Life is what happens…

  ..after you made other plans. Here’s what was supposed to happen today: I had a group of students to show around two telescopes. Since they were going up in a bus from Los Cancajos and the weather forecast was poor, I arranged to drive to Los Cancajos, leave my car there, and go up with them in the bus. This would avoid the usual confusion created by bad weather…

March 20, 2015
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A Grotto in Breña Alta

La Palma has a network of marked hiking trails. The LP 19, in Breña Alta runs up from San Pedro, past a series of springs, into the lower end of San Isidro, and back down to the main road. Like most of these paths, the scenery is beautiful and keeps changing. And this path included bonuses. Several of the springs feed laundry bowls. Since it’s easier to carry clothes than…

August 20, 2014
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Cubo de la Galga

Cubo de La Galga, Puntallana
May 28, 2013

Cubo de la Galga is a very pretty walk along the bottom of the Galga ravine, between Puntallana and Los Sauces. By Palmeran standards, it’s an easy walk. There is now a car park at the beginning of the walk, on the road at km 16. You’re unlikely to get lost for the first kilometre or so, because the path’s actually asphalted, never mind signposted. It’s a matter of taste,…

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Los Tilos Forest

One of my favourite bits of tourist feedback about La Palma island was the disgruntled Brit who described Los Tilos as: “Just a load of trees.” Well yes. And Beethoven’s Ninth is just a load of notes, and the Mona Lisa is just a load of paint. Los Tilos, in San Andres and Los Sauces, is home to one of the best surviving laurel forests in the world. The other…

August 20, 2012
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Footpaths on La Palma

La Palma has a network of well-marked footpaths, most of which are centuries old.  As late as the 1960s, walking was still a major form of transport for the islanders, The whole network of hiking trails on the island comes to over 1,000 km, and between them they pass through just about every kind of scenery on the island: lava fields, pine forests, lush laurel forests, farmland and village centres….

November 20, 2011
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The Caldera de Taburiente

The heart of La Palma is the Caldera de Taburiente. Caldera is a technical geological term for the crater at the top of a volcano. In fact the term comes from La Palma: all the volcanic calderas in the world were named after ours. So it’s really a pity that, since then, the scientists have found out that the Caldera de Taburiete isn’t a caldera. It was actually formed by…

February 14, 2011
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