Looking back up Barranco de Guarimiar at the end of the day.
A long day of two halves.
It was still raining in the morning as we left Chipude up lanes towards the ‘Parque Natural’ in the centre of the island, Improved trails circled up to the top of Alto de Garajonay, 1487m.so all we had to do was walk heads down in the wind, there was nothing to see.
A fire had destroyed a lot of vegetation in 2012 but already greenery was shooting up.
We didn’t linger on the summit. Down hill we were still going round in circles to reach the head of a valley heading south to the coast. Now we walked out of the clouds into sunshine and better views.
An awful lot of height was lost steeply to arrive in Imada next to the little bar where we ate lunch and had a coffee.Lanes out of the village took us into the Barranco de Guarimiar, we saw the only waste tipping we had encountered on our walks, someones front room!
From then on the scenery was spectacular as we wound down the deep winding barranco on an old mule path which at times traversed steep cliff faces. I’m always amazed at the ingenuity of the early path makers, I am sure they would have laughed at the unnecessary ‘safety’ fencing of today.
I can see the sea.
The vegetation changed as we lost height towards the sea and arrived at scattered homesteads.
It was a long and hot descent and the last couple of miles on road into Playa de Santiago had my feet feeling sore. It was with relief that we reached our lodgings in the higher part of town. 
Of course after baths and rests it was dark when we walked down to the attractive sea front to search for a cafe. A friendly family bar was found for catch of the day – CHERNE.
This is also one of my favourite walks, the walk down the Barranco done a few times before the fire. We stay in Playa de Santiago, in the timeshare you can see on the top of the cliff above the village harbour, the colourful buildings in your photo in the next blog. Playa de Santiago is the British village on the island as a result of the visitors walking down the cliff for a pizza or beer by the beach.
Although the weather you had shows the north south split, cloudy in the north but lovely and sunny in the south, you appear to have caught the worst of the rain the island gets.
I must blog on this walk as well sometime, I have some great pictures as well.
All the walks are good. The rain wasn’t that bad – but what do you expect in late December. Will return soon and maybe link some of the GR131 routes through the islands.
Only a 4 hour cheap flight away and you are in a subtropical climate with magnificent walking. Can see why you use it.