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Activate the Time Machine at the path’s starting steep slopes, where the Laurel Ravine begins its ascent to the sky. Within a few steps you’ll be transported back into another time. Los Tilos de Moya, located in north-west Gran Canaria, offer an echo of the past. Namely the so-called Doramas Jungle, a laurel forest named after the brave aboriginal leader who used to roam the land before the 15th-century Spanish invasion.

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Step back into yesteryear. The past covers you in a blanket fashioned from green silk. The remains of this once grand laurel forest provide a home to beings moving with a stealth which would suggest they have a secret to hide.

A branch moves suddenly and starts to swing in the air. What follows looks to combine illusion and reality. But it is no dream. It’s the flight of a robin, an alpispa, a finch. All three birds are fearful of humans approaching their tree. In the sky, cutting a swathe through the immense of blue without reaching the clouds, a kestrel seems to rule the world.

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The tall laurels embrace as one, standing strong and proud to be descendants of the mythical Doramas Jungle. Jealously guarding a place where nobody would be surprised to encounter an elf lying on the moss. Nor a forest fairy hovering alongside the area’s birds, sucking on bluebells.

It’s right here that the poet Tomás Morales (1884-1921), a native of Moya, says that souls regain their “original cleanliness”. One more reason to start the time machine and travel to a wilderness where nothing’s impossible. After all, within this old forest grows a rare flower known in these parts as Dry Love. But that’s another story.

Related link:
Discover Moya