On Thursday we were well rested from the carnival and got the car early in the morning. Cicar, the car hire company, has office in cruise terminal and we saw this unusual statue there - mermaid with the cat.
We drove towards the hills, this is the view to the La Palmas capital, Santa Cruiz.
The road climbed quickly - and through thousands of bends - to the area of pine forests.
Above it there were all kinds of colourful rocks around...
...and of all kinds of shapes as well.
We came to the highest part of the island. There are many observatories here, since La Palma is sparsely populated, there is very low light pollution there and it's ideal for star gazing.
There were also several big mirrors there, carefully averted away from sun during the day.
But we were more interested in the highest peak, Roque de los muchachos. It is a bit more than 2400m high.
You can almost see the complete rim and the bottom of the great caldera (crater of the volcano) from it.
I was impressed with these structures, that appear man-made, but they are not. These wall like things are just more resistant against erosion than what's around them.
A bit further there was another lookout, and of course we went there as well. It is not for people with fear of hight, there is a paved track leading there, but open on the sides and the slopes are very steep and go very deep down. We were hoping to see the opposite rim of the caldera, but it was rather hazy and visibility was not so good, and we had sun directly in our eyes. So only the shapes of the hills on the South side were visible.
Along the way we met this guy with a smug smile.
And a bit further his cousin.
From hills we drove down to NW part of the island. It was very windy, I was glad we weren't at see.
I couldn't resist some more red volcanic rocks.
We drove along the West coast towards South. Where big caldera comes to the coast, there is a deep gorge. Road is carved into the hill. The green stuff are bananas.
We made a stop in marina in Tazacorte. First thing I noticed was how calm it was, none of the boats were moving. Captain immediately checked if they would have a berth for us, but they were full till the end of the week. It would be nice to be in such a quiet and calm marina, but it is much more to the West, so it would be even harder and longer to get back to Lanzarote from there.
From Tazacorte we drove back to our boat.
Next day we started along the road that we came home the day before. We found a beautiful lookout - Mirador de la Cumbre. It is surrounded with laurisilva, the laurel woods. This is the view to the North towards Santa Cruz.
There were some very pretty flowers around it.
We drove West and made a stop in town of Tazarcote, we ran out of time to make a stroll through it the day before. It is very pretty, with lots of old houses and balconies...
...and even the newer houses are colourful. I'm not sure if they have to buy cars in colours that match the colour of houses.
We drove North and stopped again above the gorge that connects caldera with the coast. Down there to the right is the marina, and above it town of Tazacorte. All is surrounded by banana plantations.
On the way to the North side we drove through pine wood and through mist. It looked rather mysterious.
Further towards NW there is wine country. We took one of the small winding roads through vineyards. There were pretty cottages around...
...and many beautiful flowers. The wines were still resting after the winter and they didn't carry any leafs yet.
To be continued...
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