January 30, 2017 Santa Cruz de La Palma; 27 rainshowers lasting 2 minutes each

The city was founded by Alonso Fernández de Lugo on May 3, 1493. It was located between a river which is situated by a cave named Tedote (now Cueva de Carías, located north of the city). The city, originally called Villa del Apurón, served as a port that connected routes to the Americas, exporting goods from the island such as sugarcane. The city was sacked by pirates and was later reconstructed and fortified against future pirate attacks. Famous fortifications include the Castillo de Santa Catalina and Castillo de la Virgen. The economic crisis that affected the agriculture sector brought the greatest loss of population in the city's history, which limited its expansion and caused the population to stabilize and drop to 11,000. The population did not approach its original 18,000 again for the next hundred years.

-----Wikipedia

Santa Cruz de la Palma. A city once sacked by pirates is now visited by THE PIRATE

We awoke today (not too early I might add) to the sound of rainfall. And we heard it off and on all day long, usually lasting for just a few minutes, a variable strength. 

Today we tackled laundry, souvenir shopping, museum visits and, of course, Canarian cuisine.

The city has numerous gift shops specializing in Lava creations. Did we indulge? Only about $1000 worth!

Our shopping spree (and believe me we both hate to shop, but got a good head start on Christmas 2018) was accompanied by this young lady playing (very well) a variant on the steel drum.

After quite a few stellar future Christmas gift finds in numerous stores, we headed to lunch.

Once again Arepas ruled the day.

When the economic crisis hit the Canaries in the 1960-1980s, many emigrated to Venezuela and Cuba and hence there are many restaurants with theme food from these locations. Paul has discovered an arepa--corn meal cake stuffed with anything you want-- is a great lunch option.

From here we tried to visit the Museum of Contemporary Art, but found it closed :(

So off we went to Museo Insular. This is described as a museum of La Palma island and is in fact the most bizarre collection of weird stuff on the planet. But it is quite interesting. It has artwork, old wooden tools, a telephone museum, taxidermy of every type, including a birding and shark exhibit, old maps of the last five centuries, and a plethora of deformed stuffed goats. I mean who has that treasure???

The museum is housed in an old convent.

If there were an award for eclectic museum collections, this one would rank high.

Part of the telephone exhibit which extols one man's 1905 dream to add the device to the island. Note the six line switchboard!

A photography display covered 100 years of photos of children ages 1-15 ending in 1972 at a single family studio.

Annually, there is a contest for astrophotography and this one came in 3rd. Frankly one and two didn't measure up. Beautiful stuff.

Lotsa old wooden implements line the museum walls

Dead stuffed animals are a big feature here. Note all the sharks on the right hand wall up high.

Taxidermy of birds from far and wide

Turtle-i- dermy

Hello  I'm stuffed

Paul was scared of this supersized rabbit even though it was dead.

Deformed goats of Palma. The right has one head and two bodies and the left has multiple legs.

No, they aren't doing "the nasty." They are Siamese goat twins.

Taxidermy ala fishies

Hammerhead anyone?

Mez luna. A weird fish.

This room housed the winners of the annual Carmen Arozena contest. Carmen was an artist in the early 20th century who died an "untimely death" and has an annual contest commemorating her memory.

If you ever wondered what Paul would look like in  a convent, wonder no more.

The contest room was pictured above, but this exhibit featured Ms Arozena's work. She was a native of La Palma and passed away "untimely" in 1963

Ms. Arozena's work: La Familia

More Carmen Arozena. This is one of my faves.

We enjoyed this unusual museum of weird thrown together this-and-that from the island of La Palma.

From here, it was naptime and then.... DINNER

La Placeta -- a lovely Canarian restaurant

Jean Tone Ick

We ended the night with a nice walk on the black sand beachfront

Our walk home.

Hello supermoon!

This was  a slower paced but highly enjoyed day. Tomorrow we are up early and off to our next adventure in El Hierro. In the meantime, La Palma has been great to me!

“Don't tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.”
― Anton Chekhov

Paul's Ponderings:   As noted, a slow day on La Palma, which was welcome.   Intermittent rain and sun as weather for our day....

In general, this is a place we'd come back to with no problems.   That said we'd likely stay in Los Lllanos on the more dry side of the island   Santa Cruz is more of an old school European town being the oldest port on the island (which means Columbus era, etc) and it's quite charming.   In the winter, it appears to be more cool and rainy than the western side though.

Overall, a great trip to La Palma.   Bueno!

Tomorrow it's off to El HIerro, the smallest and most western island....stay tuned...

January 28 and 29, 2018: Los Llanos to Santa Cruz de la Palma....and back to Los Llanos!

Like all of the Canary Islands, La Palma originally formed as a seamount through submarine volcanic activity. La Palma is currently, along with Tenerife, the most volcanically active of the Canary Islands and was formed three to four million years ago. Its base lies almost 4,000 m (13,123 ft) below sea level and reaches a height of 2,426 m (7,959 ft) above sea level. About a half a million years ago, the Taburiente volcano collapsed with a giant landslide, forming the Caldera de Taburiente. Erosion has since exposed part of the seamount in the northern sector of the Caldera. Since the Spanish occupation, there have been seven eruptions – all of which have occurred on the Cumbre Vieja:

• 1470–1492 Montaña Quemada
• 1585 Tajuya near El Paso
• 1646 Volcán San Martin
• 1677 Volcán San Antonio
• 1712 El Charco
• 1949 Volcán Nambroque at the Duraznero, Hoyo Negro and Llano del Banco vents
• 1971 Volcán Teneguía

-------WIKIPEDIA

Yesterday, we said a sad goodbye to not only the beautiful Caldera de Taburiente---the volcanic floor of the island--- but to the lovely friends we met on this trip. Then, without missing a beat, off we were, Santa Cruz de La Palma bound

Somewhere about 7 breakfasts in at our modest hotel in Los Llanos, Paul called foul and insisted that we look around our base camp of Los Llanos, the actual largest city on La Palma, for a "proper breakfast." It wasn't that big a challenge!  Across the street from the Archeological Museum of La Palma was a hotel cafe. Fit the bill!

Yogurt, muesli and fruit salad with a bonus soft boiled egg

They fresh squeezed his OJ right in front of the man's face. This is one happy camper.

Shortly thereafter, our tour ended  and we bid a fond farewell to our new Brit friends, our prior Spanish and Dutch guide friends, and our friends from K town.  They were off to respective flights and Paul and I ....well, we stayed behind. Poor us, huh?

Paul booked us a very nice apartment near the top of a main business street in Santa Cruz de la Palma, but still close enough to the historic downtown to enjoy it. It was economical as well. Cheaper than a hotel!

the living room

Our kitchen

the boudoir

Sitting area of the boudoir.

The apartment is on the 4th floor, very spacious (there are 2 twin bedrooms also and 2 baths) and located near conveniences and has a washer. No dryer, but they do have a drying rack.  No climate control and it gets chilly at night but that's when you snuggle your honey! This place is awesome!  We spent the afternoon washing the toxic waste deposit that many people refer to as their laundry. After hiking around for a week, we had stuff that made a superfund site seem tame.

Graffiti on a downtown wall

After "chores" and unpacking, we went to the Parador here on La Palma.  The series of hotels run by the Spanish government and called Paradores are a unique and wonderful assortment of accommodations with restaurants.  Most of them are historic buildings such a forts, convents, and other government run establishments of the past. The one here in La Palma is an exception. The building was built just a couple of years ago. But it has a historic feel, I reckon.

A flight crew, lots of fancy people and is that Camilla Parker Bowles joining us for dinner at the Parador?

Of course, Mr Parris felt that a celebratory "Jean Toe Nick" was in order for the completion of our 50+ mile hiking adventure. Who am I to argue with the hubs??

It was a great meal in a nice location. And we were home in our comfy apartment to sleep, snore, whatever.  Until the AM. At which time we decided we really wanted to go back to Los Llanos and experience not just the outdoorsy stuff, but CULTURE! Yes, we wanted to see the Archeology Museum which chronicled the native people who not surprisingly were knocked off for the most part by Spaniards, by hook or crook.

the quaint streets of Los Llanos with cloud cover. Colorful houses

Door knocker

And another

Mosaic fountain. Painted barrel at coffee house

Women's clothing store

We took a nice stroll around town first and then...lunch happened. Lunch preference for Paul Parris---PIZZA!

Yummy salad

Pizza with rucoala, rocket and tomatoes

Then we were off to the museum which is really world class and spends much effort to introduce you to the local native groups existing PRIOR to the Spanish and their lives..

Small island, beautiful world class museum. Probably a good use of EU funding

There were numerous North African Berbers here when the Spanish arrived who all seemed to have their own fifedoms in different parts of the island. They were agricultural but only in a minor way and predominantly farmed goats. They did use local ocean bounty as well when goat meat and such was scarce. Goat milk was the predominant sustenance for much of the year.  The moved about as goat herding required. There were any number of volcanic activities that affected them as well.  No one knows how they got here and they did NOT have a boating culture OR move between islands for trade etc. Their origins are mysterious and since they are essentially extinct, ain't no asking grandpa.

examples of dwellings made of stone. also they used caves very often for both living space and sheep/goat pens.

This skeleton is approx 4.5 ft tall. They mummified some corpses. They buried in caves facing north and used vegetation or rock ledges to keep the body from touching the ground.

Nicely designed museum. 

The museum also had an exhibit about Canarian cheeses which are tasty indeed! These are mold covers that imprint a pattern from all over the island. Reminds me of grandma Lunsford's butter molds!

There was a small exhibit on hieroglyphs as well featuring photography.

A totally awesome and free museum of Canarian art. We found it totally by accident.

We also happened upon a lovely museum that might have been right up there with the museum of archeology as far as pleasure and it featured with local artists or Spanish artists concentrating on Canarian themes. 

This artist who uses volcanic ash over photographs in his art also made this lovely photographic print of Iceland. He specializes in landscapes of Lanzarote in earth tones.

The sculpture garden was a lot of fun

A stylized exhibit of painting of the wives of Henry XIII. Only there were 10!

Paul thought this one had a helmet

i kinda like it here

Sky in the sculpture garden

landscapes of Lanzarote. Volcanic ash over photos. This museum did a lovely job of displaying each work for maximum effect.

We had a great day in Los Llanos WITHOUT hiking and enjoyed the cultural aspects. I  think Paul is sold on this town.. there may have been gelato involved in his conversion.

Then it was back to the bus and back to Santa Cruz de la Palma. It rained pretty hard this evening, but after a pizza lunch, we were still able to float down to the waterfront for....what else? Pasta!

Spaghetti carbonara. Yum

What's not to like?

Here's toasting a great day on La Palma

Culture is the widening of the mind and of the spirit. 

                                                                         ---Jawaharlal Nehru

Well , we can't be cultured about EVERYTHING, can we?

Paul's Ponderings:  This blog covers a couple of days....mostly around Los Llanos.   Our "formal" hiking ended, but we still seem to be getting plenty of walking in.  

We said goodbye to our hiking group and our guide Bert whom we've hiked with many times now and our "bonus" guide Maxi who we saw in La Gomera about a year ago.   Great guys to hike with and hang around with as well.   

On Monday we went back to Los Llanos to check out some stuff we had no time for over the past week....a great day out weather-wise.   In general, Los Llanos appears to be on the dry side of the island and Santa Cruz on the more wet side.   This is winter here, so the temperatures are as low as mid-50s, but warmer during the day.   It did drizzle heavily here in Santa Cruz late today.  

The nice thing about La Palma in general is that it has TWO larger towns.   As opposed to La Gomera that is.   Soon we will see El Hierro (iron) and it is the most rural island, so it will be interesting to see how it compares to La Gomera in particular, which is reasonably rural.   

One last thought is that these islands are very friendly and not overly tourist-centric where we have been most recently.   Couple that with the terrain and hiking, plus great local food/wine, and it's a recipe for a great time.