48. The Garoé

Water, water everywhere, 

Nor any drop to drink …
(The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, by Coleridge)

Or so it must have seemed to the garrison of soldiers entrusted with conquering the island. Until a native princess besotted by one of the officers told them the secret of the Garoé, the tree that miraculously distilled water. That is, according to the romantic legend (see my post 33. History part 2 ). The original tree was destroyed many years ago but it’s well worth a visit to the site and its replacement.

The dutiful visitor will leave the hired car at the crossroads near San Andrés and undertake the two and a half kilometre walk along the windswept heights on a dusty or muddy 4X4 track. Once out of the pine forest (definitely not Canary pine) there is a bird’s-eye view of the ruins of La Albarada, the first colonial settlement on the island and, further along on the left, magnificent views of the foothills and valleys to the west. The site of the Garoé is surrounded by a high wall. Once through the wrought-iron gate you listen to a touristic sales pitch and pay your modest toll before emerging into a different, magical world, a green Avalon of swirling mists, vertiginous slopes and shaddowless forms at a thousand metres above the Atlantic.

It is a pity that whoever designed the awful little informative signs was not so bewitched by the surroundings. One tells us the path is slippery: “slippery floor” – oops! Others give us architect’s plans of the half-dozen cisterns dug into the ground to collect runoff from under the tree (and presumably water seeping down through the rock) and then ask us not to throw coins into them. Perhaps in an attempt to avoid events like that of the over-enthusiastic young unofficial guide who jumped into one of the cisterns only to find it was deeper, colder and darker than she had anticipated.

The Garoé tree itself grows in a cleft in the side of the mountain facing the Trade Winds coming in from the northeast. The winds cool as they rise and form clouds which are funneled into the cleft. The humidity becomes so high that the water vapour condenses on every surface it encounters, particularly on the leaves of vegetation. This phenomenon, called horizontal rainfall, is not exclusive to the Garoé and occurs all over the island, especially in the north. On misty days you will no doubt notice wet patches on the roads and hear drops banging on the roof of your car as you pass under an overhanging pine or evergreen.

From the back of the cleft looking past the moss-covered trunk of the Garoé towards the mist coming in from the north.

However, the Garoé was, as the legend suggests, an important source of water for the population before the advent of deep wells, desalination plants and municipal distribution. In 1948 there was a terrible drought that was directly responsible for the emigration of thousands of islanders. The true story goes that a certain Tadeo Casañas, simple agriculturist and bee-keeper from San Andrés, observed what happened at and around the Garoé. I don’t know if he made use of a naturally occurring screen of heath-trees or constructed some other sort of screen, but he was soon capturing the water distilled from the horizontal rainfall and channeling it in hollowed-out flower spikes of sisal plants to where it could be collected by the villagers for consumption or for watering their animals. This relief in such distressing times, at least for a few of the islanders, is a perfect example of the ingenuity, resilience and self-reliance of the true islander. It is a pity that the engineers in our institutions cannot boast of similar initiative. Since then no-one has thought of improving on Tadeo’s idea. In fact, most people have never even heard of it.

12. Magic

El Hierro is full of magic. But like beauty, magic is in the eye of the beholder. I’m not talking about the magic of a spectacular sunset to the west but rather of the improbable pastel colours of the sky in the east at the same hour. Or the smell in the evergreen forest of leaf mold and wild mushrooms that throws you back to childhood, perhaps even a childhood of many generations ago. The pine forest, silent or, if there is a breeze, hissing with the sound of waves of air breaking on the pine-needles. The cloud-mist condensing into drops of pristine water on twigs and leaves, dewdrops on spiders’ webs, giant dandelions with yellow suns for flowers, vineyards on fire in autumn, the sound of a boy practising a folk melody on his flute or the primeaval beating of distant drums on Saints' days …

One of my favourite bits of magic is on the country lane that goes up from El Mocanal to the road to the village of San Andrés. I said "up" because it really climbs steeply past the houses of the hamlet of Betenama before arriving at a relatively flat area with incongruous palms standing high on the left. The lane then climbs again through abandoned walled fields and dispersed stands of evergreens - what remains of the laurisilva forest that once clothed these slopes. As the vegetation becomes denser, you’ll see on your right a wood of Canary “beeches”. On first sight it is a little disconcerting: the trees have straight trunks with no sprouts, quite unlike the beeches in the evergreen forest that look coppiced. The more you look, the more the little wood casts its spell on you. As your eyes become used to the contrast of light you’ll make out sheep grazing on the grass and ferns between the rocks and, perhaps, some way off and camouflaged by the play of light and shadow, the white mare. A scene worthy of Samuel Palmer.

The white mare has lived in the wood for many years, at least sixteen, and she is getting old. Her back sags a little from bearing a foal every year or two, sometimes white like her, long legged creatures that skip around her and disappear on the first weekend of June. When I pick up my younger grandchildren from the airport we always drive home this way. We stop and call out to her. Sometimes she comes but most often pays us no attention at all. I tell them she is a unicorn and only a pretty little girl can tame a unicorn. If a grandson says in petulance that she hasn’t got a horn, I reply he can’t see it because he doesn’t believe. I, of course, have seen her horn on several occasions.

The Unicorn in the gully between the road and the enchanted wood. If you can't see her horn, you know why!