A small rock in the Atlantic: 13/03/2011

Photos of the carnival parade in Los Cancajos

Carnival parade in Los Cancajos, Brena Baja

Here are some photos of tonight's carnival parade in Los Cancajos.

Labels: Breña Baja, Carnival, Los Cancajos

Bookmark with:

The Sardine's Funerals 2011

Poster for the Sardine's funeral in Puntallana, 2011

Poster for the Sardine's funeral in Puntallana

How many funerals can you hold for a sardine? On La Palma, at least five.

Los Llanos and Santa Cruz have already held theirs, but Puntalllana's is on Friday night at 10 pm, and it's got a 1960s theme.

The most famous sardine's funeral on the island is at Los Sauces. This year it will be on Saturday 19th, with batucada (serious percussion) at 8 pm, drag queens at 8:30 pm and the funeral itself at 9:30 pm.

Los Cancajos will hold a carnival parade along the main street on Friday 18th at 5:30 pm and on Saturday 19th at 6 pm there's a children's fiesta in front of the Centro Comercial Cancajos.

Poster for Carnival in Los Cancajos, 2011

And finally, Barlovento will cremate their sardine on Saturday the 26th.

The Sardine's funeral in Los Sauces

Labels: Barlovento, carnival programme, Los Sauces, puntallana, Sardine's Funeral

Bookmark with:

The Caldera de Taburiente

View inside the Caldera de Taburiente

Most people say La Palma is the most beautiful of the Canary Islands. And practically everybody agrees that the most beautiful part of La Palma is the Caldera de Taburiente.

In 1825, the German geologist Leopold von Buch studied the Caldera de Taburiente and concluded that the crater was formed by the emptying of a magma chamber below. He was sufficiently impressed with it that he gave the name “caldera” to all such formations. (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caldera). Mauna Loa, on Hawaii, has a caldera. Olympus Mons, on Mars, has a caldera.

And the Caldera de Taburiente isn’t a caldera! Von Buch got it wrong. It looks like a caldera, but it was actually formed by erosion.

However I formed, the Caldera is impressive. It’s 5 miles (8 km) across, and most of the rim walls are almost 6,000 ft (1,800 m) above the floor. I’ve heard several people say that it looks bigger than the Grand Canyon, because your brain can just about cope with the size of the Caldera, and it just gives up with the Grand Canyon.

The geology is spectacular, but the most special thing about the Caldera is the water. The Taburiente is the only year-round river in the Canary Islands. True, a lot of water is taken out for irrigation, so that in summer the “estuary” is reduced to an underground trickle. But, except in the driest summers, you can hike all day without a water bottle, just drinking from the streams as you cross them. (But take an empty water bottle unless you’re pretty flexible. It’s a lot easier to fill the bottle and then drink, than to get both hands down to the water.) That means lush vegetation in the lower parts, even willow trees.

Most of the Caldera (18.3 square miles, or 46.9 km2) became a National Park in 1954.

More photos to follow soon.

Labels: Caldera, Canaries, Canary islands, La Palma