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Canary Islands - La Palma, November 13, 2007
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Note that Friday the 13th comes on Tuesday this month.
We arrived just about noon on Tuesday. The capital as you can see is almost as white as the cruise ship (the one we saw yesterday in Madeira.) Somebody commented that Madeira is La Palma on steroids. As you can see in this picture, here there is still unsettled land, there are many fewer high-rise hotels, and there's not the room for as many cruise boats as there is in Madeira. |
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All of the Canaries are volcanic so you could go see mountains on all of them. Our tour on La Palma chose to focus on mountains . Here we are going up and up and up and ... |
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We stopped at the ranger station to consolidate 3 busses into 2. We
were then told we had to wait. So we wandered around the Visitors'
Center until Danuta
persuaded them to let us go on. We went up and found a guarded gate.
Here's the guard checking his schedule. He used a radio to find out
where the previous busses were. I thought this was all to protect the environment. No, it's real. There's only room for 2 busses at the end and no way you can pass on the road from here up. |
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From here to the valley floor is a 4 hour walk. You can't drive
there unless you commit to a 3 day stay. If it helps put this
photo in perspective, I had to stitch two photos together in order to
cover the vertical span. There are trails around that are well marked. Their markings include difficulty and walking time-ranging from 2 hours to a day. We didn't see anybody backpacking so don't know if walking and camping is an option. |
| We're at about middle elevation here. The top is about 3200 meters (10,000 ft). Marnie thought this one looked like El Capitan in Yosemite. We didn't see anybody climbing though. (In Yosemite, we saw somebody sleeping on the vertical face, at 2 in the afternoon.) |
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We then reversed our route. The views from the other side of the bus were equally outstanding. |
| We then stopped at a 2 bus outlook (which almost caused a problem when our 3rd bus arrived before our first bus left). You had a fantastic view both down and up, but the haze looking west (up) was so thick and it was looking into the sun so that I couldn't get a photo that way. This is the eastern view, the city of La Palma from 1000' up. |
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La Palma seems to be expanding as well. This little crop of houses (look like American condos) is clearly new and the open spaces look like they are preparing to build, not leave as green space. |
| Our final stop was the church of the Virgin of the Snows. Every 5 years they have a big festival; all who have left La Palma are expected to return and they make a big deal of carrying the virgin and her chair down to the village. A week later they reverse the process. They have so many people, dancing, singing, celebrating, that going down starts in the afternoon and finishes at 2-3 in the morning. |
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This is the altar space inside. The virgin is in the center (but
has too much light on it so you can't see it well). I took this
photo with natural light using the kneeler as my tripod. After visiting the church we returned to the ship and our "Farewell" reception, where all the staff of the ship are introduced! |
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