The Canaries are not very different from the UK, today was a bank holiday (Three Kings Day) and it pissed with rain. This put the damper on a few outdoor events so it felt like a summer weekend at home. There is a bridge near our village which crosses what is normally a dried up river bed, it is very wide and you can’t believe it could ever fill up. Today, after a nights rain, it was a raging torrent, it is clearly an unusual event as lots of locals were there taking pictures.
The banner above shows the point at which the river hits the sea, instead of a nice blue/green colour the bay is now brown, it looks like frothy coffee although I would not like to drink it.
We have now booked ourselves on the next Easyjet flight to Manchester, it is on 1st February and cost the princely sum of £15 each. Fortunately it is before the new Easyjet "screw the customers" policy of forcing you to put your bags in the hold comes into effect otherwise the cost would have been more than double. We are not certain if we will come home then or of course travel restrictions might cancel the flight but it gives us something to aim for.
Yesterday we had a very pleasant walk around a deep barranco or gorge. It is in an isolated part of the island and seems to be home for an “alternative” community of cave dwellers. The paths into the gorge were narrow and steep yet there were quite a few cave based homes built into the hillside or perched on top. A few had fruit or trinkets for sale, almost all had a very small veggie patch. Most looked very scruffy but a few were smart. Although the path was uneven and narrow there were a number of Telefonica manholes in it so we assume these dwellings have broadband.
Gill and I could not get our heads round wanting to live there, all the disadvantages of being remote but hardly any space to call your own.
The picture is of a Canarian Kestrel who stayed still long enough for us to take 20 photographs of him before flying off. One of Gills was in focus so we thought we should post it on the blog.
Yesterdays walk featured lots more Dragon Trees, see picture below, which are native to the Canary islands.
The tree got its name from one of Hercules’ adventures. As the tale goes, Hercules was tasked with bringing back three golden apples from the garden of the Hesperides, guarded by a 100-headed dragon. To get the apples, Hercules killed the dragon, spilling the creature’s blood all over the land and everywhere the dragon’s blood touched the soil, a “dragon tree” was said to sprout. I am not sure that Hercules came to the Canaries but it is a good story.
Their resin is red and known as Dragons Blood, it is used as a wood dye, violins are coloured with it.