Barranco de los Cernícalos — water!

A small waterfall a bit off the path

Finally, I’ve seen all three places where water always runs on Gran Canaria. Well, actually, there are just two left, poor Barranco de La Mina having been killed off by the owner of the water*. So, now on Gran Canaria you have just two places where freshwater runs all year round — Barranco de Azuaje and Barranco de los Cernícalos, Kestrels’ ravine.

Actually, I did go across this particular ravine a couple of times already, without following the course of the water. The surrounding areas are green almost all year round, making it a firm favorite with hikers. And not only hikers — when we went there for the second time, we met at least one group of people, obviously tourists, in flip-flops.

Mind you, you can go in flip-flops, it’s not that difficult, just a bit umm... well, silly really.

It’s one of the walks perfectly doable by using public transport, as my friends shown me. The ravine is not far from Telde, which is well-connected to both La Palmas and the south of the island. From Telde you have to catch a bus by a local company (currently the concession belongs to TelBus), which goes to a small place called Lomo Magullo roughly every half an hour. From there, to get to the beginning of the ravine you have to walk on the road a couple of kilometers (the pointer at the edge of Loma Magullo says 2.5), unless you are lucky and catch much less frequent bus by the same company which carries on to Los Arenales.

The walk is linear, but if you feel energetic you can always carry on and go to the Caldera de los Marteles and then even further on, to the Pico de las Nieves. We did to-and-fro walks both times I’ve gone so far.

My friend who had shown me this route is cooling himself under a waterfall. I didn’t dare to do the same :)

What can I say. The ravine is beautiful. In places where there is a lot more freshwater it wouldn’t feel so magical, I imagine, but in Canaries it does. At the beginning there are a few signs, and later the route always runs along the stream, sometimes wandering off a bit allowing to avoid climbing rocks. There is a lot of shadow, additional bonus most of the year. There are cascades, some of them can be approached for a quick icy shower. It’s all good. The only possible minus is that it is so accessible, it can get if not exactly crowded, but definitely well-transited, especially during weekends. But, unlike spectacular, but short Barranco de Las Vacas, you have a few kilometers of the ravine to share, so it’s not so bad.

My recorder refused to catch the data after a side-tracking to a waterfall, so I place the incomplete route here mostly to show the way between Lomo Magullo and the ravine. From where my record stops, you can carry along, always following the course of the water, till you come to a double waterfall (it falls down vertically first and then runs along a steep rocky surface). This is the place most people get to. Further up, there are two more waterfalls, one of which I have seen, but I must warn you that past the double waterfall the path gets a bit more tricky and overgrown.

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* Now (rant mode on), about Barranco de la Mina. What happened is that the owners are now catching all of the water at the source and putting it in a pipe “para aprovechar mejor”, i.e. to make a better use of it. I would have had no problems with it, if they had left some little water for the plants, but noooo. No water runs in the ravine if there is no rain (when it rains, it seems that their pipe thankfully is not big enough to catch all of the water).

As a result, what once was a green lush environment, now is a ravine full of dry and drying trees — perfect fire conductor. In my personal opinion, the fire of two years ago wouldn’t have run so fast and so far if it wasn’t for the this little show of human avarice.

When I ask the locals they tend to avert their eyes are mumble something along the lines “well, it is their water, they can do what they like with it...” I must say I find it ridiculous. With all due respect for the private property rights, if the owners can damage the environment by exercising them, there must be regulations in place to prevent them from doing so. In most situations such regulations exist, but not in this case.

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Pictures of freshwater streams on Gran Canaria on Shutterstock