There’s a new musical project in Santa Cruz de la Palma with backing from local government. On Saturdays, Sundays, and Public holidays, there’s often free live music somewhere. So far six groups have joined the scheme, and almost every day, more businesses sign up. This is a Cuban-style group called Chango, playing at the Kiosko de Eliseo halfway up the Avenida del Puente. They played from noon until about half-past…
The viewpoint (or mirador) at El Time is perched on the northern edge of the Angustias ravine. Coming from Los Llanos, you drive down and down and down, round some pretty steep bends. After you cross the river, almost at sea-level, you drive up and up and up and up and up, until you’re seventeen hundred feet up (535 m). There’s a small car park on each side of the…
The Church of Our Lady’s Anguish lies near the bottom of Las Angustias Ravine, where the river Taburiente runs out of the Caldera. (Well, they take a lot of the water for irrigation, so in the middle of summer it trickles. That still makes it the only year-round river in the Canaries). To find it, take the road from Los Llanos to Tijarafe. Just north of the bridge over the…
This is a gecko (Tarentola delalandii). They like to live in warm buildings or on sunny walls outside, and this one lives in my house. I think he must have got too close to one of my cats because his tail’s regrowing. You see, if they’re in serious danger of being eaten, their tails come off and provide a wriggling decoy while the gecko runs away. He spent most of…
My brother-in-law’s new bodega is finally ready. Since it was another brother-in-law’s birthday, and the day after Canary Day, it was a great time to baptise the place. We stuffed ourselves with salted fish and sweet potatoes. I learned how to make kneaded gofio, which I still think is pretty uninspiring food. Then there were two cakes and some biscuits. And of course plenty of beer and wine. And then…
Galaxy M51 taken with the Isaac Newton Telescope and Wide Field Camera by Simon Driver. There’s a really simple reason why the Royal Greenwich Observatory moved their telescopes here. It’s one of the three best places in the world for astronomy. The observatory was founded in 1675 by Charles II of England – hence the “royal” for £520 (£20 over budget!). It was the first purpose-built scientific research facility…