It’s El Paso’s main fiesta, The Sacred Heart (El Corazon Sagrado). Like Mazo and San José, they make archways and carpets, but they’re slightly different. In San José, they dye the salt, and then put the colours together to make the picture. In El Paso, they start by putting down white salt –kilos and kilos of it from the salt pans in the southern tip of the island. They carefully…
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La Palma is home to one of the three most important astronomical observatories in the world. (The other two are Hawaii and the Atacama desert in Chile.) The observatory sits at the top of the island, at the Roque de los Muchachos. It’s a fascinating place to visit, but it’s not normally open to tourists – they’re too busy doing science. However, you can sign up for a 90 minutes…
The village of San José celebrates Corpus Christi on the Sunday after Mazo. Traditionally, the carpets are made out of dyed sea-salt, although lately some groups use petals, leaves and seeds as the do in Mazo. This was my favourite carpet, although it’s hard to chose.
Today is the summer solstice – the longest day of the year. Several archeological sites on La Palma mark the solstice. El Verde, near El Paso cemetery, is a natural bowl where a natural notch in the rock sends a spotlight onto a carving at midsummer sunset. This was probably a sacred moment for the Awara. If you’d like to see it, get to the car park at El Paso…
I didn’t feel like getting up early this morning, but I had two groups of tourists at the Roque, so needs must. And the drive up was all sparkly with dew and early sunlight. I finished work at 1 pm, and went up to the viewpoint right at the top in hopes of meeting my friend Carmelo, the raven for a chat. He wasn’t there, but another raven was (I…