Explore La Gomera's north

The town and valley of Hermigua in La Gomera's north

The much quieter and greener north of La Gomera island, which includes the municipal areas of Agulo and Hermigua, is well worth exploring and the following link has loads of information in English: northgomera.com

Gomera banana in action during bonfire night

Once again there were many bonfires and parties all over La Gomera last night during 'la noche de San Juan' (St. John's Eve) to celebrate midsummer. Here in Ireland the same tradition is still alive, but the music is a bit different. The 'Gomera Banana' was in action here briefly during the Jim Dowling Uilleann Pipe and Traditional Music Festival in beautiful Glengarriff, West Cork as you can see (and hear if you click the sound on) in the above video taken at about midnight last night when the Gomera banana was shaking up fiddle player extraordinare Ross Couper. The video below was taken earlier during the festival on the pub sessions trail called 'piping for a pint'. Well more than a dozen musicians (some out of shot) got together and played until the cows came home...

New mayor in Valle Gran Rey

The new mayor of Valle Gran Rey, Cristopher Marrero (image: gomeranoticias.com)

Valle Gran Rey's new local administration has now been formed and Cristopher Marrero of the PSOE is the new mayor, even though his party holds only two of the eleven seats on the council. His election was facilitated with the help of the two councillors of the Si Se Puede grouping and the two of the Nueva Canarias party, leaving La Gomera's strongest party ASG in opposition with five seats. See all La Gomera local election 2019 results...

Recent fires in Valle Gran Rey

''Fears grow that Valley Gran Rey is target of an arsonist

June 12, 2019 by TenerifeNews

A shocking fire on picturesque La Gomera has reinforced a view that an arsonist could be at work in the municipality of Valle Gran Rey.

The blaze affected 20,000 square metres of land and led to the evacuation of several houses and three apartment complexes, some of them being used by tourists.

The authorities have praised the swift actions of the emer-gency services for controlling the fire before it spread even further. Fortunately, no-one was hurt and there was no damage to any properties.

However, there are fears that it was started on purpose and follows on from another fire a few weeks ago.

The Mayor, Angel Piñero voiced “his sincere gratitude, on behalf of residents and the corporation, for the effective-ness and predisposition of Civil Protection, volunteer firefigh-ters of Valle Gran Rey, the Environment Brigade of the Cabildo, the Police Local, Civil Guard and other groups that collaborated to stop the advance of the flames, as well as all citizens who helped and collaborated for hours.”

He added: “Valle Gran Rey is suffering sabotage and intentional arson for months. The Civil Guard will investi-gate the causes of this event, but what is clear is that the town does not deserve what is happening.”

The fire began during the night on the coast of Valle Gran Rey and affected an area of 20,000 square metres.

The flames were detected at 10pm (May 19th 2019, Ed.) in the place known by residents as Quiebracanilla, next to the road that leads to Playa del Inglés, about 200 metres from the coast. 

The head of the volunteer firemen of Valle Gran Rey, Guillermo Barroso said the fire “was very virulent” in the first hours, due to the existence of “strong gusts of wind”. 

At one stage, the flames threatened to spread towards the apartment complexes of El Guirre, Los Tarajales and El Cieno. Because of this, they were evacuated, together with several houses, and parked cars were removed.

The first fire was recorded in this municipality a few weeks ago at a private property (at the municipal recycling compound on April 30th, Ed.) in the area of El Altito. There has also been continuous sabotage carried out against the drinking water supply network during the last months. ''

Local election results La Gomera 2019

Casimiro Curbelo

The independent La Gomera socialist ASG party of the island's president Casimiro Curbelo (image on top) was the clear winner in the recent local elections, followed by the socialist PSOE. The graphics below (source: gomeraverde.es) first show the results for the election to La Gomera's cabildo (island government) followed by the results in all five municipal areas of La Gomera, where in some it is not clear yet who will form the new local government ('escaños' = seats). Left environmental group SSP (Si Se Puede) won two seats for the first time in Valle Gran Rey and Vallehermoso as well as one in San Sebastian de La Gomera, plus two seats in the cabildo.

                                                                             CABILDO:

MUNICIPAL AREAS: