Advertisement

Poetic landscapes on the forgotten Canary Island

El Hierro is the least-known (and least-visited) of all the Canary Islands - GETTY
El Hierro is the least-known (and least-visited) of all the Canary Islands - GETTY

I’d been hiking for 40 minutes and had found myself in Yorkshire. Except it didn’t quite resemble the neighbouring county to my native Newcastle. I was surrounded by rich forests, sea cliffs, lava features and an exuberant coat of vegetation. There was also the North Atlantic Ocean stretching out before me.

That’s because I was in a place dubbed Little Yorkshire, a vantage point nestled in a remote part of El Hierro, the least-known (and least-visited) of all the Canary Islands.

I felt a little like Reese Witherspoon in the Hollywood movie Wild. It was just me against the badlands. Except, thankfully, I wasn’t completely alone and reliant on my wits. I was joined by my dear friend Sarah, and I had a series of comprehensive maps so user-friendly that even I could follow them.

This was all part of our “slow holiday”, one of Inntravel’s new walking breaks which allow travellers to enjoy self-guided hikes alone and at their own pace. Without the help of a tour guide, visitors navigate their own way along routes that snake between pre-booked hotels while their luggage is taken ahead by taxi. We playfully referred to this as “peak chic” because it sounded like hiking-lite, but in reality it was a practical, stress-free way to explore roads less travelled.

On this occasion we were walking north-west to south over five sun-kissed days. Believe me when I say this was no accident – it was mostly downhill.

We began our journey in Frontera’s historic Los Verodes, a modest, no-frills village at the base of the island’s highest peak, Pico de Malpaso. It is sparsely-populated; only a handful of multi-coloured houses break up the vast expanse of green laurel and juniper forest. 

El Hierro has a huge variety of landscapes - Credit: getty
El Hierro has a huge variety of landscapes Credit: getty

We soon caught a glimpse of the El Golfo valley, an immense bay which, with its of ragged beauty, compelled us to get started.

Appropriately, we set off from The Church of Conception, a 19th-century landmark that’s used as the starting point of the Bajada de la Virgen festival, an event attended by virtually all of the island’s 10,000 inhabitants every four years. Stepping out from under the chapel’s shadow, we saw route lines painted on the local walls. Divine intervention? Not quite. The organisers had simply provided two alternate courses for us to choose from: the first spanning less than 50km (31 miles), the second more than. Feeling ambitious, we chose the latter.

Hiking is now fashionable in certain circles, but it’s been a secret pleasure of mine for almost a decade.

Contrary to my lifestyle, which regularly sees me navigating red carpets or ensconced in the comfort of my office or studio, I’d previously ditched my heels to hike along The Atlas Mountains (spanning Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia), and tackled the trails of Majorca and the Lake District, to name but a few. Not bad for somebody who once broke both legs in the low-risk landscape of residential London.

Natural swimming pools - Credit: GETTY
Natural swimming pools Credit: GETTY

Now older and wiser, I was keen to make up for lost time. Especially as hiking is the perfect meditation for a busy mind. Perhaps it’s the calming rhythm of walking and the high oxygen intake that I enjoy so much. Or maybe it’s simply being cut off from the outside world for a few days.

As anyone else with a 15-year-old will attest, we’re all too addicted to our smartphones in this hyper-connected age. Refreshingly, there was no danger of that here. The only messages being received were from our empty stomachs.

Despite the route being lined with bountiful prickly pear trees (and our trusty back-packs being stuffed with emergency nuts, seeds and fruit Yo-Yos which my daughter was convinced would get me through), Sarah and I were both famished by the end of the first leg.

A spectacular mirador - Credit: GETTY
A spectacular mirador Credit: GETTY

Luckily, we discovered a local café where we devoured a plate of hot potatoes and cheese, both loaded with oil and salt. Then, needing further replenishment, we capped it all with a bowl of pasta and an ice-cold beer. 

It seemed our obscure pit-stop was actually a local hot-spot, as we soon met another group from the UK. They had been exploring the island on-and-off for the past eight years, and begged me not to write this feature. Why? Because like many who visit, they felt El Hierro was their hidden treasure, a secret that they really didn’t want shared.

Unfortunately, the cat is already out of the bag. Tourism in the area is up year-on-year, with people embracing increasingly remote escapes – and it hasn’t peaked yet, pardon the pun.

By the second day we found ourselves in the farming town of San Andrés, where a progressively steep descent took us to another local attraction: the site of the sacred Garoé Tree.

According to local legend, this towering evergreen saved the bimbaches – the first settlers on El Hierro – from dying of thirst by purifying the rainfall, which then gathered in huge puddles of safe drinking water. Its powers were accredited to mystical forces and the tree became a shrine. Sadly, it was destroyed by a hurricane in the 17th century and has been replaced by a replica, but the site still exerts a fascination, perhaps because there’s a romantic story attached to the land. 

Folklore has it that Spanish invaders were saved by the tree’s life-giving properties, but they killed the woman who shared its secret – burying her remains on site. Her spirit is said to manifest in the swathes of fragrant wildflowers that surround the tree. 

A lonely church - Credit: GETTY
A lonely church Credit: GETTY

For such a geographically small place, El Hierro has a huge variety of poetic landscapes. In just a few miles I felt like I’d witnessed the Dales, the tall pines of Canada, the dry, dusky landscape of Mexico and the peaks of South Africa. Thus, it’s perhaps not surprising that sixty per cent of the island is a Unesco biosphere reserve.

By this point in the journey we had covered some serious ground and I was starting to walk like John Wayne, with a swaggering, wide-legged gait you simply don’t get from any other exercise. I could feel muscles I hadn’t even known existed in my ankles and waist.

But that’s the other great thing about hiking: it’s perfect for any body size, shape and age. It’s also gentle enough to do without risking injury – a welcome benefit for someone who recently survived the perils of Dancing On Ice.

Mercifully, El Hierro is also home to Hotel Balneario – the first spa retreat in the Canaries. 

Not wanting to be rude, I indulged in a 60-minute massage which incorporated volcanic stones to soothe my tired muscles, then enjoyed a fortifying mud wrap before testing the sauna, Turkish bath and whirlpool, which can be hired privately by the hour. Just what the celebrity hiker ordered. 

Not dissimilar to Austria’s Viva Mayr, Hotel Balneario is renowned for its thermal waters, which come from the 18th-century Pozo de la Salud – a medicinal well that was drilled in 1702. 

Conveniently, its mineral-rich reserves are pumped straight into each of the hotel’s en suite bathrooms, which mean guests can benefit from its various properties in peace. It was lucky that we didn’t discover this too soon, or we might never have seen the rest of El Hierro at all.

Donna Air in El Hierro
Donna Air in El Hierro

Revived, we embarked on the final leg of our trek to the island’s main attraction: the Las Playas viewpoint – an epic natural wonder which formed thousands of years ago when a series of massive landslides threatened to decimate the south-east coast. 

The result is an enormous geological amphitheatre, nine kilometres long and more than 1,000 metres high, which faces out to sea. Suitably theatrical, it was the ultimate crescendo to our incredible journey.

Some might even call it God’s own country. Just like Yorkshire.

How to do it

The Last Outpost, a week’s self-guided walking on El Hierro offered by Inntravel (01653 617000; inntravel.co.uk) costs from £895 per person based on two sharing, including B&B accommodation, five dinners, two picnics, luggage transfers between hotels, walking route maps and notes and return internal flights from Tenerife North to El Hierro. International flights (to Tenerife South) are extra. An extended nine-night break with a guided excursion to La Restinga is also available from £1,245pp. For more information on El Hierro, visit elhierro.travel/en