Exotic-looking dragon trees grow throughout the Canary Islands, and also in Cape Verde, the Azores, Maderia, and western Morocco, but the north of La Palma is one of the few places where they’re still reproducing naturally. The Canary Islands used to have a large, flightless bird, something like a Dodo. This bird ate dragon tree fruits, so the seeds evolved to have a hard protective covering to survive the bird’s…
My talented friend Merche Martin Morillo painted this lovely illustration for my story, “The Dodo Dragon.” Isn’t it great? It’s going to be the basis for the front cover of my forthcoming ebook, “The Dodo Dragon and other stories,” and another talented friend, Helen Bennet of http://eco-geek.net, is going to do the layout. We hope to have the book out in time for Christmas. I’m really looking forward to this.
There’s an unusual exhibition on in Santa Cruz de la Palma. Instead of one or two artists selling their work, it’s a collection of artists publicising the 15M movement, which is approximately the Spanish equivalent of Occupy Wall Street. The website of 15M is http://democraciarealyalapalma.blogspot.com/
I finally got to eat English breakfast for dinner on Monday night. After the painful chocolate biscuits I didn’t dare have a big helping, but I had a little of everything – an inch of sausage, half a rasher of bacon, half an egg, half a tomato, two mushrooms and a spoonful of beans. And then I filled up on pasta. It was lovely! And it didn’t make me ill.
Every year La Palma’s big car rally goes past my front door. I usually find the first few cars exciting, the next few interesting, and the last fifty or so very noisy. But then usually, they’re racing from about 11 am to 5pm. This year, they were going to be snarling and roaring past my house until midnight on Friday, and again for most of Saturday. I really wasn’t looking…
If you want to get really close to nature and have really cheap accommodation, you can’t do better than one of the camping sites on the island. They’re open all year round, but be aware that it can be cold in winter, and it’s quite likely to rain. You have to pay before you put the tent up, but you don’t have to book in advance except for the Caldera….