Caminante Revisited

Sepia Saturday is celebrating its 200th edition this week and Alan has invited all contributors to repost a favourite post . I thought I'd use this one which explains why I chose my blogging name.



This post has been inspired by Sepia Saturday's photo for 13th April of a group of walkers, and my chosen blogging name Caminante, which means, simply, Walker (although it can also mean hobo!).  

Photos of my childhood are rather scarce, as we didn't own a camera, so my parents paid for a photographer, usually on a birthday. This shot looks like I'm about to go for a walk, so probably is the first recording of my hobby.

We spent our honeymoon on Tenerife, during which time we went to Pico Teide, the highest mountain in Spain.  Here I am right at the top. Thew air was pretty thin up there at 12,200 feet, as I realised when my cigarette only stayed alight whilst you drew on it, immediately then going out.  Someone was trying to tell me something, but it took another 3 years and the arrival of our daughter before I gave up!

In 1986/7 I spent 4 months in the Falkland Islands - sensibly some years after the war!  I had a weekend in January of R&R on the oddly named, but beautiful, Carcass Island, As I found, the weather there, in the height of their summer, was normally quite pleasant, although it could snow at any time. Here I am on one of the little hills dotting the island.

I've enjoyed walking all my adult life, and for the last twenty years or so, I've walked several times a month, originally around our home in Salisbury, so I've walked nearly all the footpaths in Wiltshire, Hampshire and Dorset, on my regular Sunday morning jaunts.  The farthest I got (limited by the length of car journey to the start), was West Bay in Dorset, which UK readers will know as Broadchurch from the current detective series. Here's how the murder scene looked in August 2003.

Now we live on Lanzarote, 70 miles off the coast of Western Sahara, it's springtime all year round, so shorts and T shirts are all I need - and a good pair of shoes because the volcanic stone is very harsh.  This photo from last November shows both aspects.

These days, I tend not to walk alone, except on well trodden paths, because, although you are unlikely to get exposure, even a twisted ankle in a spot with no mobile phone reception could be quite a challenge. I'm a member, along with about 90 others of an active walking group here.  Fortunately, we normally only get between 12 and 24 on each walk, otherwise it could get out of hand!  Here they are a week ago, having a breather during a walk around Los Helichos, a range of volcanoes in the north of the island, locally famous for their spring flowers.

This brings me back to the Sepia Saturday prompt, and the contrast between what is seen now and then as suitable attire for hiking.  I can't imagine how uncomfortable they would have been in rain, or blazing sunshine, or indeed on anything but good paved surfaces.  Perhaps it was the fact that walking was involved that was the mystery element!   

To see what others have chosen as their birthday contribution, visit Sepia Saturday's 200th edition.

BARRANCO DE TENEGŰIME

It had not rained more than a couple of drops in Lanzarote since December 2011, so everywhere was bone dry, then in the last week of September 2012  up to 44 millimeters of rain fell in some parts of the island.  My home, Playa Blanca, stayed stubbornly arid, with only a pitiful 4 millimeters of rain in the week.  On 27 September, I decided to go to a ravine I knew of, El Barranco de Tenegüime, to look for water and for the first time in three years of walking on Lanzarote, I got my boots muddy!  Not the way I used to walking in winter in Dorset ten years ago, when you felt you had a bucket of mud in each boot, but quite enough.

Studland Dorset, February 2002

Coincidentally, this week's prompt from Sepia Saturday  was about boots, so I thought I'd show how mine got so muddy on a desert island!

Lanzarote is dry, as in pictures of Mars from Curiosity dry. There is no standing water, and there are no streams or rivers, except when it rains, so to experience running water means going out to look for it as soon as there has been a shower.  Normally in Spring, we get about 150 or 200 millimeters of rain, and the whole island turns green.  The following pictures show a ravine which clearly has, in the past, had torrents cascading and carving through the volcanic rock, but so far this this year, it would have been absolutely arid, whereas it should have been a riot of grass, reeds and shrubs. We climbed about 460 metres, and walked about 10 Km in just over two hours, before descending a ridge down through a wind farm to our starting point.

At first the land was flat, and a lake had formed in a field.

 But then the ravine walls closed in, and the river bed became muddy.

As the ravine snaked its way uphill, we came across a succession of waterfalls, which were too high to scale, so we clambered around the rocks in the side of the gorge.

 Muddy boots and scrambling up rocky slopes are, we found, an uneasy combination.

Above the waterfalls, were marshes, surrounded by the terracing built by farmers over the centuries, to take advantage of the relatively damp conditions in the ravine.

Finally the ravine opened out into a valley, and we could see the wind farm above Los Valleys on the horizon.

By this time, I was a little jaded, and relished the chance for a breather!

 After that, it was all downhill, through the spooky wind farm with the really rather noisy blades whooshing over our heads.

Here, going down the final  rocky, muddy slope is Trish, my walking chum, who took all the photos, except this one

And finally we made it back to the car, with our boots transformed.

Tenegüime, Lanzarote, September 2012

The valley was absolutely beautiful, and I will go back in  March, when it should be a blaze of colour with the Spring flowers and foliage.


Why not put your electronic boots on and visit other contributors to Sepia Saturday.

El Golfo to Tenezar

On 12 March 2010, David S. David P and I decided to walk from El Golfo to the odd little village of Tenezar,  which we expected would take about 6 hours.  The first part of our trek is in several guide books and follows  the coastal path through the Timanfaya National Park to Playa de La Madera.
 

We climbed up a rough footpath from the front in El Golf to the Yaiza road, where a  vehicle track heads north west, past an impressive villa on the hillside, before dropping down towards the coast through the lava fields to the black sand of Playa del Paso.   From there the path becomes a narrow ribbon cleared of most of the larger rocks, which are laid on either side to mark the route. 

 

  
It snakes around and over the blocks of lava, never far from the crashing waves. At one spot we saw hand-sized black crabs with red claws.

   
At another, patches of olivina studding the rocks,
  

  
and, at a strange grey beach, rocks folded and sculpted by the wind into shapes like abstract works of art. 

  
 After almost 5 hours of hard going, but having covered only 9 km,  in the drying wind of a fading calima, we arrived at Playa de La Madera – a favourite beach for BBQs, at the end of a track from Tinajo, and where sensible people would stop.  But did we stop? Oh no; we plunged on across the lava, only this time the “path” disappeared, to be replaced by blobs of paint every  30 metres or so, leaving us to clamber over razor-edged, shed-sized blocks of lava from one blob to the next.

 

Finally we missed a mark, and from then on the going got insane. If one of us had fallen, we would almost certainly have broken bones and sliced ourselves to shreds.  In normal places, this would have been bad.  Here it was downright scary, as the only way of getting a casualty out would be by helicopter. On we plunged, our maps useless, until after 7 hours we stumbled upon a trace track through the lava used by goatherds. By this stage, David P’s shoes were wearing out, and you could see his foot through the heel, and David S was in agony with his back from the constant jarring.  I was OK, except that by now we had almost run out of water, and the dust was making my eyes and nose stream. After about 8 hours, we finally came to the road into Tenezar, where we kissed the tarmac in gratitude. Having retrieved David P’s van from Tenezar, we retreated to Tinajo, where David  ceremoniously binned his shoes, and we staggered into a bar.

On  a serious note, the sign at the start track leaving Playa del Paso for Madera, says “This entails a great physical effort. Do not overestimate your physical condition. Make sure you wear sturdy shoes (volcanic rock is very abrasive). Remember to carry food which is rich in carbohydrates, water, and protection from the sun (cap, hat lotion etc). Do not follow this route if you are with babies, young children or if you have heart or respiratory problems. Your health may suffer due to the physical effort, and tough weather conditions.” And that was about the easy part of the route!

If you want to visit Playa de la Madera, or Tenezar – and Tenezar in particular is worth seeing, you should go on the road and track from Tinajo, by car, bike or on foot, but don’t attempt the coast between. We have read the odd guide book which talks about a path leading South out of Tenezar to Madera, and one day we may try to follow it from the Village, but if disappears, we will turn back!

The Last Lap

Yesterday, I finally finished my circumnavigation of the coast of Lanzarote.  It's taken me about 44 hours, spread over the last 20 months, interspersed with many other walks. Originally I had no plan, just doing various stretches of the coast as the fancy took, but I eventually realised I could join them all up and complete the circumnavigation.  I intend to write up the walks at some time, but I'll just describe yesterday's walk in this post.

We walked from the Jameos del Agua to Orzola (at the very north of the island) and back, a total of about 12 miles unfortunately all along the road, because there is not a viable footpath for most of the distance.  I'd been putting off this stage, partially because of that, partially because it's the furthest from my home in Playa Blanca  but also because I've driven the route many times. Of course, walking it was totally different - you find hills you didn't know were there, and you get to see the seascape, which is pretty dramatic along there, because the NE trade winds blow straight onto the rocky shore. It looks like good surfing - except that the razor-sharp rocks would make it a little challenging!

At Orzola, I had my picture taken at the end of my "mission" then retired to a bar for a beer.

My companion then managed to snap her sunglasses (essential wear), but the bar owner provided some sellotape - the alternative would have been the schoolboy trick of using a sticking plaster!  There were some spectacular gardens, and views, as you can see here.

When we eventually got back to the car, we drove nearly all the way back to Orzola to one of my favourite beaches. The rocks go out in two arms to meet a barrier of more rocks about 200 metres out, which prevent the waves reaching the shore. They enclose a huge area of turquoise water only a few feet deep, over a completely clear, sandy bottom.   We had a refreshing swim in the warm water, before leaving for home, and the resumption of normal life.