Trek to Cascada de Colores, LaPalma

We love to explore when we go on holiday, and the Canarian Island of La Palma is perfect to do just that.

It’s incredibly versatile, and has everything from volcanic landscapes to lush forests, valleys and high mountains.  It’s a walker’s paradise and we did a few whilst there.

The walk to the Cascada de colores took us a through a river valley and deep into the national park. Into what is a giant caldera created by a volcanic eruption two million years ago.

We knew it would take us about four to five hours to complete, going there and back but the beginning of the walk was relatively easy.   We followed the dry river bed up into the shaded valley and we pretty much had the place to ourselves, accept for a couple of goats and frogs.

I’m not a keen walker, but I knew this one would be worth the aches and pains I’d feel later for what lay at the end of the trek and if the terrain stayed as it was, I’d be happy.

However the deeper we went it quickly changed as the valley became narrower and more large boulders and rocks made our trek more of a rock climb.

We did notice that the signed walkers path had begun to trail steeply up the side of the valley, but as we seemed to be making good progress by sticking to the river bed we ignored it.  Big mistake!!

The boulders became to large and tall for short-arse me to climb and resulted in my husband trying to pull my inflexible frame up the side of one such rock.  Let’s say free running we’ll never become a hobby of mine, and I remember well being sprawled flat on the surface of the rock like a squashed frog as he slowly yanked me up by one of my arms.

Suffice to say we stuck to the guided path from them on, which took us up and down the hills beside the river valley.  I’m not a fan of steep treks up hill, so I was pretty knackered by the time we clambered back down towards the riverbed which now contained running water and collided with three other rivers.

The river or more stream we needed was easy to find due to the colour of the running water.  The amazing colour  comes from yellow or gold ochre – an iron oxide called limonite dissolved in the water and also lends its name to the river Limonero.

The trek really got interesting now as we followed the copper coloured stream into a narrow ravine where we soon found ourselves splashing through the water, which quickly reached up to my thighs the further in we walked.  It can be slippery, but there are plenty of rocks you can grab to help you wade through.

We rounded a corner and there it was, the Cascadas de Colores.  It was far from cascading, but a trickle of steady water flowed over the lip of the rounded waterfall and the pretty colours shined in the sun.

Well worth the two and half hour trek up the valley.  We ate our lunch there and buoyed by our find, trekked back down to civilisation.

To round the trip off, we stopped at a bar and restaurant we’d found previously that sat high above the valley with stunning views, for a well deserved cervaza.

All photos my own.

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