Almond Blosson on La Palma

Almond blossom in Garafia

The north-west of the island is home to great many almond trees, and at this time of the year, they're all blossoming.

The trees in El Paso and Garafía are beautiful, but the best display of all is at Puntagorda. In fact Puntagorda hosts an annual almond blossom fiesta. The date varies -- the Town Hall sets it a couple of weeks in advance, to (hopefully) coincide with the best blossom.

At noon on Sunday, February 1st, there's the traditional pensioners' almond cracking contest. The winner will be the person who produces the most shelled and unbroken almonds.

On Friday 5th there will be football competitions (for men and women)at 4pm, plus a disco in the community hall at 10 pm followed by and music in the street.

On Saturday 6th at 10 pm there will be a concert and dance in the Community Centre, followed by music and dancing in the street.

The main day is Sunday 7th.

Starting at noon, they'll have bouncy castles in the school playground, and a photo exhibition in the cultural centre (about the delightfully silly Battle of Lepanto fiesta in Barlovento), and dances in the cultural centre, the sports centre, and the street,

I expect they'll have the usual street market, and they'll be giving out free wine and almonds. Be warned that the wine may well have been stored in barrels made of tea (pronounced tay-ah) which gives it a resiny taste. Some people love it. I don't.

The programme is up on the web at http://almendros.puntagorda.es/.

Almond blossom from the Mirador (viewpoint) de Millflores in Puntagorda

Bookmark with:

Del.icio.us

Digg

Reddit

Facebook

Furl It

Newsvine

StumbleUpon

El Paso's Silk Museum

La Palma has a long history of silk production, going back to the 16th century. In fact, at one time, silk was made in all the Canary Islands, but since the 19th century, El Paso, in the centre of La Palma, is the only place which still produces it.

They use an old fashioned, labour-intensive technique, the only place in Europe which still does so. You can see most of the process at the silk museum in El Paso, where the staff will talk you through the process in Spanish, English or German. The only parts they don't do on the premises are those involving boiling water.

First, you have to care for the silk worms. They eat mulberry leaves, but you can't just leave them on the mulberry tree or the birds will eat them. You have to keep them in a box, and collect leaves for them, and clean the box out. They have silk worms on view at the museum in the spring, but there are none available at this time of year.

Eventually, of course, they make themselves cocoons.

Silk cocoons.

If you let the silk moths hatch naturally, they chew through the threads to get out, and you're left with a bunch of short threads, instead of one long one. So they put the cocoons into boiling water, which softens the natural glue holding the cocoon together, and pull out the threads in groups of about 15. Amazingly, you get about 1 km of thread from each cocoon.

Once the threads are out of the water, the glue hardens again, and the sticks the individual threads into one. At that point, it doesn't feel like silk. It's much rougher, something like linen.

The threads are wound onto a drum, with thicker sections separated from thinner ones. From there, they're wound onto bobbins, and then two or three threads are wound together onto another bobbin, to make a thicker thread. (The thickness of the thread depends on what it will be used for. Ties, for example, are generally made of three-ply silk.) These threads are then twisted together by hand, working one section at a time, from the bobbin at the right of the picture to the one at the left.


Spinning the silk.

Then the silk is wound into skeins again, so that it can be boiled with soap, to remove the natural glue. This gives the silk gets its delightful, soft texture, and allows it to be dyed.



Plant dyes and the colours they give to silk.


Only natural dyes are used. Most of them are plants, like eucalyptus leaves, marigold petals, almond shells and onion skins, but cochineal beetles and lichen (Roccella canariensis) are also used.

The silk comes out with beautiful, glowing colours.


Skeins of dyed silk.

And then it has to be wound onto bobbins yet again, and finally woven. The museum contains three looms, with the oldest dating from 1860.

All this hard work makes the final product distinctly pricey. A tie costs about 150 € and a scarf costs about 210 €, and both are on sale in the shop, along with smaller, cheaper items.

The museum is in the centre of El Paso, Calle Manuel Taño 6
Opening hours: Monday – Friday, 10 a.m. – 1 p.m., also Tuesday and Thursday, 5 p.m. to 7 p.m.
Entrance fee: 2.50 €

Winding silk onto bobbins and weaving silk.

Bookmark with:

Del.icio.us

Digg

Reddit

Facebook

Furl It

Newsvine

StumbleUpon

The Scenic route over the ridge

Los Llanos del Jable, with El Paso behind

The main roads on La Palma form a rough figure 8, with the main east-west road being the LP2 from Santa Cruz to Los Llanos, through the tunnel. But whenever I've got time, I like to take the scenic route, the LP203. This winds up through the heather and bayberry forest, then pine forest, past the barbecue and picnic areas at Pared Vieja and El Pilar. Just west of the top, you pop out of the forest at the Los Llanos del Jable viewpoint. From there you get a great view of El Paso and Los Llanos, the south wall of the Caldera, and Montaña Quemada.

Montaña Quemada means "burnt mountain," and it's easy to see where the name comes from. The only recorded eruption here was in the 15th century, but it looks much more recent than that. The ground is covered in volcanic gravel called lapilli. Don't try to walk in sandles because the darn things get between the sole of your foot and the sole of the sandal, and they're very uncomfortable.

Going west from Los Llanos del Jable, the road winds down through pine forests until it rejoins the main road.


Montaña Quemada

Bookmark with:

Del.icio.us

Digg

Reddit

Facebook

Furl It

Newsvine

StumbleUpon

La Glorieta Square

Looking north, towards the stage

There's a lovely little square at La Glorieta. The whole floor is covered in mosaics, as are the benches. The plants are all local ones.


One of the benches.

Most of the vertical walls are made from the local volcanic stone, as is the back of the little fountain of a mosaic chameleon.


The chameleon fountain.

The whole lot was designed and made by a local artists, Luis Morerea . To get there take the road from El Paso, south towards Las Manchas. The turn off is on your right at km 40.


Detail from the central design.

Just uphill from the square you can find a village shop (good for picnic supplies) and a small wine museum. (More on the wine museum on Friday)


Looking south, from the stage.

Bookmark with:

Del.icio.us

Digg

Reddit

Facebook

Furl It

Newsvine

StumbleUpon

Fiestas in Early September

There are two nice fiestas coming up at the beginning of September.

In El Paso, the statue of the Virgin of the Pine was carried in procession from the hermitage up in the mountain down to the village. On September 6th, there will be another procession to carry it back.


The Devil's dance, Tijarafe, 2007.

In Tijarafe in the early hours of September 8th, the devil will join the dance. This is a man in a suit covered with lit fireworks, and no, I don't think it's entirely safe. On the other hand, I've never heard of any bad accidents, and it's certainly memorable and great fun. The party starts the night before, of course, with the usual music, dancing, and mobile bars.

Bookmark with:

Del.icio.us

Digg

Reddit

Facebook

Furl It

Newsvine

StumbleUpon

Fiestas in Las Nieves and El Paso

Inside Las Nieves Church

Today is the fiesta of the patron saint of La Palma, the Virgin of Las Nieves. It's also a public holiday for the whole island.

Las Nieves is about 2 km inland from Santa Cruz de la Palma. When I went this morning, it was impossible to park within a mile of the fiesta. Sorry, I just turned around and went home. I expect it's much like other years - lots of stalls selling food and drink and souvenirs, and a religious procession at some point in the day.

Meanwhile, El Paso has it's once-every-three-years fiesta going on for most of the month. They have things going on all month, but the main event is the romería on Sunday 16th. This is a cross between a religious procession and a party, where they take the statue of the Virgin on the Pine from the hermitage of the same name, to the church in the town. Romerías are usually great fun, with people taking along instruments to sing folk songs on the way, and wagons handing out free food and drink - usually friend pork and wine.

Bookmark with:

Del.icio.us

Digg

Reddit

Facebook

Furl It

Newsvine

StumbleUpon

Procession for the Sacred Heart

They have lots of religious processions on La Palma, where they take the statue out of the church and around the neighbourhood streets, with music provided by the town band. A lot of the statues are beautiful, but if you see a lot of these processions, they do get a bit samey.

This one started much like all the others, only on the salt carpet. But when they got halfway along the first carpet, the statue stopped and brightly coloured bits of paper and bougainvillea petals started raining down from a nearby rooftop, which was very pretty indeed. (I found out later that the papers had "The promises of the Sacred Heart" printed on them - at least twelve different ones.) And the kids scrambled to collect the papers while they released some doves.

At the end of the first carpet, the procession stopped again, beside the old church, where the choir sang about "The Source of Love" - and sang it very well, too.

Then the procession went off through the carpet and pictures of houses, and on round the back streets.

I left the procession to get ready for them coming up the hill through the other archways. And I waited, and waited and waited. It must have been a very long procession, because they still hadn't appeared an hour later.

So I gave up and went home.

Bookmark with:

Del.icio.us

Digg

Reddit

Facebook

Furl It

Newsvine

StumbleUpon

Archways for the Sacred Heart

Ahem. When I said "...more photos tomorrow", I actually meant "mañana".



The salt carpets aren't the only thing. They also make wonderful archways, similar to those in Mazo. Well, as you can see, these days some of them aren't arches. In this case the carpet is leaves from tree-heathers, laid down with a garden seive. Like the ones in Mazo, they're decorated with seeds and flowers.



Unlike the ones in Mazo, a lot of the fine detail is done with crushed and dyed eggshells.



This archway features the twelve apostles.


Centuries ago, the Virgin Mary appeared in a pine tree in the mountains above the village. (More on that another day.)



And this one celebrates the local silk industry. (More on that another day, too.)

Bookmark with:

Del.icio.us

Digg

Reddit

Facebook

Furl It

Newsvine

StumbleUpon

The Sacred Heart

It's El Paso's main fiesta, The Sacred Heart (El Corazon Sagrado). Like Mazo and San José, they make archways and carpets, but they're slightly different.

In San José, they dye the salt, and then put the colours together to make the picture. In El Paso, they start by putting down white salt --kilos and kilos of it from the salt pans in the southern tip of the island.



They carefully put a stencil on top, and spray on the various colours until the design's complete.



In this case, they added a table on top with a statue of the Virgin, and then this man started retouching.



There will be a procession this evening after the special mass at 7 pm.

More photos tomorrow.

Bookmark with:

Del.icio.us

Digg

Reddit

Facebook

Furl It

Newsvine

StumbleUpon

Ruido Fiesta 9

This is 6€ for two bands, a beer, and a magazine (in Spanish), and Ruido fiestas are always a good night out. Here's a video of the last Ruido fiesta. The drummer at the start will be there on Friday.

Bookmark with:

Del.icio.us

Digg

Reddit

Facebook

Furl It

Newsvine

StumbleUpon

Almond Blossom

The north-west of the island is home to great many almond trees, and at this time of the year, they're all blossoming.

The trees in El Paso and Garafía are beautiful, but the best display of all is at Puntagorda. In fact Puntagorda hosts an annual almond blossom fiesta. The date varies -- the Town Hall sets it a couple of weeks in advance, to (hopefully) coincide with the best blossom. This year we've had a rather cold winter, so it's a little later than usual, on February 8th.

Bookmark with:

Del.icio.us

Digg

Reddit

Facebook

Furl It

Newsvine

StumbleUpon

A Bar for Cave Men

Bodegon Tamanca, El Paso

Is your feller the caveman type? Here's somewhere he'll feel right at home. It's a bar in a cave.

Bodegon Tamanca is on the main road from Fuencaliente to El Paso. The first thing you'll spot is the large car park, right beside the road.

View Larger Map

A cave man wouldn't really feel at home inside, though. No smoke, no mammoth bones on the floor, just plenty of character and good food.

Bodegon Tamanca, El Paso

Bookmark with:

Del.icio.us

Digg

Reddit

Facebook

Furl It

Newsvine

StumbleUpon

The Wine Museum

The Wine Museum

The island's wine museum stands just above La Glorieta Square.
View Larger Map

It's a small museum, but it's only 1.50€ for adults, and that includes a chance to taste a local wine or two.

Upstairs, the exhibition explains the methods and history of wine-making on the the island, and they have a nice collection of old tools used for growing wines or making barrels

Vines have been grown on La Palma since 1505, and they had a wonderful reputation in Europe. According to the tourist office, the Malmsey wine praised by Shakespeare and his contemporaries came from La Palma, although several other places produced it too. Certainly there was no mildew on the island at the time, which must have helped. Being an island effectively kept the grapes in quarantine. But once Santa Cruz de la Palma became a major port, it was only a matter of time, and mildew arrived in the 19th century.

It ruined the grapes, and with it, the winemakers, and the local grape varieties became scarce. Things didn't really improve much until 1994 when La Palma got its "Designation of Origin", which gave local produces a standard to aim for. Now we have a wide variety of certified wines.




Why so many on such a small island?

Partly it's the variety of grapes, but mostly it's due to the micro-climates. In the wetter, northern end of the island, the vines are trained above head height to reduce the chance of mildew. In the drier south, they're trained low to the ground to stop them drying out (and harvesting them must be back-breaking work).


Wine press

Outside, different varieties of grape vines fill a little garden. Best of all, at the back there's a little bodega or wine house, with the original wine press.

Like most places, the grapes were taken to the local wine press. The grapes went in the open box at the top, the juice (or must) came out of the gutter and in the bucket, which is full of holes so as to strain it.


Wine barrels

Of course the juice had to be stored in barrels until it was ready to drink. Or alternatively, in a wine skin. This one's made from the skin of a goat.


Wine skin

Bookmark with:

Del.icio.us

Digg

Reddit

Facebook

Furl It

Newsvine

StumbleUpon

Spot the Lava Flow

Just north of Fatima, El Paso

Ladies and gentlemen, can you spot the lava flow in this picture?

This lava flow at Fatima in El Paso is from the eruption of Volcan San Juan (St. John's volcano) in 1949, but the whole island is volcanic. And, geologically speaking, it's still in nappies.

The very oldest rocks on the island formed as a submarine volcano, some 3 three million years ago. Of course most of it's buried deep, but if you know where to look, there's a little patch of it you can see in the Barranco de las Angustias (the big ravine that drains the Caldera). Apart from that, the northern end is the oldest, at a mere 1,500,000 years old. Most of the south is younger, at 700,000 years old, give or take. And just to confuse the tourists, the Cumbre Vieja (old ridge) is younger than the Cumbre Nueva (New Ridge).

And the youngest bit of the island is Playa Nueva which means (very) New Beach. It was formed when Teneguía erupted from October 26th to November 28th in 1971. It's just 37 years old - younger than I am. Luckily the eruption only killed one person, an old man who got too close and suffocated. My husband was a teenager and remembers it well. You could here the rumbling from Breña Baja, and the whole family went to see the show from the higher volcano of San Antonio.

Today, plants are just beginning to colonise the area near the cone, and the red rocks make the surrounding area look like Mars (See Which Planet Are You On? ).

Bookmark with:

Del.icio.us

Digg

Reddit

Facebook

Furl It

Newsvine

StumbleUpon

Where's the village gone?

Tourists sometimes go nuts trying to find the village of Breña Baja, or Fuencaliente.

There's a really simple reason why they can't find them. They don't exist. Breña Baja and Fuencaliente are municipalities, and their town halls are in the villages of San Jose and Los Canarios, respectively. It like driving all over the south east of England, looking for the town of Sussex.

The map shows the 14 municipalities (in blue) , with their administrative seats (in pink). Where
there's no name in pink, the municipalities are named after their chief villages, which makes things simpler. Just to keep things interesting, one, San Andrés y Sauces, is named after the two biggest villages. The town hall is in Los Sauces, which is much bigger and on the main road.

That's easy to find.

Bookmark with:

Del.icio.us

Digg

Reddit

Facebook

Furl It

Newsvine

StumbleUpon

Stargazing

The island's association of amateur astronomers will be holding a star party on Saturday, from 8pm, behind the trees in the plaza beside the tourist office in El Paso. There will be lots of amateur telescopes there, so you can get a good look at, say, Saturn or Jupiter, and they plan to be there until midnight. I gather they speak some English.

La Palma has amazing skies. This is a great opportunity, especially if you live in a big city where the street lights drown out the stars.

For information phone Toño Gonzalez on 607592175.

Bookmark with:

Del.icio.us

Digg

Reddit

Facebook

Furl It

Newsvine

StumbleUpon

Flags Galore

You see a lot of flags on La Palma. Most English visitors will recognise the flags of Spain and the European Union.

But the Canary Islands are an autonomous region within Spain, and they have their own flag too. You see it a lot, especially around May 30th, which is Canary Day.



And then each island has its own flag. Here's the flag of La Palma:



And as if that weren't enough, La Palma has 14 municipalities, of which twelve have their own flag.

Santa Cruz	Breña Baja	Los Llanos
El Paso	Barlovento	Breña Alta
Garafía	Mazo	Tijarafe
Puntagorda	Puntallana	Tazacorte

(The other two municipalities are San Andres y Sauces and Fuencaliente)

Bookmark with:

Del.icio.us

Digg

Reddit

Facebook

Furl It

Newsvine

StumbleUpon