‘But what do you do?’ is one of the desperately searching questions we receive from time to time from puzzled guests. It is a fair point. After all, they have usually just arrived at our haven of ‘splendid isolation’ having driven from the nearest town of Barlovento some 25 minutes away. It is a fairly tortuous route which will take them on a switch-back of mountain road, swooping helplessly in and out of ravines and clinging nervously to single track sections with their charming, yet sincere, no-coming-back drop-offs. Plus of course they will have been through the numerous reflex testers - blind bends - meeting with a 4 x 4/ bus/ horse/ cow-laden lorry/ hire car on the wrong side of the road. Or even more unnervingly, a herd of goats gazing into space or a thoughtless rock fall just around the corner. In the course of those 25 stimulating minutes and through some of the most spectacular and up-lifting scenery on the island, they will have travelled only 13 km.
At the suggestion that we might exist in a rabid vacuum of boredom, our little hermit-like backs ruffle as we absent-mindedly plait escaping ear hair.
But in an effort to try and not be too prickly, I try and analyse it and wonder just what we do do on this secluded island.
I think the whole debacle simply comes down to the fact that we live on this beautiful island and we are not on a holiday where the prime requisites are eating out, laying on the beach and evening entertainment, all of which to some extent can be done even in the rural north. And so, since we live here, we find the days are just never long enough to fit in all the varied things we want to do. Of course, we have the usual chores that house owning brings – cleaning, general maintenance, home improvements, to name but a few. Not to mention around 2 acres of land where we try and coax life into vegetables which will in turn coax life into us. Then there is shopping which, due to our ‘remote’ location is usually a whole day event from which we return exhausted and with such a huge amount of groceries, we declare that we will ‘never have to shop again’. Then there are our neighbours who deserve at least the occasional visit to assure them that we are still alive (though not always visibly) and to check that none of them have accidently got kicked in the face by a bull, chopped their thumb off or turned their car upside down in a ditch – all of which have happened, incidentally.
Then there is writing (ah yes, there is a book in it – the void is being filled as we speak AKA: watch this space), learning to play the guitar (of which approximately 3 minutes per occasional day is allocated until frustration sets in), walking and swimming.
In addition to which we are lucky enough to be able to socialise further afield. A visit to our time-generous friends for an afternoon of bar-b-que and banter (and maybe some guitar playing for a real treat, though not by us I hasten to add) is unexpectedly mind-soothing and always makes us wonder why we can’t be that nice.
And camping.
Ah, the bliss of camping. And so we pack up and set off to find some more splendid isolation on another part of the island. And La Palma offers this reckless past-time in such a seemingly inadvertent, almost casual way that makes it such a surprising delight. The recipe is simple. Take an altitude of 1,500 metres above sea level, plant more pine trees than you can possibly count, sit back for more years than you can ever remember and watch them grow. Then put a camp site in the middle of it with a generous, yet semi-secluded, scattering of bar-b-que cabins complete with free fire wood.
It is a formula for success. To wake up in the woods, washed by dappled sunlight, has got to be one of the more special moments in life. To stretch your arms in still sleepy wakefulness, where the trees reach to the sky has got to be, well, where it's all about.
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