The stories in La Gomera are told beneath the mist that advances in the leafy forest of Garajonay National Park.
There, the different species of laurel forest observe how life has evolved since the Tertiary Age, fed by the coolness of the trade winds and the so-called “horizontal rain” that wets a mountain range in whose interior a thousand legends are forged. All shades of green can be perceived in the range, and above all, the greenness of hope, since this temple of nature was for centuries a source of food for the inhabitants of what is also known as “Columbus Island,” due to the passage of Christopher Columbus on his way to America. Its peculiarities have made it a unique place in the world, recognized as a Natural World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1986, a National Park since 1981 and a Biosphere Reserve that covers the entire island, since 2012.
Tertiary Age Forest, before the continents were separated
The passion for a forest he considers part of his family emotionally moves Angel Fernández, director of Garajonay National Park, when he points out that the laurel forest species that exist in La Gomera are “the highly fortunate remains that we have of a forest that was widespread in Europe many millions of years ago.” Galician by birth, he was clear about that from the start. “When I finished studying I knew I wanted to go where there was laurel forest. That’s why,” Fernández says, “I chose and got the place on La Gomera.” That was in 1986 and since then he has never left the island. In fact, touring Garajonay is his job and as well as his leisure time choice. “It is known because it is beautiful, yes, but it is difficult to make people understand what really happens here,” Fernández stresses, “because we are talking about a place where there are species that exist since before humans walked the planet Earth, from the time before the continents were separated, and not only that,” he adds “but they continue to grow and evolve.” This fact, which is scientifically proven every day, is also (you can recognize it in the gleam in the eyes of the Park director when he talks about it) the miracle that every nature lover who visits the Park seeks to enjoy. Contemplating nature returns the reflection of one’s own essence because, adds Fernández, “the beautiful thing about this world and this Park are the contrasts as well as seeing so many different things in the same place and in such a short time, because you can travel in five days,” he says. “It is a unique opportunity to enjoy natural biodiversity and oneself.”
Accessible nature
At Garajonay National Park, if you look at nature “and you open yourself up to it, you get all the answers,” says Park guide Amparo Herrera. “The laurel forest is like a mother,” she continues, “that’s why it’s so good for your health, because it embraces you and accepts you as you are.” On this day she accompanies the Red Cross of La Gomera in its volunteer activity “Passing Through the National Parks,” walking with them on the trails with modified chairs. “Otherwise, they would never be able to enjoy this place, which is also theirs,” she adds, as each one of them gets up on the one-wheeled Joëlette chair, on which they manage to enter the forest with the help of the two people pushing it. Herrera, with fifteen years of experience as a guide in the Park, knows all the legends and she smiles if asked about their veracity “because that is up to each person and what they experience when they enter,” she adds.
Love and witches at Garajonay National Park
As you follow the trail you will hear a mild breeze that transports the trilling of the birds or the buzzing of bees until, a few steps further, you lose sight of the trail and the hiker becomes an explorer of the emotions generated by nature. This one carries the rumor of the witches who gather at the stones of La Laguna Grande. You can also breathe in the emotion of the story of Gara and Jonay, the aboriginal lovers who ended up taking their lives together, because their love was not approved by the members of their different and opposing tribes. Jonay, son of the mencey of Adeje, came from Tenerife, known as Echeyde, the island of fire. It is said that he arrived by swimming, something easy to understand when you can see the peak of Teide so close from La Gomera. And Gara, Princess of Agulo, Princess of the Water, lived on La Gomera and it seems that she already knew her destiny. She had seen it reflected in the spring of Los Chorros de Epina, composed of seven spouts. This is where men and women went, and it is where they go today to find the answer to their destiny or to drink and be fortunate in love. “Drink water from the odd numbered fountain if you are a woman, from the even numbered fountain if you are a man,” reads an information sheet at the entrance that convetys the legend, “and from the men’s if you want to be a witch,” it concludes. But Gara and Jonay had no luck. They fell in love at first sight and, after fleeing from their relatives when they wanted to separate the pair, they killed themselves with a sharp cedar stick, on top of Garajonay.
Sustainable nature
Jacinto Leralta, also a guide at Garajonay National Park, interrupts his explanation to tenderly ask a child to stop shaking a log as the culmination of the child’s enthusiastic journey upon reaching the trail and “stumbling onto all this beauty at once,” the child’s father explains. So, as Leralto resumes talking, he jokes while pointing to the child, “energy is everything in nature. What do you think that is,” he asks, while continuing to advance along the Raso de la Bruma path. “It’s not a laurel but, if you look at it with different eyes, it’s a self-sustaining building. In my case, I like to motivate the groups that come with me,” he says of his tours, “asking them questions so that they participate in the surroundings with what they think they know; because in reality, even if you come a thousand times, you will never know all the answers. In this forest, although here we call it a mountain,” he says, “no day is the same as another, no tree, branch or bend in the road, nothing the same, and everything changes as the mist or the sun shines. That’s why this place is so enrapturing.” It is not in vain that during the tour he spots and describes the exuberant beauty of vines 300 or 500 years old and up to 50 meters in diameter at their trunks, which are about 90 meters high, always covered with the green mantle of life. In fact, there are 20 species of trees and 1,000 species of fauna catalogued in the Park. “They are surrounded by small strains, their offspring, who feed on them. That's why,” Leralta explains, “they never die, but continue in them.”
Regarding the legends of the Park, Leralta Piñán acknowledges that he and the locals know that there is a legend. “We’ve all seen things in Garajonay when we walk alone,” he reveals. As Leralta walks along the path he caresses the species he encounters. He knows the details of their flowering and where the tallest trees are located, how the ravines change their appearance in the dense mist and where the thickness turns the day into night, taking away the light. “But that is good for the earth,” he explains, “which feeds on the humidity of the shade.
One is surprised to discover that there is a place where, the more one advances, the more one believes in the existence of gnomes and magical beings that inhabit the forest, to which one adds the certainty that the ecosystems coexisting here are real and, most importantly, sustainable thanks to the protection of the Park. The Park has been maintained without human activity for the last 25 years and with this, the fayal-brezal has retreated and the laurel forest has once again reproduced in areas occupied by this vegetation, also at high altitudes, although later. But they all coexist: tiles trees, vines, olives, laurels and huge ferns, among other species.
With 3,984 hectares of Canarian forest, trails, viewpoints, recreational areas and a Visitor and Interpretation Center, everything in Garajonay National Park reminds us that humidity is the key that has permitted us to grow and embrace life for many millions of years. That is why the answer to immortality is found in these mountains. Because when the mist covers everything at sunset, sometimes at dawn as well, the forest transforms and grows, like those who walk through and, when they depart, they are no longer the same. They are already part of the legends told beneath the mist.
