Walking Los Tilos to Barlovento

How are you doing with your New Year resolutions? I hope they will include a holiday to La Palma at some point!
One of our aims for 2016 is to make sure we re-walk the 6 routes included in our Luggage Transported Walking Holidays. And after we've done that, then we'll walk the rest of the GR130 Camino Real as we continue to build on our range of walking holidays for the winter season of 2016/7.
First up then is the Laurisilva Forest of Los Tilos walk through to Barlovento. At under 4 hours, it's a gentle introduction on what is the first day of the walking holiday - although admittedly an immediate ascent for the first 40 minutes of the walk up the forested track :)
It is however one of these walks where it pays to know what you are looking at and happily the walk starts at the Visitor and Information Centre of Los Tilos. This is where you can read about the Laurisilva which is a species from the Tertiary period when dinosaurs roamed the land.
(For those of you on our luggage transported walking holiday, we provide extensive information about the walk and the route for you to read beforehand so you can do some advance reading.)

Los Tilos Visitor Centre

From the centre then, it's onward and upward to the Mirador de los Barandas on the PR LP7.1 walking route. And let's just remind ourselves, it's not a sprint but rather more a chance to use our new found knowledge about the flora and fauna of Los Tilos :)

At the top of the woodland steps, we come to the Mirador (look-out point). The last time we walked this, there were picnic tables and benches but these have been dismantled for the moment. The view is pretty good over the town of Los Sauces, of the bridge (the longest single-arch bridge in the Canaries) and to the sea.

From the mirador it's an easy stroll along the forest track - no need for heroics! Definitely a good photo opportunity when you come to the giant ferns and the mountain view. Then a question of logistics as to how to negotiate a fallen tree - over, under or through? And the intriguing caves cut into the soft rock which the workman have used in the past. Always good to take a sneaky peak inside ...

But then we come to my favourite part which is the water mine - if you're not expecting it, it's quite a surprise to come across rail tracks in the wood along with the little cart which was used to carry the rock out of the tunnel. Although the over-riding feeling is astonishment at man's endeavour to reach the source of fresh water.
I'm not going to tell you it all of course because I don't want to spoil a good story. So still with the La Laguna reservoir to talk about, I'll just leave you with one last photo -