A small rock in the Atlantic

Re-birth already

Regenerating forest, Fuencaliente, La Palma/

New needles on a burnt pine tree, Fuencaliente

It's been raining intermittently for a week or so on the east of La Palma, so I went down to Fuencaliente to see whether the forests had started to re-grow. And here's the result.

Regenerating forest, Fuencaliente, La Palma/

New needles on a burnt pine tree, Fuencaliente

It's not happening everywhere yet, but I didn't have to hunt either. I took all these photos the first time I stopped the car.

Regenerating forest, Fuencaliente, La Palma/

New needles on a scorched pine tree, Fuencaliente

In two or three years, it'll be hard to see where the fire was.

Regenerating forest, Fuencaliente, La Palma/

New needles on a burnt grape vine, Fuencaliente

Even thought I knew this would happen, it was still great to see it. And of course, the other 98% of the island's fine anyway.

Regenerating forest, Fuencaliente, La Palma/

New bracken shoots, Fuencaliente

Labels: fuencaliente

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Yippee! The Fire's Under Control

The island government has just announced that the fire's under control.

"Under control" isn't quite the same as "out". It means the mountainside is still smouldering, and they have to put out the embers before the wind gets up. But with this weather, it really ought to be ok.

And apologies of you tried to access this site yesterday evening. The domain providers in the USA had a power cut which took out all their servers. As you can see, it's all up and running again.

Labels: fire, fuencaliente, La Palma, Mazo

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The Damage in Fuencaliente

Burnt House in Fuencaliente, La Palma

My first impression of Los Canarios, the main village in Fuencaliente, is that it's a heck of a lot better than I expected. The fire damage is very fluky, presumably because the fire moved so fast and the gusts of wind kept changing direction. As you can see, sometimes a house got burnt out completely, and its neighbours untouched, or the top floor burned, and the bottom floor looks fine, or one half of a semi-detached looks totalled, and the other half looks OK.

Burnt House in Fuencaliente, La Palma

Most of the badly damaged buildings I saw had people working in them already. Presumably the owners have already gone through swearing and crying, and they're already getting on with it. I was impressed.

The Princess Hotel, La Palma

From a distance at least, the Princess Hotel looks fine and dandy. Most buildings look OK, and most shops are open. And the beautiful old church is fine.

A car repair workshop, Los Canarios, Fuencaliente, La Palma

A car repair workshop, Los Canarios, Fuencaliente, La Palma

Car workshop, Los Canarios, Fuencaliente

I don't think this car workshop will bother to fix the cars outside it now. On the other hand, I was amazed to see this small survivor just outside the big petrol station.

A lizard that somehow survived

Labels: fire, fuencaliente, La Palma

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La Palma's still burning

Helicopter dropping water on the fire on La Palma

Helicopter dropping water on the fire at Tigalate, on La Palma

The fire on La Palma is still burning, but it's a lot smaller, and a lot farther up the mountain and away from houses. Hopefully, now that all the helicopters and both planes are dumping water on the same place, it'll be sorted out soon.

Smouldering forest, Mazo, La Palma

Meanwhile there are acres and acres of smouldering forest, and people trying to get the fire completely out.

Mop up operatons in Fuencaliente, La Palma

Mop up operatons in Fuencaliente, La Palma

Mop up operations in Fuencaliente, La Palma

Labels: fire, fuencaliente, La Palma, Mazo

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Update on the Fire

The fire started at Tigalate, and the main area of concern is currently between Santa Cecilia and Jeday

Well I got one thing wrong in the last post. There was a light breeze here, but up on the ridge where they were fighting the fire, it was blowing a gale up to 65 km/h - exactly the worst sort of weather for fire-fighting.

However, I was right that the Princess Hotel and Cancajos are safe. In fact that's where they took the evacuees. About 100 are still in the Princess, and 115 in the army barracks at Cancajos. The rest are staying with friends and family.

So far, about 1,500 hectares have been burnt - mostly pine forest. If you were planning on walking or mountain biking in the south of the island - well it won't be so pretty (although it will recover). So far, the north of the island is fine.

And now the good news. The wind has dropped, and the weather forecast is for the temperatures to drop 10-15ºC within 24-48 hours. At the moment, they're trying to use the lava flows at Jeday and Pista de Los Cabritos as natural fire breaks, and to hold it there, or at least have a much smaller front to the fire. We now have helicopters from Tenerife and Gran Canaria helping out, and two planes are on their way from the mainland.

Labels: fire, fuencaliente, La Palma, Mazo

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Blessing the Animals

Fiesta of St Anthony the Abbot, Fuencaliente, La Palma, Canary Islands

Today is the fiesta of San Antonio Abad (St. Anthony the Abbot) in Fuencaliente, and at midday the priest held a special, traditional service to bless the animals in the church square. I was curious, so I went.

I didn't know whether to expect pets or farm animals, but there were both. At twelve promptly, the priest came out, gave a short sermon on looking after your animals, said a prayer, and then sprinkled the animals with holy water.

When the cat got wet, he said something you don't expect to hear in church, but everyone else seemed happy.

Members of the congregation

Labels: fiestas, fuencaliente, La Palma, La Plama, San Antonio Abad, St. Anthony the Abbot

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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.

Labels: Barlovento, Breña Alta, Breña Baja, Canaries, Canary, El Paso, fuencaliente, Garafía, La Palma, municipalities, Puntagorda, puntallana, San Andres y Sauces, Santa Cruz de la Palma, tijarafe

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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)

Labels: Barlovento, Breña Alta, Breña Baja, Canaries, Canary islands, El Paso, Flags, fuencaliente, Garafía, La Palma, Puntagorda, puntallana, San Andres y Sauces, Santa Cruz de la Palma, tijarafe

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Taking the Hump

Crater of St Antony's Volcano. You can see people on the skyline at the right.

The most recent eruption in the Canary Islands was Teneguía, in 1971 (see Thursday, 21 February 2008 Which Planet Are You On?). It's a nice place to visit, but you have to be fairly fit.

St. Antony's Volcano (Volcan San Antonio) is nice in a completely different way. For one thing, it looks like a volcano should look, and you can walk halfway around the spectacular circular crater. You could even get a push-chair most of the way. For another, there's a car park, and a visitor centre with a café, shop, and a rather good exhibition.

The last eruption was from November 13th 1677 to January 31st, 1678. There were earthquakes, sulfurous gases and thirteen lava vents, one of which buried the hot spring that gave the borough its name - Fuencaliente. This left the spa town without a spa, and did the local economy no favours at all.

Crater of St Antony's Volcano looking back towards Los Canarios.

If you fancy taking the hump, you can ride a camel along the path for 6.00€. The sign says they start at ten, but when I went there, they still hadn't arrived at 10:30. So no photo. Sorry.

The catch is that you have to pay. The car park is 3.50€ for visitors and 1.75€ for residents, but this includes the visitor centre.

Coffee with milk (cafe con leche) was a startling 1.70€. In most places it's between 1.00€ or 1.20€. So I didn't try the cake, although it looked good.

So does the view from the crater.

View from the crater, north towards Las Indias.

To get there:
The easiest way is in a hire car. Take the main road to Los Canarios and follow the sign from the village centre. Alternatively, bus L3 will take you to Los Canarios, and you can walk downhill from there (perhaps 2 km).

You can also continue your walk from St. Antony's volcano down to Teneguía and the coast. Bus L31 goes back from the lighthouse to the village.