A bit late, but here’s a video of my favourite thing from Los Llanos day carnival on Saturday. Carnival is like a giant street theatre: almost everybody joins in, demonstrating their creativity for everybody who cares to see. So here’s the Canarian Unsynchronised Swimming team with their mobile pool. The other thing I like about the video is the music. That’s my husband playing the drums in the band, and…
Saturday is the famous Transvulcania. Crazy people will be running an ultramarathon around La Palma. The main race starts at 6 am down at the lighthouse at the southern tip of the island. The runners will race up the central spine of the island to the picnic site at El Pilar, then Punta de Los Roques. The race continues anticlockwise around the Caldera rim, climbing up to the observatory at…
It’s Holy Week, and in this Catholic country, a lot of people take it very seriously. The bigger churches hold processions, which look very exotic to my English eyes. Do try to see at least one. It’s not so much that they take the obviously-heavy statues along the street – most churches do that on the respective saint’s days. It’s the costumes. They remind me of the Klu Klux…
Santa Cruz de La Palma‘s programme is here. (The actual programme starts on page 7) Los Llanos‘s programme is here The programme for Los Sauces is here I’ve just found out that some places (El Paso, Garafía, Tijarafe, Fuencaliente and Puntallana) held their carnival early, presumably so as not to compete with the bigger places. Barlovento‘s is here. Breña Alta had their parade yesterday Breña Baja will have parrandas in…
This is the Barranco de las Angustias the Ravine of Anguish. The name comes from the conquest of the island, back at the end of the fifteenth century. Most of the tribes on the island took one look at the heavily-armed Spanish, and gave up without a fight. Four tribes fought briefly, but soon surrendered. After all, the original inhabitants, the Benhoaristas, had only stick and stones to fight against…
It’s World Book Day, the anniversary of Shakespeare’s birth and Cervantes’s death. And as usual, La Palma is celebrating. There will be kiosks selling books all along the Calle Real in Santa Cruz (the main street, parallel to the sea front). I’m happy to say that a couple of them have my own book. The Cabildo (island government) will be leaving books scattered over the island for anyone to pick…