A L O J E R A

I decide not to leave at dawn. Sometimes I think I’d gain time by taking the first flight in the morning, but then, dead tired, I would no longer be able to enjoy the day. I arrive in Tenerife to see the ferry leave before my very eyes. I decide to sleep in a hostel near the port. A crazy place, as usual after all.  I fall asleep with my clothes on, on my glasses, and when I wake up they are so crooked that I doubt the position of my ears. I arrive in La Gomera and the first impression I have is of a peaceful place. I need to reconnect with my core, which I sometimes lose in the stupidities of everyday life. The island is quite deserted, completely different from Tenerife. I rent a car and drive to the Residence. The road is winding, certainly not the best for people like me who suffer from car sickness. ​​​​​​​

I get there around lunchtime. The place is located after a series of curves lined with palm trees, in the middle of nowhere. I like it a lot. It’s a clean, essential house but you can feel the creative passage of many. The first thing I realize is that contact with nature will be intense. There is no washing machine, no dishwasher, and the garden is inhabited by wonderful flowering agave plants and a bewildering amount of lizards. If there is one thing that terrifies me, it's lizards. Among all of them, there is one, the biggest, staring at me from my window sill. Maybe someone used to feed the lizards, they tell me. This is why they get so close. He, the macho of the situation, ventures beyond all limits, with all the female lizards behind watching him triumph in such a glorious quest for food. I try to challenge it for a while, but I prefer to leave him something and let him impress everyone.

I leave and I drive to the nearest beach: Alojera. By the end of my time here it will also become my favorite. I’m alone and I think about how valuable time is. There is some kind of swimming pool where the seawater arrives. I stop to look at the contrast between the water of the pool and that of the sea. The different movements of the waves. There is a pier that, if you cross it and reach the tip, rewards you with a crazy view. I have my back to the open sea and I can see the whole beach. It’s very simple as a whole, and there’s nobody. I don't get why. Later I will discover that Salvador, a Gomero gentleman I met on a hot afternoon at the beach, lives in the last house on the right. It looks like a small treasure embraced by the mountains. Everything is very gray, with those white houses and the dirty blue of the sea. A great palette for my eyes. I lie down on the concrete of the pier and listen to the sound of the sea and the feeling of having the sun on me: it pinches.  ​​​​​​​

The mind, as it always does when I am truly alone, wanders. The climate is the typical climate here: it changes rapidly. On other occasions, I have already thought that we were very similar, me and this moody weather. Before leaving I take a last look at the beach: a mental picture for processing. ​​​​​​​