Agua Garcia is a place for firsts
73Autumn photos
Autumn glory settles across the countryside
It was my first visit to Agua Garcia and turned out to be some firsts for other reasons too, which I'll explain later. My journey began when I bought a book all about the wonderful world of nature to be discovered in its forests.
El Bosque De Agua Garcia by Maria del Carmen Brito and Vicente-Lope Lucia tells all about the plants and animals to be found in the area, with colour photos and maps of the forests. Those of you who are regular readers will know I really like frogs and apparently the tree frog species I haven't yet seen breeds in pools in barrancos there.
Also, there are a system of caves and to my mind anywhere on an island that can have an entire 165 pages devoted to it in a book has got to be worth checking out. I took the bus from Icod and got off at Tacaronte where there is a road signposted going up to Agua Garcia.
On my maps it only looked a short distance, and indeed it is, but what you cannot see on paper is how steep the road is. It was an uphill climb getting to the village but very rewarding. The countryside at the sides of the road were a perfect picture, carpeted in purple morning glory flowers on vines that ramble up over fences and into trees.
I could tell that this was not going to be a wasted journey and I was right. Agua Garcia is a most picturesque village with beautiful countryside and farmland around it and yet with modern conveniences such as a bank, video shops, supermarkets and a range of bars and restaurants.
Bus stops too, and I think next time I will take a bus to avoid that steep uphill climb. There will be many a next time because I have fallen in love with the place and could happily live in Agua Garcia.
Walking around I was delighted to see fruit and nut trees. I saw peaches and pears, oranges and lemons, apples, chestnuts and walnuts.
Some of the leaves were going yellow and rusty brown and you could see that autumn had arrived bringing with it a wonderful harvest. The branches were so heavily laden in some places that fruit had fallen off and was lying on the ground. Bees were tucking into the sugary juices of some pears that I saw on a pathway.
I discovered a cornfield that had been harvested and the stubble was lying golden in the sun. It reminded me of Britain and looked like the type of field you get mysterious crop circles in.
Blackberries were ripening on huge patches of brambles. Morning glories could be seen scrambling over green and golden-brown bracken fronds and I was thinking how like the UK it looked and yet so unlike it at the same time.
White butterflies were everywhere, looking for cabbages in fields or feeding on nectar from the many flowers in bloom. I spotted a whole host on a bush of the lilac-pink variety of the Jamaican mountain sage.
I also was delighted to see my first Meadow Brown butterfly. I had read in books that they can be found on Tenerife but, common as they are back in the UK, I hadn't seen any before.
I could smell the incredible aroma of eucalyptus trees and I picked up some of the hard seedpods, crushed them slightly to release the scent and breathed it in deeply. I put the pods in my waistcoat pocket and now it has that wonderful smell too.
I found I had been just wandering down the roads without even getting into any of the woodlands and had gone as far as El Ortigal. Deciding that I ought to see if I could find some paths into the proper countryside I took an uphill side turning that looked promising.
Along the roadside were clumps of pampas grass growing wild and in abundance and I could also make them out on the surrounding hillsides. I was struck by the white fluffy flower heads, which seemed like a mirror reflection of the very similar cirrus clouds overhead.
Then I saw my first Tenerife oak with acorns on it too, so I brought one home to see if it will grow. It was a magical moment and thrill finding this tree, which is sacred to the druids.
I looked at my watch and saw that I had already spent several hours just wandering around the village, and although I hadn't investigated the forests, I could always do that again. It was then that a ladybird landed on my hand and it was the first ladybird I had ever seen on Tenerife.
This was another magical moment so I got my camera out but I was not quick enough, for the little red beetle with black spots had done what the one in the rhyme does and flown away home. It was a sign for me to leave too, and the perfect ending to my first visit to Agua Garcia.
Footnote: First published in the Tenerife Sun.
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Comments
P.S.
You say that these tree-frogs breed in pools in "barrancos" there.
Can I assume that a "barranco" is a foreign word meaning some kind of beautiful floating frog-designed and frog-crafted craft, much like a pea-green boat with a miniature leafy four-post bed? An amphibian-style "love-boat", so to speak?
Are you sure you couldn't have used a normal English word for this mysterious "barranco" entity, as I presume that most readers of your article speak and read English?
Keep up the good work (apart for the clever foreign word-dropping bits).
Thanks, Patrick! The text is as it went out in the paper here and the word barranco is so commonly used here it would be understandable for readers unless they were just arrived on the island. It is Spanish and means a ravine and they are all over the island. There are no rivers and the only streams, which are rare are in barrancos. After a storm the water runs down these ravines into the sea. The most famous barranco is Barranco del Infierno where there is a well publicised trail and a waterfall.
I've just been to Agua Garcia. It´s lovely! I want to find a place to rent there now. 'Any ideas?
Thanks for the tip-off.
Patrick.
P.S. I've just figured out that what you refer to with your pet word above is purely and simply a gully. They're very interesting and spectacular, but they exist in many places apart from here in Spain. Even if they didn't they'd still just be gullies in English. I saw one as I approached a wood above the village (you'd probably prefer to call it a "bosque", but for me calling it a wood doesn't make it any less pretty or exotic).
Glad you agree it is a wonderful place here. The best way, and the cheapest because of no finders fees, is to look around and see if you can see any Se Alquila (for rent) signs on houses there which always have a phone number. Tacoronte would be the town with estate agents covering the area and they would find you a place but as I said it's more expensive that way. In Tenerife you also often see Se Alquila and Se Vende (for sale) adverts posted around even stuck on bus shelters - again with phone numbers.
Nice one, Bard. I'll probably call by there tomorrow again and check it out for places to rent. I wonder if I stick a few signs on bus-stops and lamp-posts myself saying I'm looking for a place..? What I also liked about it today is that it was positively chilly right in the middle of August! And also; as you say; the landscape is very British in some ways, what with all the briars and brambles. Between that and the chilly damp breeze I felt quite at home.
A lot of the north of Tenerife is amazingly like parts of the UK when it comes to vegetation and can get chilly at night too but never freezing! It's also handy in the Agua Carcia area if you want the airport or to go to La Laguna.
I have some friends called Emily and Fernado who live in Barranco las Lajas village on one side of Agua Garcia and they run the Mazar Ribah cultural association. They live in a brilliant place up on a hill. There is a farmer just down from them with a big brown cow and hens running around in a farmyard. I am going to post that story here soon. In the meantime here is their site on Myspace:
http://www.myspace.com/mazarribah
They run jam sessions on Sundays too.I would have suggested that they might know somewhere going but they are both in the UK for a couple of weeks. If you do find a place up there maybe you'll get to meet them some day.
In the meantime, good luck!
PS Here is another story about Emily and Ferndo's place and when I had tea and jam scones on a Tenerife hillside:
Hey Bard!
How now?
Yesterday afternoon I went for a walk by the forestry lodge in Aguagarcia and saw some big white mushrooms growing under the laurel trees just where you enter the wood.
I picked and cooked them and had a bite of one yesterday evening to see if it was poisonous or not.
I'm still alive and well. But then it was only a teaspoon-full and I've got quite a tough constitution when it comes to food.
So the jury's still out.
I'm pretty sure it's one of two species: A shaggy parasol (edible and delicous) or a false parasol (poisonous and delicous).
I also picked a few of another type which I have yet to identify and taste.
What's your take on it and on the mushroom situation in Agua Garcia?
Best wishes,
Patrick.
Did you find a place to live there afterwards then?
It's impossible to say without seeing the fungi up close or good photos. Ordinary Field mushrooms grow on the island so they could be those. The test is can you peel the caps and do they stain at all if bruised. If they don't peel and stain yellow then don't eat. There's a yellow staining mushroom that is poisonous.
Parasols are really big and have brown patches on them and a tall stalk. I'd recognise them instantly having eaten loads but not here. They usually grow in grass.
The easiest to identify edible Tenerife mushroom is probably the Edible Boletus, Cep or Penny Bun that grows in large numbers in some places in the north.
Yes, I got chatting to the people in the house beside where I picked them.
They took me inside to their kitchen and showed me the mushrooms they had picked that day.
Penny buns and what seemed to be chicken mushrooms.
Nobody was too sure, but they said that they were the only kind they ever bothered with.
They fried some to give me a taste and we all dipped in with forks.
It was delicious.
They said that they weren't sure about my parasols, but that they woldn't risk them.
I gave them one to show to their son-in-law who was due to call by later, who is more knowledgeable on the subject.
When I called by today to get some photographs of the mushrooms, they told me that he'd said they were poisonous.
But as I say, I've had no ill effects. I had another piece for breakfast this morning.
They're definitely parasols, but are they false parasols or shaggy parasols?
Time will tell.
I'll email you the snaps if you fancy, or is it possible to post them on this page?
Please do email me them or post a link here. Links show up OK in comments but not images!
I have seen Chicken of the Woods here too if that's what they had.
Hey Bardy!
How's tricks?
As you see, I survived my Aguagarcia mushroom extravaganza, but I've now decided to keep away from wild fungus for a while, if only to keep my own personal pile of molecules intact for a few more years.
I have now turned my scavenger's attentions to other not so life-threatening foods to be had from the countryside, and my latest fruitful find is cochineals' leftovers.
I've enjoyed prickly pears every since I first came to visit Spain, but the other day when I was picking some by the roadside in Sauzal I also hacked off a few pads and brought them home and cooked them up.
They were really nice, very like fresh green beans, chopped up as they were in little strips.
Have you tried them, or any other free wild food?
By the way, is it true that you live in Bardspring, a little townland (or woodland) up the hill from Upper Icod?
Do you have as much rain, wind and gloom there these days as we have in Tacoronte?
Best wishes,
Patrick.
Yes, I have eaten plenty of Prickly Pears here of both types. Also the wild spinach that is very common in many places.Then there's Nasturtiums and Mallow and Fennel. Blackberries are common in some places too.
I am about a third of the way through writing a book on wild foods and medicinal plants found here.
I live in San Marcos and yes, it's been chilly, wet, windy and cloudy most of the past week - still we need the rain! Erjos ponds had dried up so lets hope they are filling again!
Yes, I've just consulted my Latin translator to find out that that would be the Indian cress that our mother would often add to our salads when we were kids, as the novelty and colour made us enjoy them all the more, and we soon grew to like the spicy flavour of the petals, too.
Would I be right in thinking that you spent a little too long in Germany, as you like to give capitals to more than your fair share of words, or do you really have friends called Mallow and Fennel?
I've met an Ivy and a Rose, not to mention good old Dock and Ginger, so why not?
No, Bardspring is a long way up the mountain-side from Saint Mark's.
I believe it's covered in bramble bushes, as it happens.
It must have been a different bard, huh?
That wild spinach sounds interesting.
I must check it out and see if I can cook it up with some more cactus pads and chestnuts next week for Andy's Day.
I wonder if I could find some wild haggis too?..
I like to use capitals to show the plants are important! Some writers do this and some don't and I'm one who does! lol
Yes, I have seen the Bard's Spring on a map and thought it was good that I had some company and wasn't the only Bard on the island. I have never been there though. Not yet!
Indian Cress is Capuchino in Spanish and yes, the flowers, leaves and seeds are all good and spicy. The Wild Spinach or Sea Beet usually grows by the coast around this time of year and early spring. In Latin it is Beta procumbens and it is as good as the cultivated type.
Hibiscus flowers are good to eat too but not much flavour, and you can eat the Prickly Pear flowers.
Yes, I much prefer the flavour of rose of China. Hehehe...
Now do me a favour, Bardy, and don't go enlightening me on how to say it in German, Spanish, Greek, Latin or even its native Chinese. I get confused too easily.
By the way, are even those nasty spitefull nettles that grow (or used to) in the corner of every second field in Britain (which I had a habit of falling or getting pushed into in my short trousers) also worthy of a capital in your book? Could you please make an exception and give them just a common or garden small letter, and a disparaging word or two? A friend of nettles cannot be a friend of mine. I know, I know, I'll work through it as soon as I find the right professional help. (Nasty, vindictive horrible b****** nettles! It's all flooding back to me now... Ow, ow, ow!..)
Right, as soon as I get back to my senses I'll be planning my next outing for some wild spinach and other wild and wonderful treats. I reckon maybe Pris would be the best village around here for it ("Come on down, the Pris is right!..").
I see we've also got Spain's biggest pissybeds here. I presume they'd be good for a salad, eh? When I was a kid I once made a coffee substitute from dandelion roots. It tasted just as horrible as regular coffee, so I deemed it a success (in those days no self-respecting British kid liked coffee in any form. Now, like the rest of us, I'm hooked on the foreign muck. Hehehe!.. Maybe I should cut down a bit...).
Nettles are the foodplants of many butterflies here and in the UK. On Tenerife we have two types of Red Admiral and the Painted Lady, and in Britain there's the Small Tortoiseshell, the Peacock and the Comma as well. The leaves make good herbal tea and can be cooked as greens and I became more or less immune to the stings as a child because I got stung so often but I can understand why you don't like them.
The Sowthistles all have medicinal properties that vary from species to species. All of them are very bitter. I have eaten the flowers.
I have never been to El Pris but have been meaning to do so. I have a friend whose name Priscilla - http://www.yidneth.com - is shortened to Pris and she used to live in La Laguna so I like to think the village on the coast is named after her! lol
Hehe!..
You're a mine of information, Bardy, and you may heve even set me on the road to recovery and reconciliation with the dreaded nettles of my youth, seeing as they feed the butterflies and especially if I can make tea out of the little blighters, while getting to chop them to bits in the process (Grr!..). There's nothing like a pound of flesh to smooth the way to forgiveness.
Yep, I haven't been to Pris yet either, but I hear good reports, and it's just a couple of miles down the hill from us.
Have you heard that they're opening up a new French alternatative tea-parlour and natural remedy centre next week just above the beach in Saint Mark's? I'm not 100% but I believe it's to be called Helen of Troy's or some-such. I wonder if they'll have pissybed tea and coffee on the menu.
Do you think there's enough demand for it there in the present economic climate?
What's the best restaurant and local bar there now?
Have you met the natives yet?
I've not heard anything about the new alternative tea-parlour but I wouldn't think it would work well here. They tried having herbal teas on the menu along with the usual soft and alcoholic drinks plus a restaurant, live music and other entertainment in the very smartly decorated Cafeoteca in Las Arenas near Puerto and that didn't work even though it was on a main road into the town. I'll have a look though here when I next go down the front.
I tend to go to Italia in Bocca in San Marcos and it is much frequented by locals. They all know me there and I like the place.
Yes, I was in that Cafeteca place a couple of times. It was quite nice. I'm surprised to hear that it didn't last. Flip! One of my locals here in Aguagarcia is the Marigold restaurant on the road to Esperanza, or the Laurels a mile further up the same road. They do good local food and local wine, and you may well find me in there the odd night pontificating with the natives in my continuing effords to put the world to rights.
It was an excellent venue and I went to a few gigs there one of which was filmed for TV so to find out it had closed down came as a surprise.
I am glad to hear you have found some good places in Agua Garcia though not surprised because it seems a great area to live!
Hey Bardy! How's life in Saint Mark's these days? Are there loads of flowers there in full bloom, as they are here?
What about honey?
An wise-looking old man dressed in a wollen blanket (that was once white) up the hill told me that the best and mildest honey in Spain comes from bees that only harvest a mountain flower called the tower of jewels. This honey can only be found in certain villages and only here in Tenerife, he reckons. Is he a wise old fibber, or do you reckon there's some truth in it? Then the best substitute for honey if you want something with a stronger taste, he says, is palm-honey, made from palm-tree sap in the Isle of Gomera. I wonder...
Not that many wild flowers in bloom here but the Poinsettias and Bottlebrush and some other ornamentals are looking good as are a lot of African Marigolds they have planted in some flower borders. It's been very cold and cloudy here.
I think I saw the man you mean when I was in Agua Garcia once and I saw him down in the village and later on at the the top of the hill in Barranco las Lajas and I remember thinking he may be old but he's certainly fit!
Yes, he is right! The "Tower of Jewels" is another name for some of the Echium species of the Vipers Bugloss or Tajinaste with the most famous type being the red ones that grow up on Teide and also in Vilaflor. The very tall and very rare Echium pininana from La Palma is usually called Tower of Jewels. Bees love to feed on all of these plants.
I don't know why more people here don't grow them. The red ones (Tajinaste Rojo) you can buy as seeds in many shops in tourist areas like Puerto for just over €1. Seeing as it is a rare plant in the wild if more gardeners grew it it could only be a good thing and more flowers for the bees! The weird thing is that there are probably more foreign tourists that do so than islanders seeing as they sell the seeds in tourist shops. I have seen them on sale in Masca and Los Gigantes.
I presume the last time you saw the bloke with the once-white blanket it was yourself, was it?
I mean, what kind of self-respecting bard would not wear such attire? (Except, of course, on Midsummer's Night's ceremonies.)
Actually, lots of gardens around here do have red towers of jewels (or Red Rojoes, was it, as you've suggested I call them), and there's a gorgeous tulip tree in full bloom a few gardens up from here. There's also loads of little yellow flowers adorning all the roadsides around here.
I suppost that means that the honey-bees work all year round here.
If so, they're the only ones...
It wasn't me, no, I was in typical tourist dress which wasn't the best choice for the area but the man I saw had a proper poncho and stood out!
That's brilliant that people are growing Red Tajinastes where you are. That proves a friend of mine wrong who says that only tourists buy the seeds and that's why there are none in gardens and parks and borders. Well, actually there were two in Santiago del Teide last year and I've seen a few of the Blancos.
What do you mean about work? I know many people who work all year round and I am one of them more's the pity!
The yellow flowers are probably Bermuda Buttercup if they have shamrock-style leaves.
Who are the Blancos?
You don't mean the family of Franco's mate whose car (containing him) got blown over a block of houses, do you?
Yep, them Bermuda buttercups are all over the roadsides here, like big long yellow carpets.
And the trees are laden with oranges.
Does a red tartinarst not mean a communist Scotsman?
We don't want too many of them showing up in the gardens too often. They'll kill the grass...
You see, there you go trying to confuse me again with your new-fangled words?
Speaking of work-days in Spain, I see they've again decided that I now can not do any shopping until Tuesday as they've pulled another shut-the-place-down national holiday out of the hat.
So happy Constitution Day...
And happy Immaculate Conception Day... Any excuse!
I meant the white Tajinastes - Echium simplex!
I didn't realise it was a holiday so shops are closed! Damn, that means I will have to travel to do some shopping that I need to do before Tuesday! Thanks for the warning, Patrick! I often get caught like this and even if I mark the dates on the calendar it doesn't help unless I look at it!
Oh, you mean the towers of jewels, or white Tenerife buglosses, and not a bunch of sun-starved Scotsmen?
Hmm, I wonder if you'll find anywhere at all open today... These Spaniards do get very patriotic and pious when it comes to Constiution and Immaculation Days...
You might have to survive on roots and berries for the long weekend, just like the bards of old.
I mean white Tajinastes which are white Towers of Jewels!
I need cat food so am going to have to take a bus ride to Puerto where the supermarkets should still be open!
Of course I had the chance yesterday to stock up but was just thinking its a normal day and normal weekend and week ahead and Xmas is a few weeks to go not thinking about Constitutions and Miraculous Conceptions! That'll teach me I hope! It didn't last time!
Let them eat mice, or giant lizards' eggs. It's an old Spanish cats' festive tradition on such days.
I expect to have a litter of Desert Lynx kittens in the new year to sell in the Spring, if your moggies don't last the weekend. Of course our two Desert Lynx cats also consider themselves above such common and vulgar traditional fare as lowly gnawing animals, but they wouldn't say no to a few almost extinct reptile eggs.
Speaking of animals and eggs, do you know where I could procure some black-faced indigenous Tenerife chickens? It's a breed I saw at the Sunday market in Laguna a couple of years ago, and unfortunately didn't by a few of them there and then. Now thay've moved the market and dropped the poultry stall, so I don't really know where to start searching.
Hahaha!
I got cat food and human food in Puerto OK! No festive closing observed there but on the contrary loads of shoppers!
Afraid I don't know where you'd get such hens but if I find out I'll let you know.
How now, Bardman?
We're going for a glass of goat's milk in The Hippy Bar somewhere above Icod tomorrow at 4.30 pm.
Do you know the place?
I've never been but I believe that once they've fixed the place up a bit it will almost qualify as rough and ready.
No lecky and a leaking roof and all that, it seems...
Why don't you call in for a pint and a chat?
Me and my groupie friend Debbie Wednesday are meeting a bunch of her old-enough-to-know-better hippy rockers, so call by. I'm sure we'll all fit right in.
Hi Patrick! Yes, I know El Risco well and in fact I was intending to be going there tomorrow to see my friend Graham's new band but I have changed my mind because I have a long day coming up on Monday in which I have to go to Santa Cruz first thing in the morning! Some other time there though! Enjoy the music and everything else there!
BTW I have two friends Alan and Anna, now living in Puerto - she is a teacher and he is a harmonica and guitar playing singer - and it appears you may know them!
It's a small island, huh?
Still, call by for a glass of milk at 5pm, all the same.
So the name of the place is El Risco?
That's good to know, actually.
We'll be expecting you at 4.45, or your name's MUD!
Haster Man Yanner!
Here is an article on the place with photos:
http://hubpages.com/_uq6h62db2t97/hub/Wild-Things-
To get there take the mountain road from Icod through El Tanque, Ruigomez and through Erjos then at the turning just past Bar Fleytas, opposite the pools of Erjos, take that road and San Jose is just a few km with El Risco up a hill on the right.
But I can't make it so looks like I have a new name besides Bard of Ely, Green Beard and Simply Steve - just call me Mud! lol
The Canal diner, Aguagarcia, Tacoronte.
Hey Bard-features!
How's tricks?
It's party-time here at last!
This week is the village's once-a-year-week.
It's the annual village festival.
The main events are tomorrow (Friday) night, when Spain's newest and grooviest fusion folk band The Councilors are playing a free gig in the village square, and the following (Saturday) night it's the Clash of the Titans, with music and dancing all night long on both nights, with various dance-offs and the local heats of the national rum-drinking championships.
Me and Groupie Debbie will be participating in all events.
Call by and we'll see if we can get you a slot, huh?
The Hippy Bar up by Icod was fab, by the way.
Thanks for the tips on it.
Take care, and maybe we'll see you tomorrow night, huh?
Patrick.
Thanks for the invite, Patrick, but I am afraid I am far too busy right now sorting out a book deal and an album of my material.
I saw Graham through the window of the bus yesterday as I was travelling through Guía de Isora and he saw me!
Do you know my friends Fernando and Emily from Barranco Las Lajas? I expect they will be partying too.
Have a great time over the weekend!
Well I can hardly believe it, Bardy!
Do you really have an album of your material?
My mother does that too, but I thought she was the only one.
She too is a seamstress, and over the years she's put together an album of most of her favourite materials to show people who are interested in a new tailor-made suit or having a set of curtains made. It's a bit like them carpet albums you get in furniture shops, but smaller and much more interesting. The first page is pure Chinese silk, then another page is Tenesee calico. She's got Shackleton tweed and Merino wool waffle-knit henley in there too, not to mention all the different jutes and muslins.
I believe the only material she still doesn't have in her album is gingham, but I'm sure she'll have it some day soon.
Do you have gingham in yours?
Which materials do you still not have?
It's funny you should mention Barranco Lajas. The Aguagarcia festival committee were just last week wondering about ways to keep that lot away from our festival this year.
Of course, most of them don't come here anyway, but those that do always spoil it for everyone, what with their strange shouts and yelps at all hours, and they're known for stepping on people's toes and never apologising. Of course I'm sure some of them are just fine, but there's such a rowdy element among them that we've decided to keep them out this year. Isn't a pity that some people don't learn to just get along with each other?
So when's the village in Saint Mark's?
Correction: So when's the village fair in Saint Mark's?
Musical material in mine and it's going to be called Welsh Wizard!
I always find out when the fiestas are on here because from my balcony I can see all the decorations going up in the square and hear the celebrations from the stage and cultural centre which are just over the wall from the carpark below where I live. I can listen to it from here as well as listening to football matches and choir practice and the sounds of waves from the beach below.
Patrick says:
16 months ago
'Nice article.
I`m just about to visit the place now, partly on the strength of your article.
Best wishes,
Patrick.