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The landslip is below the yellow balcony

Wednesday 4th

We have not updated the blog for a couple of days as we have not done much. The weather was a bit iffy on Monday and Tuesday so we pottered around Santa Cruz, a town we like despite the cruise passengers comment that “there is not much there”.
La Palma is famous for being the steepest island in the world, almost all houses are built onto the side of the mountain and Santa Cruz is no exception, our street, being next to the shore is level but the road behind is 60ft above us and its houses look down on our roof. There was great excitement on Tuesday morning, a number of policemen were in the street outside our house looking up at the hill, at first we could not see what they were looking at but then realised where the previous day there were weeds was now bare and a great deal of earth had crashed down during the night. A nice balcony in the flats above no longer had any foundations and had some significant cracks in the concrete. Thirty minutes later an ambulance turned up and the paramedics went into a guest house which is below the land slide. There were there for 40 minutes and with the help of some fireman brought out a man on a stretcher wearing a neck brace. We have no idea if the landslide and the injury were related, perhaps the victim was peering out of his window in the same way as us to see what all the commotion was about and slipped and fell.
We have now spent our allotted three weeks in Santa Cruz, La Palma and are packing up ready to fly over to El Hierro. We have been to La Palma twice before and like the island as well as the main town a great deal. It has a nice atmosphere, it is a working town with people doing real jobs, not fleecing tourists.

Our home for the past three weeks

There are two tourist resorts elsewhere on the island aimed at package tourists each with a big hotel and a number of holiday complexes, they serve a useful purpose – you can buy decaf teabags in their shops, something that is unavailable elsewhere. We had a meal in a cafe in one of the resorts, it was really good. Beefburgers, hot dogs, chicken nuggets and all the other crap we associated with the British seaside were not on the menu, just basic, good quality Spanish food, the same as everywhere else on the island.

There are two shortcomings with Santa Cruz town – Parking and Inside tables.

Parking – Most parking is free, you are reluctant to use your car as when you return the space you were in will be gone, in fact as another car driver sees your reversing lights come on they will dash over ready to snatch your spot. The traffic police seem quite sharp on illegal parking such as in a disabled bay or somewhere designated for motorbikes. We have discovered it is best to time our days out such that we arrive back at around 3.30, that seems to be when there is most chance of getting a parking space within sensible walking distance of where we are staying.

Gill seems happy

Inside Tables – I mentioned that the weather has been a bit inclement, on Monday and Tuesday evenings it was very wet, the snag is that most restaurants only have a few inside tables, the restaurant we ate in on New Years Eve has many of it's tables in a courtyard which is open to the sky (or rain), fortunately it was a dry evening. When it rains the number of places to eat is cut by 70%. Monday night found us queueing outside a Mexican restaurant at 8pm when it opened as it has plenty of inside tables, by 8.30 it was full. Neither of us know much about Mexican food but it was good to eat anything in the dry (it was very good).
Today the sun is out again and the forecast for the rest of the holiday is sunshine. We had a nice swim in some rock pools which have been made into swimming pools by adding steps and rails. This was followed by an excellent lunch which we felt we deserved after a mornings swimming. Tonight we are in our favourite restaurant before heading off to the airport tomorrow and into the unknown – El Hierro, an island we have not visited before. Stand by for boring facts about a very small island. As you can see in the picture Gill is preparing herself in case we find anywhere posh to visit, she might be disappointed.