La Gomera's stone circle to be moved

One of La Gomera's main visitor attractions is mythical La Laguna Grande in the centre of Garajonay National Park, and indeed in the centre of the island, high up in the mountains surrounded by ancient forests.

La Laguna Grande offers a small interpretative centre that explains the flora and fauna of the national park, a restaurant which is rented and run by the Fred. Olsen ferry company, public toilets, a playground, and barbecues and ovens which are popular with locals often bringing their extended families for day-long celebrations and parties. The area is also included in nearly all coach tours, bringing day trippers from Tenerife and cruise ship excursions. The popular spot is also often chock-a-block with rental cars, bikers and hikers.

 Now a major re-development of La Laguna Grande has been announced which will see the small car park between the open green area and the restaurant extended, providing three times more space. As it is now this car park always quickly fills, resulting in too many cars being parked along the dangerous main road above the area, where the coaches also must park because they cannot turn below. Trees there beside the GM-2 cannot be felled to create more parking along this main east-west artery because all flora and fauna is protected in the national park. 

 Further to this recently approved development it has been announced that the stone circle (see image above) will be moved to the beautiful park around another of the island's main attractions, the Torre del Conde in the island's capital San Sebastian de La Gomera. It had previously been suggested by the Spanish minister for culture to move the monument to a museum in mainland Spain ''to give it more protection from the elements and human interference'', but thankfully La Gomera's president Casimiro Curbelo intervened and he stated that La Gomera will not tolerate these stones leaving the island. There were also well-attended protests held in San Sebastian de La Gomera and during one of those the crowd formed a large 'human stone circle' (cadena humana de piedra) around the Torre del Conde, demanding the monuments be re-erected in front of the tower:

       The 'human stone circle' protest in San Sebastian de La Gomera recently (This image: gomeranoticias.com)

 The compromise solution now is to move the lot to the island's capital where it can be better monitored and protected, as well as making it more accessible to locals and visitors. The associated cup-marked standing stone/boulder (image below) will also be moved there. The whole operation will be supervised by a team of archaeologists and historians, to make sure the exact same alignment will be observed and that no damage is done.

 The existing small playground in the green of Laguna Grande will be augmented with a new themed amusements park with various additional rides and pleasure gardens which ''will reflect the many myths and legends associated with La Laguna Grande''. Work on the project is to begin after Easter when low season begins. It is hoped that both the newly-developed attractions and the relocated stone alignment will be open to the public again on April 1st 2023, according to Cabildo de La Gomera, the island's government. Funding has been made available with part-funding coming from the EU who praised the project as eco-friendly and a ''show-piece sustainable development which also will reduce traffic and emissions in Garajonay National Park''.

Weather set to improve gradually

Image taken in Valle Gran Rey, La Gomera, yesterday 'between the showers'

There were frequent heavy showers yesterday and more of the same is expected today, but as was the case yesterday there will be sunny periods as well.The strong winds should ease later, but the sea will remain rough with waves of 4-5m height on exposed coasts. Showers will become more isolated, but will continue until Sunday morning with the mountains and the north of La Gomera most at risk. Wind and rain warnings should be lifted later today, but the warning of rough seas will remain in force until late Saturday.
There were some minor rock- and landslides affecting roads but thankfully no major incidents. The park around the Torre del Conde in San Sebastian de La Gomera where a palm tree was felled by gale gusts remains closed to the public, however.

The weather station at Alto de Igualero, La Gomera's second highest mountain, situated at about 1470m above sea level recorded over 40mm of rain in the past 30 hours and a wind gust of 94 km/h. It has become much colder with a flow of polar air streaming across the Canary Islands and the station up there recorded a minimum temperature of only 1,2 ºC last night which indicates that there was some ground frost in the mountains, a rare occurrence on La Gomera. Even down in Valle Gran Rey the temperature dropped to just below 12ºC last night and here the maximum values will struggle to reach 22ºC during the sunny spells expected, but it will feel fresher due to the northerly winds.