La Palma - Days Five & Six – Landslides, Queues and Escape Plans

La Palma → Tenerife → Manchester

The night was long, loud, and wet — not in the fun way. Rain hammered the roof with the sort of aggression usually reserved for angry drummers, and at some point, the power gave up entirely. A blackout in the jungle. Perfect.

We were up before dawn, stumbling around the Treehouse in phone-torchlight, stuffing wet clothes into wet bags, trying not to trip over buckets catching leaks. By 6am, we were on the road — or, at least, trying to be. Halfway to the airport, the road simply… ended. No sign, no warning — just a giant wall of mud and rock where tarmac used to be. A landslide. Proper movie-scene stuff.

A winding detour got us to La Palma Airport (SPC) just in time to find everyone was there. We hadn’t seen this many people since we landed. Clearly, the cancelled flights were starting to catch up with the island.

Announcements echoed through the terminal — all in Spanish, naturally. The only thing we understood was the rising tension. A large queue was forming, and after a few confused conversations and several blank stares, we realised: that was our queue. To find out what the hell was happening with our £11 flight to Madrid.

Three hours later — three hours of fluorescent lights, snaking lines, and low-level existential dread — we finally reached the Ryanair desk, where we were politely but unceremoniously told: flights cancelled. Find your own hotel. Claim it back. Come back on Thursday.

Thursday!?

It was Monday. We were done. Wet, wired, and running out of dry pants.

Room with a ceiling view

Regrouping was essential. We found a last-minute room in Santa Cruz de La Palma — pure luck, as most other travellers were now scrambling for accommodation like musical chairs in a monsoon. Beer was required. We hit the town.

Over drinks and damp tapas menus, I scoured the internet (thank god for 4G) and found a flight still running to Tenerife South the next day — one corner of the Canaries seemingly untouched by Hermine’s wrath. It would mean a transfer on to Manchester, so no Madrid unfortunately. Two tickets: £398 (thank you Mastercard). Not quite the £11 steal we’d booked originally, but it was a way off the island. We’d fight Ryanair for the refund another day. Tonight, we drank.

Tuesday morning. Still raining. Still pitch dark. Our taxi rolled up like something out of Blade Runner: Island Edition, headlights cutting through the mist as we threw bags into the boot.

Back at the airport, the flight was — of course — delayed. Just 30 minutes, though. But with only a narrow window to make our connection in Tenerife South (a big, chaotic, shouty airport), tension was creeping back in.

Fortunately, our pilot had apparently had enough of La Palma. He floored it. Shaved twenty minutes off the flight. Legend.

We landed, legged it through the terminal like wet rats with a mission, and made our Manchester flight with a few minutes to spare.

By 9pm that evening, we were back on home turf. Damp, dishevelled, knackered — but victorious.

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Final thoughts?

La Palma: raw, surreal, unforgettable. A place that throws beauty, chaos, silence, and storms at you in equal measure. We came for volcanoes and red wine; we got rockslides, floods, cancelled flights, and some of the wildest swimming conditions known to man. And I’d do it again.

Though maybe next time I’ll check the weather first. Or at least turn my phone on.

La Palma - Day Four – Storm? What Storm?

Still raining. Still absolutely lashing it down like someone opened the Atlantic sky and forgot to close it.

We made a second (doomed) attempt to reach Roque de los Muchachos today — determined to see the island from its highest peak before we left. But any hope was quickly dashed. The roads were a mess. Not just puddles and potholes, but full-on rockfalls scattered across the tarmac like nature was playing Jenga with the mountainside. After swerving around one too many boulder-sized “souvenirs,” I called it. Not worth wrecking the Fiat, or ourselves.

Plan B? Embrace the chaos.

So we spent the afternoon hopping between deserted beaches, watching the rough Atlantic ocean crash and rage. It was mesmerising, almost theatrical — the kind of waves you’d normally watch from a documentary voiceover, not from a black-sand shoreline in a rain-soaked t-shirt.

At one point, huddled under an abandoned BBQ hut on a rocky beach with the rain hammering down, we cobbled together lunch: slices of wet rye bread, a tin of something mysterious, and this absolute gem we’d found earlier — Sendi, a mustard-dill sauce (German, I think?) that tastes like someone spiked honey mustard with fresh dill and made it magic. Weirdly perfect on rye. The bread was a bit soggy from the weather, but we were too hungry to care. Possibly one of the best accidental meals I’ve ever had — a soggy, mustardy, storm-lashed triumph.

Somewhere between beaches, we learned the culprit had a name: Storm Hermine. It had officially hit La Palma — a full-blown tropical storm. Locals were being advised to stay indoors. Government announcements. Weather alerts. Civil protection warnings.

And us? Blissfully sauntering around the island like characters in a Wes Anderson film — entirely unaware, thanks to our noble “no-scroll” policy and the complete absence of Wi-Fi at The Treehouse. Digital detox goals achieved, apparently. Though, in hindsight, a little push notification might’ve been handy.

By the time we made it back to the house (via the now river-like volcanic track), it felt like we were starring in a mildly chaotic survival documentary. Rain battered the roof, trees groaned in the wind, and the living room had developed its own charming little waterfall — straight through the ceiling. The bedroom wasn’t faring much better, with water dribbling its way down the walls like a bad art installation. We moved the bed just in time to avoid a full soaking. Getaway cabin in the woods? More like punk-rock ark.

Catching the leaks

Then came the kicker: flights in and out of La Palma? Cancelled.

Oh. Shit.

We're now stranded on a storm-lashed island, huddled in a damp cabin halfway up a volcano, listening to garage punk and hoping the ceiling holds. And honestly? There's something kind of brilliant about it. Uncomfortable, yes. Slightly terrifying, also yes. But unforgettable? Absolutely.

And somewhere — probably buried in a soggy backpack — is Nick Kent’s The Dark Stuff, now less inflight entertainment and more disaster-holiday bedtime reading.

Let’s see what Monday brings. Preferably a dry towel and a clear flight path.

La Palma - Day Three – Rockfalls, Rain & a Punk Pilgrimage Postponed

By the time we emerged from the Treehouse this morning, the sun had all but vanished behind a thick, low-slung ceiling of cloud. Then came the rain — not gentle, poetic drizzle, but a torrential, relentless downpour that left no room for subtlety. Warm, wild, and biblical. Proper lluvia de puta madre.

Our plan had been a pilgrimage of sorts — to hike to Roque de los Muchachos, the highest point on La Palma, and the namesake of a punk band we (Spam Javelin) have shared stages and shouted choruses with more times than I can count. But with visibility reduced to zilch and the mountains swallowed by clouds, the idea of scrambling along cliff edges in soaked boots lost some of its appeal.

Instead, we pointed the Fiat 500 toward Los Tilos, a lush, fern-draped part of the island known for its waterfalls and laurel forests — a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve, as it turns out, and technically part of Parque Natural de Las Nieves. The roads, slick with rain and eerily deserted, wound deeper into the forest. We swerved around rockfalls, some still fresh enough to leave clouds of dust in the air. The road to the falls was officially closed, of course — another victim of the storm — but with waterproofs zipped and curiosity piqued, we decided to go on foot.

It felt like entering another world. Thick vegetation, steaming under the rain, footpaths cutting through dripping forest and sheer cliff faces. On the way, we met two drenched girls who — in broken English but clear concern — warned us of falling rocks. We thanked them, and pushed on cautiously, sticking to the far edge of the road and avoiding anything that looked remotely unstable.

About three miles in, we reached a dramatic gorge — dry now, but clearly capable of hosting epic torrents when in full flow. But before we could reach the waterfall proper, our way was blocked by a padlocked gate. Beyond it, the path snaked along the side of a near-vertical cliff. Could we have jumped the gate? Easily. Should we have? Not in a million years. It looked stunning — and genuinely dangerous. We stood there in silence for a moment, soaking it all in. The sound of rain on the leaves, the mist rising off the valley, the sheer scale of the place. Even without reaching the falls, it was breathtaking.

Back at the car, soaked to the skin and still buzzing, we decided to head east to Charco Azul, a natural seawater pool in San Andrés. By the time we arrived, the rain had turned torrential again, and the place was utterly deserted. Shops shuttered, streets empty, waves pounding the seawall like a war drum.

Perfect.

We slipped into the lagoon — just the two of us — protected from the wrath of the Atlantic by high black volcanic walls. Waves smashed against the other side, occasionally surging over the barrier in huge salty bursts, while massive black crabs clung to the rock, seemingly unimpressed by our aquatic enthusiasm. It was exhilarating, slightly mad, and completely unforgettable.

Two soaked Welsh punks swimming alone in a rain-lashed volcanic pool as the Atlantic roared around us.

La Palma doesn’t make things easy — but that’s exactly what makes it worth it.

La Palma - Day Two – Into the Ashes

Our first full day in La Palma, and I realise this trip almost completes my personal tour of the Canary Islands — Lanzarote’s surreal lava fields, Fuerteventura’s endless sand dunes, the pine-forested peaks of Tenerife (twice), and the jungled ravines of La Gomera. Does a layover in Gran Canaria count? Probably not, but it’s on the list all the same.

Today, I set my sights on something a little more haunting: the volcano caves near Todoque. I’d read about the lava tubes formed during past eruptions and thought a journey south would make a good day trip. But what began as idle curiosity turned into something far more intense.

Driving south through the sleepy town of Los Canarios, the road began to twist and drop — and without realising it, we were suddenly in the heart of the destruction zone from the 2021 eruption of Cumbre Vieja.

It hit hard.

A temporary road has been carved directly through solidified lava — a jarring black scar running through what used to be homes, gardens, lives. One moment, you’re passing banana plantations and sleepy whitewashed villages; the next, you’re cruising through an alien world of twisted, frozen rock. The lava didn’t just stop at the edge of town — it devoured it. Entire ground floors of buildings are buried, their upper stories bizarrely poking out like surreal sculptures in a charcoal sea.

We pulled over at one point, near where Todoque used to be. What was once a village is now silence and ash. You can trace the path the lava took from the ridge above — a vast, brutal black ribbon stretching down from the Cumbre Vieja like a wound. It’s breathtaking in scale, yes — but it’s also horrifying. You don’t just see the eruption's impact; you feel it. The weight of it. The stillness after chaos. I forgot to take any photos, was just dumbfounded at the sight around us.

After some quiet reflection, we carried on through to Los Llanos de Aridane, one of La Palma’s livelier towns, where life feels like it’s cautiously returning to something like normal. The drive back was a little more optimistic, passing through the island’s famous tunnels — I believe they're called Túneles de la Cumbre — piercing through the central mountains, linking the wetter east to the drier, sunnier west. It’s a bit like driving from one island to another in the space of five minutes.

But before heading home, we made an impromptu stop at Playa de Tazacorte — a black-sand beach on the island’s west coast. The sea, though moody, was calm enough to tempt us in. We stripped down and dove into the Atlantic, swimming under moody grey skies with jagged cliffs rising all around us. The sand here is volcanic, fine and jet black — strange at first underfoot, but warm and soft once you surrender to it.

Swimming there, with the weight of the morning’s volcanic devastation still lingering in our minds, felt weirdly cathartic. The ocean didn’t care. The island was still breathing.

Back at The Treehouse, the emotional weight of the day gave way to a different kind of haze. We opened another bottle of Teneguía, cranked up some more fuzzed-out punk rock, and got... well, fairly drunk under the stars. It felt necessary — a toast to the resilience of this little island and its people, and maybe a way to process the weird emotional cocktail of awe, grief, and admiration I’d just experienced.

Tomorrow, we hike — and maybe, just maybe, I’ll finally learn how to say una cerveza más without sounding like a total tourist.

La Palma - Day One - Treehouse Unplugged

 

Bleary-eyed but buzzing, Tracey and I rolled into Manchester Airport in the pitch-black hours of the morning, chasing the tail of summer to the Canary Islands. At precisely 5:45am, our flight took off bound for Gran Canaria – officially Aeropuerto de Gran Canaria, though by that point, I was too busy fidgeting with my seatbelt and cracking open Nick Kent’s The Dark Stuff to care. A raw and, at times, electrifying collection of essays — the perfect high-altitude escape. As the plane hummed over the Atlantic, I silently vowed to write more, read more, and scroll a hell of a lot less. Social media, after all, has become a digital landfill: toxic, noisy, and rarely nourishing.

From Gran Canaria, we caught a connecting flight – one of those rickety, charming little propeller planes – to Aeropuerto de La Palma (SPC). As we descended toward the island, it became clear: La Palma is wild, green, and refreshingly unpolished. But there’s a catch – barely anyone here speaks English. And my Spanish? Basura. Complete and utter trash.

Nevertheless, we picked up our hire car — a cute little Fiat 500 that looked more at home on a Milanese boulevard than the rugged volcanic tracks of this tiny island. Still, it handled the heat and hills like a champ. And it was hot. Proper, unrelenting, Sahara-winds-through-your-hair hot. If only I had hair...

Our base for the next five days was “The Treehouse” – not quite in the trees, but tucked away down a brutally long and rocky volcanic track. I found myself deeply grateful that this was a rental and not my poor, battered car back home. The house itself was…romantic, in a minimalist kind of way. Spartan, stripped-back, and blissfully without Wi-Fi – which meant no doomscrolling, no inbox refreshes, no TikTok rabbit holes. Just a solid 4G signal that let us stream some grimy garage punk on Spotify as the sun went down and the red wine flowed.

Speaking of which – the local tipple? We stumbled across a bottle of Teneguía, one of La Palma’s volcanic reds. Rustic, earthy, and just wild enough around the edges to suit the mood. It paired perfectly with a balcony view of the sun dipping behind silhouetted banana palms and distant lava fields.

By nightfall, the stars began to show — and they really show here. La Palma is a designated “Starlight Reserve,” and with no light pollution, the sky turned into something out of an observatory dreamscape.

This place is already working its way into my bones. It's raw and real and beautifully inconvenient. A reminder that sometimes the best kind of luxury is the kind that strips everything away, not adds more.

Tomorrow: volcano trails, black-sand beaches, and hopefully less butchering of the Spanish language.

Hasta