Report on Walking Festival

Just a quick post here to say that the Walking Festival was truly excellent - well done the organisers!  We went along on the Saturday morning and were really surprised to see the number of stands and amount of interest generated.

Some were not linked to walking admittedly and were rather more of the handicraft nature, including cheeses and wines from La Palma, but the majority were walking-based offering boots, clothing, maps and a few natty gismos.   And of course, being La Palma, it was a general party atmosphere.
Also, there were rope slides for the younger ones and in the evening more entertainment, not that we stayed around for that.

Anyway, apart from buying a few goodies at the stalls and getting a free straw hat in bright green (thanks Binter), I was really interested to make contact with one of the walking groups - http://www.caminanteselatajo.es  Whilst chatting to the two people manning the stall, I noticed a booklet entitled 'Vuelta a la Isla por el Camino Real de la Costa' ie the GR130 route, along with an accompanying DVD for a joint price of 10 euros.   Ooh exciting, so I had to have that especially as I didn't know such a thing existed.
The booklet is beautifully presented and in full colour and I was rather 'tickled' with their neat idea of walking the GR130. What they did, in October 2008, was to split the route up into 10 sections and in one day, different groups each walked a section of their choice.  The co-coordinator of the whole thing drove round the island, catching up with the groups as they went, taking a photo with them.  Where possible, he walked a little of the route with them.  Apparently, one of the walkers was in a bit of a rush as he was playing in a game of football later in the day.  And then there was our old friend Tabares, of cigar fame - I didn't mention the wine bit in an earlier post - but I read that a small bottle of wine was still an integral part of his walking practice!  Each group also took a group photo at precisely 11 am.  In total there were 121 walkers which shows great support for the idea.
The DVD was a well presented slideshow of photos taken by the groups as they walked around the island.  I'm not sure how many photos there were - a lot!  But it was good fun to watch and took around an hour to see the whole thing.  An hour to walk the GR130 - not bad .. and very entertaining see how other people got on.  
Anyone wanting a copy of the booklet and DVD can contact me directly or the club themselves.