhabitants of La Gomera have an ancient way of communicating across deep ravines by means of a whistled speech called Silbo Gomero, which can be heard 2 miles away. This whistled language is indigenous to the island, and its existence has been documented since Roman times.

Los Órganos Natural Monument, La Gomera

Invented by the original inhabitants of the island, the Guanches, Silbo Gomero was adopted by the Spanish settlers in the 16th century and survived after the Guanches were entirely assimilated.

When this means of communication was threatened with extinction at the dawn of the 21st century, the local government required all children to learn it in school. Marcial Morera, a linguist at the University of La Laguna has said that the study of silbo may help understand how languages are formed.

In the mountains of La Gomera, its original inhabitants worshipped their god, whom they called Orahan; the summit and centre of the island served as their grand sanctuary. Indeed, many of the natives took refuge in this sacred territory in 1489, as they faced imminent defeat at the hands of the Spaniards, and it was here that the conquest of La Gomera was drawn to a close.

More information: Everything, Everywhere

Modern-day archaeologists have found several ceremonial stone constructions here that appear to represent sacrificial altar stones, slate hollows, or cavities. It was here that the Guanches built pyres upon which to make offerings of goats and sheep to their god. This same god, Orahan, was known on La Palma as Abora and on Tenerife and Gran Canaria as Arocan. The Guanches also interred their dead in caves.

Today, saints, who are worshipped through village festivals, are principally connected with Christianity. But in some aspects, the Guanches’ god-like idealising of Gomeran uniqueness plays a role as well besides their pre-Christian and pre-colonial implication and shows strong local differences.

An autosomal study in 2011 found an average Northwest African influence of about 17% in Canary Islanders with a wide interindividual variation ranging from 0% to 96%. According to the authors, the substantial Northwest African ancestry found for Canary Islanders supports that, despite the aggressive conquest by the Spanish in the 15th century and the subsequent immigration, genetic footprints of the first settlers of the Canary Islands persist in the current inhabitants.

Parallelling mtDNA findings (50.1% of U6 and 10.83% of L haplogroups), the largest average Northwest African contribution (42.50%) was found for the samples from La Gomera. 

Visiting Garajonay Natural Park, La Gomera

Genetic drift could be responsible for the contrasting difference in Northwest African ancestry detected with maternal (51% of Northwest African lineages) and paternal markers, 0.3–10% of Northwest African lineages, in La Gomera. Alternatively, it could reflect the dramatic way the island was conquered, producing the strongest sexual asymmetry in the archipelago.

The festival of the Virgin of Guadalupe, patron saint of the island, is the Monday following the first Saturday of October. Every five years is celebrated the Bajada de la Virgen de Guadalupe, the Bringing the Virgin, from her hermitage in Puntallana to the capital. She is brought by boat to the beach of San Sebastián de La Gomera, where several people host her, and transported throughout the island for two months.

More information: Gomera Experience

Garajonay National Park is located in the center and north of the island of La Gomera. It was declared a national park in 1981 and a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1986. It occupies 40 km2 and it extends into each of the six municipalities on the island.

The park is named after the rock formation of Garajonay, the highest point on the island at 1,487 m. It also includes a small plateau whose altitude is 790-1,400 m above sea level.

The park provides the best example of Canarian laurisilva, a humid subtropical forest that in the Tertiary covered almost all of Southern Europe. It is also found on the Azores and the Madeira Islands. Laurus azorica, known as Azores laurel, or by the Portuguese names louro, loureiro, louro-da-terra, and louro-de-cheiro, can be found in the park, as well as Laurus novocanariensis, known as Canary laurel

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Although named as a single type of forest, the national park englobes several varieties of forests. Most humid and protected valleys oriented to the North have the richest and most complex forests. It is known as valley laurisilva, a true subtropical rainforest where the largest laurel trees can be found. At higher altitudes, with less protection from wind and sun, the forest loses some of its more delicate species. Here it is called slope laurisilva, laurisilva de ladera. At the south the forest is mainly a mix of beech and heather, species adapted to the less humid atmosphere.

Visiting Garajonay National Park, La Gomera

Other attractions of the national park are the massive rocks that are found along the island. These are former volcanoes whose shapes have been carved by erosion.

Some, like the Fortaleza, fortress in Spanish, were considered sacred by the native islanders, as well as ideal refuges when attacked. The park is crossed by a large network of 18 footpaths, trekking being one of the main tourist activities in the island.

Many of the species of flora and fauna are endemic to the Macaronesian islands, the Canary Islands or La Gomera, and the Garajonay forest harbors a rich biota of understory plants, invertebrates, and birds and bats, including a large number of endemic species.

Two species of reptile, Gallotia gomerana (Gomeran lizard) and Chalcides viridanus (Gomeran skink), can be found. Amphibians include the stripeless tree frog, Hyla meridionalis.

The park is renowned as one of the best places to observe the two Canarian endemic pigeons, laurel pigeon (Columba junoniae) and Bolle's pigeon (Columba bollii).

More information: UNESCO

The peak and park are named after Guanche lore, the hapless lovers Gara and Jonay. Their romance evokes those of Romeo and Juliet and Hero and Leander. Gara was a princess of Agulo on La Gomera. During the festival of Beñesmén, it was customary for unmarried girls of Agulo to gaze at their reflections in the waters of Chorros del Epina. If the water was clear, they would find a husband; if it was cloudy, some misfortune would befall them. When Gara looked at the water, she saw her reflection clearly. However, she gazed too long and the sun's reflection blinded her temporarily. A wise man named Gerián told her that this meant that she needed to avoid all fire or else it would consume her.

Jonay was the son of the Guanche mencey or king of Adeje on Tenerife, who arrived on the island to celebrate these ceremonies. Jonay's participation in the ensuing games attracted the attention of Gara, and the two fell in love. Unfortunately, when the engagement was announced, the volcano Teide, visible from La Gomera, began to erupt as if in disapproval. This was interpreted as a bad omen and the couple’s respective parents broke the engagement.

Jonay was made to return to Tenerife, but one night, he swam across the channel that separated the two islands and rejoined his beloved. Their respective fathers ordered that the two be found. The lovers were soon trapped on a mountain, where they decided to take their own lives.

More information: The Telegraph

 All the flowers of tomorrow are in the seeds of today.

Guanche Proverb