It seems like a week just flew by in an instance. Haven’t even noticed! It is day 8th today in La Palma – La Isla Bonita. By the way, this island has San Pedro like in Madona song. Who knows right?
My friends were complaining that we spend all day in the car. To be honest we spend in a car around 3-4 hours a day, which is not all day, but normally we get out on the road quite late and sunset is around 7-8pm.
Today we decided to go to the other side of the island – Charco Azul. Natural pools. Again 1.5 hours one way on the road. I actually almost didn’t take any photos as it was full of people and I forgot to do it.
The drive wasn’t too long. We had to drive through the “weather tunnel” again. It was so cloudy on the East side! Sometimes before entering the “weather tunnel” you can see the view like below – clouds climbing over the mountain to the sunny side. Well not this time. This one is from my photo archive, when I lived in La Palma.
Instead this time we saw this view:
Once we passed Santa Cruz de La palma and other towns, including La Galga, where we have hiked on the second day in La palma, we were heading down the road full of banana trees to Charco Azul.
Once we parked the car, we could see many bananas growing all around the coast.
Instead of steps we took a road down to the natural pools. It is very pretty as you can see a nice fence with plants in the big pots.
Since I forgot to take any photos of the pools, here is a preview of how Charco Azul looks like when it is empty with a hyperlink to external site.
[photonav url=https://www.hellocanaryislands.com/sites/default/files/resource/charco_azul-la_palma_0.jpg popup=none animate=none position=center container_width= container_height=] Image link from https://www.hellocanaryislands.com
While we were tanning next to the rocks, we saw many of those lizard friends. Heating up in the sun. Charming!
It is very nice place to relax, though the tanning process happens on the hard stones. So soft towel is recommended. Also, I totally recommend to swim next to the fence facing the ocean. Normally it is teeming with crabs in a low tide. In high tide the waves often splashes the fence. Locals sit on the gaps there to be splashed by the waves to cool them down in a hot weather.
Everyone was kind of hungry and there was a restaurant just upstairs, facing the ocean. We’ve ordered some beers and tiny shrimps to share.
We also took a plate of papas arugas – local potatoes boiled in the ocean salty water. Traditional Canarian way of cooking them.
In addition we also got a plate of clams. They were delicious with mojo verde – local Canarian green sauce with green peppers and garlic.
The total bill for all of that and potato chips was only 38.60 Eur.
After couple hours we decided to go to the other beach called Nogales. It is known for it’s high waves and very suitable for surfing!
Spectacular short hike to the beach.
It is perfectly secured with fences and actually I was walking in my flip flops. I guess hiking shoes would be more comfortable. That cave in the middle looked very interesting.
I did get down (with my flip flops!) to inspect it closer, but since I didn’t have my torches to look well inside I headed back. It was also a bit steep and slippery with my flip-flops. Maybe next time!
The waves in the beach were spectacular and we could see couple surfers.
The last time I was here it was full of Portuguese man o’war jellyfish, which means no swimming as any of their tentacles that are several meters long can touch your body and the feeling will be like electrocuted. Very painful and can be deadly, especially if several of those will entangle your body in the water. Be careful if you see those! The ones below from my photo archive:
The lifeguard on duty in the beach has warned us in Spanish no to go deep into water, not above the waist as the waves were very strong and currents can take you far in to the sea.
Since the Sun was setting down and it was getting chilli and we had a long way to get back, we packed up, showered and went to get early dinner to my favourite place – “Bar Parrilla” at Las Nieves.
We stopped to see the alter of La Virgen de Las Nieves – famous portrait of Mary. The church is very exceptional and worth seeing.
There was some wedding happening next to the church.
The menu in Bar Parrilla is very reasonable prices.
The liter of house wine was only 10Eur. Beer very cheap too (around 2.5Eur).
My favourite dish still stands – queso asado de cabra con mojo verde. It is a grilled goat cheese with green mojo sauce. So delicious! Could only that!
Totally recommend to order grilled half chicken and grilled chorizo sausages and pork solomillo de cerdo (pork). We’ve got all of that and croquet’s and tortilla. Total only 73.30 Eur. Everyone fully stuffed and we didn’t manage to finish it all, but we had some space for local dessert quesadilla, similar to flan. Delicious!
Since I had binoculars to observe the stars at night with me, I’ve tried to take some pictures of Puerto Naos from our apartment. It turned out very interesting pictures.
