The north of La Palma is one of the best places to see dragon trees. These exotic-looking plants grow throughout the Canary Islands, and also in Cape Verde, the Azores, Maderia, and western Morocco, but on La Palma, 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…
Fufo Horses in Tazacorte tonight
Tonight night at 9 pm the Fufo Horses will dance in Tazacorte, followed (of course) by a public dance. The fiesta carries on for another week. You can see the full programme (in Spanish) here.
Starmus
Have you heard of Starmus – it’s a big festival of astronomy art and music on Tenerife. I’d have loved to go, particularly for Stephen Hawkings talk on The Origin of the Universe, but it’s 300€ per day. So near and yet so far.
The sun at different wavelenths
Light is made of electromagnetic waves, and our eyes see different wavelengths as different colours. But our eyes can’t see most wavelengths at all, which is a pity – think how different the human body looks when you see it in x-rays. This is the sun at 13 different wavelengths.
Canary Pine Trees
Today I visited Cumbrecita, and I fell in love with Canary pine trees all over again. So many of them look as though they’ve been carefully trained into artistic shapes, like gigantic bonsai trees. So here are a few of my favourites.
Los Sauces Bridge
The big bridge at Los Sauces The new bridge over the barranco at Los Sauces is huge. It’s 319 metres long and towers 150 metres above the valley floor. It opened in December 2004. To begin with, it was rather controversial because it crosses the same valley as the Los Tilos National Park. But you can’t see the bridge from the park, and it’s really rather elegant for something so…