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
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