Tenerife

Uneventful flight to this centre of sin, sex, sangria and sun – and that’s just for the Saga visitors. The most exciting part was the view of the islands from the sky and the towering height of El Teide, Tenerife’s highest volcano, as the plane skirted the north western seaboard in its approach to the southern airport. Safely disembarked we couldn’t find the car hire office. Turned out that the name at the top of my sheet was the name of the Internet booking service, which is quite different to the name of the car hire company. ‘Thank heaven for mobiles’, I thought having scoured the arrivals hall for this non-existent company. But then the woman who answered spoke a different version of English to my own – entirely. She kept saying ‘Gocad’ which meant nothing to me. In the end we found the Gold Card office more or less by accident. They had run out of the most basic cars so we were given the choice between a slightly bigger car and a Citroen Berlingo white van, and for some maniacal reason we chose the white van. Seemed fun at the time but we really missed central locking and aircon and things that modern cars have and vans don’t. The only advantage that I can recall is that we could park in short term unloading bays in the centre of busy towns.

We found the Aguamarina Apartments with the help of a taxi driver. I think he helped us because we had a white van. The complex was huge and our rooms were enormous, really enormous. We tracked each other down in the suite by using a form of sonar. Margaret would shout, ‘where are you now Rob’ and I would shout back ‘here’ then we’d meet, as if by chance, in some forgotten corner of the lounge cum kitchen cum bar, or at the swimming pool end of our airstrip style balcony. It was big. We had queen sized ‘single’ beds arranged next to each other. The chance of accidental contact was minimal. Outside there was a wigwam for the kids. Really there was. A bloody great wigwam sufficient in size for most of the remaining native Indians in America to meet for a pow-wow. The sound ‘wow’ reminds me of the buses. The public buses in the Canaries are called GuaGuas, which is pronounced WaWa. Strange isn’t it?

I’m not sure how many pools there were in the entire complex. I swam in the one nearest to our flat just once. The pools were mostly unused but there was one other person in mine that day. He was a dry-witted Scotsman. As I jumped in and swam by him he quipped, ‘Well that’s it for me. This pool is getting too damn crowded.’

Our area was called the Golf de Sur and it was filled with complexes like the Aguamarina, some still being built, together with estates of luxurious homes. These were interspersed with waste ground which gave me my first view of the volcanic wilderness we now called home. It was depressingly dark, mostly black. Little of interest grew in the sharp basaltic lava and ash and so there was nothing of the forgiving vegetation cover that we call weeds to disguise the rubbish left by the builders.

We took our first beer on the first night besides a bowling green! The green was as artificial as the English bowling set in their baggy shorts, accompanied by their ample ball bags. They brayed a lot and fawned on the barman/club secretary chappie. The beer was expectedly awful so we left, found a restaurant that supplied a whole litre of a wonderfully smooth red wine in carafe for a reasonable price and ate funny potatoes. They looked as if they had been microwaved with their skins on, and were rather salty. We later found that these were a Canarian speciality and grew to like them a lot. Got a little tight that first night!

Next morning, after a run around my salubrious area, I found that Margaret had a man in the room. Maybe he had been there all night, lost in the spaciousness such that I had not noticed him. He was roundly portly and, as he answered the door to me, spoke with a Midlands accent. I was non-plussed, then embarrassed. Our room was number 20. As I came up the stairs I saw the number 18 on a door, turned right and, as I did not have a key with me, rang the bell so that Margaret could let me in. Of course, I should have turned left. The gentleman actually belonged to room 16 and he had not spent the night in our room at all. But he could have, we would not have noticed him in all that space.

The first day saw us roaring off in the Berlingo (rather sporty name for a van) in the direction of Teno. I had read about this area in my Canary Island geology book, a book that turned out to be a little beyond my minimal knowledge of rocks and their formation but did have some good suggestions for geologically based drives around Tenerife. Interestingly the author reckons that the rocks are best seen from the cutting made to construct the roads, simply because you can then see the layering. But before studying rocks we had to visit a beach in order to see the sun, sex and sangria thing in action. We called at Los Cristianos.

The weather was not particularly good so the lack of sun meant that the beach was mostly unused. Legions of sunbeds lay in perfect formation waiting for certain North Europeans to claim the best ones – but there were no takers, perhaps they were all at the poolside or, more likely, still asleep in their rooms. I found a street side restaurant offering full English breakfast for just three Euros! How could we resist. I tried ordering our requirements in my middling Spanish and was rewarded resentment. We had somehow found a waiter who became arsey about my valiant attempt at his language. He began, reeling off questions in Spanish that I could not understand and refusing to speak English, which he could in fact do perfectly well – much better that I spoke his language. I had been hoist by my own petard (I think). Humbled and punished for trying to speak Spanish to an arsey waiter we waited some time for our food. On the next table were three fat, middle-aged Brits drinking pints of lager at eleven o’clock in the morning. Puffing on fags and pulling on their earrings from time to time, they seemed quite incapable of saying a word to each other during the entire time that we were there. Yet as I looked around I found that we were the minority here, not them. I was drinking decaff coffee and Margaret caff coffee. Most other people were on the lager. Down the road was a shop selling cigarettes. It was called Paradise Tobacco (which reminded me of Oxford), and on an awning a sign announced: BLOODY HELL PRICES ON CIGARETTES. The English have arrived in Cristianos, I thought – though in fairness most of the people we met on the island were German. What is BLOODY HELL in German anyway?

 Most people that I saw in Los Cristianos were mature. Perhaps the youthful excesses took place elsewhere, Playa de las Americas perhaps. Anyway, we had seen enough. Replete with our three euro English breakfast we set out towards Teno, noting resentfully that the restaurant around the corner offered the great English fast breaker at just 2.95 Euros! We had not only been maltreated, we had been done.

We had cruised up the autopista (motorway) to Los Cristianos. As we went north west towards Teno the roads began to become more challenging. We stopped off at Las Gigantes, a recently developed resort that faces the eponymous great cliffs looming some half kilometre above it. We had some difficulty parking in the harbour and I found myself musing upon our willingness to accept rules (by this I mean the English). The Spanish will park almost anywhere and do not seem to believe that rules apply to them at all. We, generally go to the opposite extreme, sometimes inventing new rules of our own. I found the perfect spot for the Berlingo but no, ‘You can’t park there, it’s beneath a fire extinguisher,’ said my partner and personal police officer – Margaret. I travelled on around the walls of the harbour passing a number of fire extinguishers with cars parked happily beneath them. We stopped at last. Gazed at the surprisingly clear water, and at a large crab on a rock which was the nearest thing we saw to a parking attendant during our entire week on Tenerife.

We travelled up a barranco towards a place called Santiago del Teide. A barranco is effectively a valley, but whereas we are used to valleys that are formed by erosion, usually by the flow of a river, those in Tenerife were formed in the opposite way. These volcanic barrancos are where the lava did not flow. In fact there is only one barranco that occasionally has water flowing through it in Southern Tenerife. This is the Barranco de Infierno which sounds pretty scary but is one of the few green valleys of the south. Up and up and up we went, stopping where we could to look back over the dry land below and the sea now glinting in sunshine. At Santiago we missed the turning to Masca that my geology book recommended. Later I discovered that it is only marked from the north and we were coming from the south. There’s a lot of this sort of thing on Tenerife. Perhaps you are only supposed to drive around the island anticlockwise? Soon we were rising even more sharply and dealing with minor hairpins which the Berlingo sailed through: then we entered cloud and it got so cold that we had to turn on the heater. Outside the country had changed entirely, there were trees and greenery everywhere on the mountainside. Tenerife is like that. You seem to rise from moon-like desert to lush, pine and laurel covered mountains in the time that it takes to ascend an elevator.

I didn’t much like travelling in a saturated fog, but the summit was not too far away. We started dropping towards El Tanque, the cloud cleared and we were amongst sub-tropical vegetation. Soon after El Tanque (which means The Tank) we turned left toward Garachico, well down below us on the coast. Soon we came to El Tanque, yes the tank was back. It was all quite strange. I can only surmise the tank straddled down the mountainside so you hit it twice, once in the gun carrying bit then again in the tracked wheels. The descent to Garachico was perilous. Imagine a rally driver controlling a Berlingo van. Loop after loop, hairpin after hairpin and all the time a heart stopping drop below us. A lot of second gear work, I can tell you. Then we finally got to Garachico, noting the odd statue of a man carrying multiple suitcases placed at the last bend before you see the full glory of the village.

We loved the place. It is the antithesis of sun, sex and all that. Even the beach is non-existent. It once had a thriving harbour, but that was engulfed in lava belched by a volcano that erupted in 1706! The only thing that survived down at the harbour was the little castle, now a museum which was always closed, or about to close, when we visited. The lava streams parted just before the castle then poured hissing into the cold sea. Now the weird rocks left by that 300 year old eruption have been turned into a strange series of natural swimming pools, some fed regularly by the waves, others refreshed just occasionally and then left in peace. There are fish to see and bridges to cross – and the whole thing is both natural and unnatural, black craggy rock against the smooth blue of the sea and fresh whiteness of the breakers. Garachico, the seaside village, has interesting houses, bars and shops. We left it with regret, but had to make our return to that vast apartment in Golf del Sur. Our suitcases were there and we had paid the grand sum of £20 for the second night’s stay.

We travelled back into the area of Teno heading for Buenavista. It was not a place of any great interest and belied its name (which means beautiful view). So we continued, up and up into the area of Teno, one of the oldest in Tenerife. Tenerife is young in geological terms. Like all of the islands of the Canaries it is a blob of rock supported on a ‘sea mount’ all of which was created from lava spewing from a rent in the earth’s surface. El Teide, the islands highest volcano is about 4 kilometres above sea level and stands on sea mount of rock which extends three and half kilometres to the sea bed. It is the highest point in all of Spain and the highest volcano in Europe. But it is a stripling in comparison with the volcanoes that formed Teno, hence this area is much more eroded and much greener. Nature has almost completed its healing evolution here and the area is very beautiful. I could not describe all that I saw on that, our very first full day on Tenerife. Sufficient to say that the area around Masca was the most impressive. This attractive small town lies deep within a crater which has complex origins in terms of volcanic build and later collapse. It is very green, very steep, and very hard to get to and to leave. Yet the Berlingo made it. All the way down from an excellent viewing point (called appropriately a mirador in Spanish) to the car park in the town itself there are gigantic rock formations and ridges to gasp at. And there are always people. At the car park a young man was trying to get a lift. No one stopped so he took out his guitar and sang for a while. I liked his singing and admired his gall. I asked him where he wanted to go. We were not going to his village, but we could drop him off at Santiago de Teide – he jumped at the offer. So off we went with Tim and his guitar in the back seat of the Berlingo. I knew a van would be useful.

But in a way I wished he hadn’t been there. The road up from Masca is grade ten compared with anything I met anywhere else in Tenerife This was first gear stuff and a real concern that you could round some hairpins in one. And so narrow. At one time I met a campervan (in Tenerife! They get everywhere, don’t they?). I reversed tightly towards the wall, too tightly I thought – and there was another car behind me that also had to back up. Still the campervan driver could not get by. Then I noticed why. There was a post on his side of the rocky wall carrying a notice of some sort. The post had a diameter of perhaps four inches – he needed that extra space to squeeze by! So I had to back up even more and so did the person behind me. Phew.

Tim was an Israeli. He had worked in England as a con man! He sold oil paintings from door to door pretending that he was the poor artist. In fact the paintings were all turned out by very poor artists in China. After a few months he could not stand the deception anymore and confessed to potential doorstep buyers rather than telling lies. He found that he sold just as many paintings that way! Tim was an escapee from Israel. In his early twenties, long haired and lightly bearded he looked for all the world like a modern day hippy. Rather than serve in the military he had left Israel, his family and friends, travelling to Germany and then England, ‘I did not want to kill people’ he said tragically. Virtually penniless he did what he could to raise a penny – busking was his banker. He lived in a village way up in the mountains with a friend that he had met somewhere along the way. He wasn’t a tourist, ‘I live and work here’ he said proudly. He thought south Tenerife was a dump, ‘full of tourists, you will not like it’. We were quite proud to be excluded from the tourist category, but then what were we? Tim invited us to ‘call in for a cup of tea’ in his village, explaining that he lived opposite the fire station. We never did, but it was a nice thought.

Had great difficulty finding our luxury apartment again, then went in search of a restaurant. Plagued by sweepers who tried to force us into their particular establishment, we were enticed into a Steak House by its vegetarian menu(!) and the promise of live music. It was not a good experience, though the handsome group of close harmony singers were good (I couldn’t see them but I gather they were handsome). Things were not as they seemed on the menu. The food was cheap, but everything except the plate seemed to be an extra. Then there were extra extras added to the bill. Margaret, who usually does not like a ‘fuss’ was quite fussy and marched out of the place in high disdain.

Zoomed along the autopista which links the dryness of the south to the dampness of the north. Overshot and ended up in Santa Cruz, the capital of the island. Even overshot Santa Cruz in our impatience to leave the south behind us and had to backtrack through the city (which looked interesting – plenty of old colonial buildings) in order to find the road to La Laguna. What a lovely name, and according to our small, ancient guide book, the original capital for the Spanish colonists. It was a dump. Modern, traffic- choked and grimy. The sight of a multi-storey building which had, it seemed, been wallpapered – and was now peeling, decided the issue. We returned to the Autopista de Norte, which runs from Santa Cruz to Puerto de la Cruz and beyond. We were looking for somewhere traditional to stay, somewhere Spanish, somewhere with older buildings and fewer tourists.

We came off the motorway and made our way up into the hills to the town of La Orotravo. On the way we had a shock – we saw El Teide, the central volcano, dominating the horizon with its snow encrusted cone. It was, believe me, quite thrilling. La Orotrava was a dump. Noisy and smelling of exhaust fumes, traffic thundered along its inadequate and steep streets going who knows where with a determination that left me puzzled. I managed to stop and park (no mean feat) and we wandered about a bit, convinced that there was more to La Orotrava than this. I asked a couple of people where the ‘ciudad vieja’ was (the old city) and struck lucky. Not far from where we had parked there was a different world. A world of cobbled streets, balconied buildings and tree lined squares. This was just the job. This was what we were looking for. There was just one problem – so were other people, and they did not want to walk. Processions of large four by four vehicles full of tourists whizzed through the narrow streets, the driver/guides steering one handedly and pointing to the buildings of interest that slipped swiftly by. The noise of tyres on cobbles was quite deafening and almost constant as the locals used these lovely roads too – pedestrianisation had not hit La Orotrava unfortunately. So we decided not to stay. We visited the lovely Casa de Balcones, had lunch in a traditional restaurant/bar where the local businessman drank and smoked, then set off back to the Berlingo. I found it easily and approached it from the rear, trying to ignore the dent that had appeared on the driver’s side. Did I tell you about that? We noticed it just after leaving Garachico. I assumed it had been there when we collected the thing. PC Margaret decided that someone had rammed it in the Garachico car park where I had parked at the end of the lines, where there were no lines. Anyway it wasn’t my fault, your honour. But I didn’t like to look at it. At certain angles it was as if it wasn’t there. I tried to approach the injured Berlingo from those angles.

We now doubled back towards Santa Cruz, then turned off the motorway towards the coastal section of Anaga, on the western side of the northern tip. It wasn’t all that nice. Bajamar wasn’t bad, and it did have a hotel on the sea front that had rooms at a (negotiated) 60 Euros per night. But we weren’t keen. The town and the hotel were pretty soulless. We went on to Punta del Hildago (now popular with the Germans we gathered). Not a bad location, but like Bajamar it was deserted and seemed to be created for tourists. There was a tall apartment block near the sea but, fortunately I think, they had no accommodation to let. They told us of a hotel (which we had thought was a health centre). The only way that I could see to get to this place was down a one way street – the wrong way. PC Margaret tensed noticeably from her observation platform but stayed tight lipped. And the only man in the town suddenly appeared and motioned me back. I waved and continued on my way, the street was only a few hundred meters long and quite deserted. However the hotel was luxurious and fearfully expensive. They did have rooms, of course, but not for us we decided. Nothing for it but to retrace our steps, passing the other rejected hotel along the way.

The day was not turning out well. We had quickly rejected the south for the north and now the north only wanted us at a price. Crossed over towards La Laguna which I hoped to skirt and go on to Santa Cruz where we were bound to find something – it was by now around five pm and darkness falls fast and early in Tenerife (at around six). Somehow we ended up back in La Laguna, trapped in a long jam of traffic that was making its slow way towards the centre of this rejected city along a narrow main road which was the main exit from Anaga. The slow progress enabled us to peer down some side streets. This part of the city didn’t look too bad. I saw a nice square with trees and so on, but the one way system and pedestrianisation prevented me from turning towards it. Finally I was able to turn right, but the traffic and one way system led me back to the same road, and I couldn’t find that lovely square. La Laguna had me beaten. I found myself following the same circular route all over again. Then I found a parking space. I needed to stop driving for a short period so I went into a bodega where the locals were having their coca-cola bottles filled with cheap local wine. The owner told me that there was a hotel in La Laguna, next to the town hall. He indicated vaguely where the town hall was in relation to his shop and I set off – without much hope. But fortunately one thing is always clearly signposted in Spanish towns: the Ayuntamiento, the town hall. And I found it, and there was a hotel nearby – the Nivaria. This was a posh place, a place for visiting businessmen I guess rather than poor tourists. We weren’t on an expense account but, given the time and our lack of success in finding any alternative, we splashed out on an 85 Euro room for the night. The room was much smaller than the cheap suite in Aguamarina, but it did have more character.

I had left the Berlingo outside the hotel in the busy square of the Ayuntamiento. Fortunately I did not get booked – no doubt we were thought to be deliverymen in our white van disguise. I asked the porter about parking and he said that the hotel had its own parking at 5 Euros per night but it was difficult to find. He insisted on walking to the back of the hotel with me, showing me the road I must find to turn into and then indicating that I should then turn right down a narrow road and then left before a red car that we could see at the end of the road.

I went off in the Berlingo with little hope that the two of us would ever find the hotel again given La Laguna’s one way system and the traffic and so on. Saving one near accident (the bloody Canarians just will not give way to white vans) I found myself at the turn off street that the porter had shown me. That street was very, very narrow. It also had bench seating on both sides. I stopped at the corner for the right turn, it was so narrow that I didn’t think I could get around it. I could see the red car, but from this vantage point it looked rather low down. I got out to investigate. At the end of that narrow street I found a set of steps dropping say four feet to the street that the red car was in! Even the Berlingo could not be expected to nose dive down that drop. Had the porter been winding me up or did we have a language problem? I shall never know. All I know is that I had to back the van into a one way street then start the whole journey again, through the square and back to the correct street – the one with the red car in it. I will not recount the problems I had trying to get the Berlingo into the underground garage. Suffice to say that I had to have little lie down when I finally got back to the room. PC Margaret was unsympathetic. After all she had left her driving license in England so couldn’t possibly do any driving, it was all up to me.

Next day we set off to explore Anaga. This is said to the oldest part of Tenerife, older than Teno, more eroded and more green. Much of it is covered in laurel forests, though these are not the laurel bushes that you see in English gardens, they are, I believe, Indian Laurels, they grow quickly and can reach a height of 20 metres. They are a member of the fig family (a large family, I learned during my stay in the Canaries). The forests were not purely laurel; there were pine trees and others amongst them. We slipped into the forest soon after passing through a place called Mercedes, which we did not like much, and rose up into the mountains. Most of the journey was on narrow twisting roads bordered by trees, so we did could see that much. There were occasional miradors and a few sparsely populated villages. Most of the time I had to watch out for the full-sized coaches that take large groups of tourists into this lovely area so that they can see whatever the drivers decide to show them from the comfort of an air-conditioned seat. They are discharged en masse at the few miradors that can cope with a coach. We grew to hate them. They had taken over the first mirador that we stopped at, one that allowed you to look back at La Laguna and understand how it obtained its lovely name – which means lake. What we looked out upon had been a wide and flat valley into which the water of Anaga drained. The southern exit of this valley was blocked by the volcanoes of what’s called the Esperanza Dorsal and the resulting crater filled with volcanic ash and water to form a shallow, swampy lake. The Spanish colonists drained the lake, thus forming the most fertile area in Tenerife. The area is now filled with orange, banana and grape plantations. Our problem was one of trying to find a vantage point to view the old lake bed which was free from the seventy or so camera clicking enthusiasts from the bus. OK they have as much right to be there as we have – but there were too many of them in one place. They ruin the atmosphere of the very places they have come to see. What’s more the buses are too big for the roads, they fill them and have no option but to cut the tight corners – so woe betide a Berlingo van caught in the curve. We decide that the government of Anaga should intervene. Only walkers, cyclists, very small cars and, of course, Berlingo vans, should be allowed into this beautiful northern tip of Tenerife.

We stopped near a restaurant and I walked along a well-defined path until I could get glimpses of the sea – the peninsula is quite narrow so you are never far from the Atlantic. Along the way I Iooked at the rocks lining the steep embankment through which I walked. I tried to break off some of the yellow rock to see what the unexposed surface was like, it came away in my hand like chocolate, in fact it was very similar to an Aero bar, but lighter in colour. This deterioration of the sharp dry volcanic rock is due to the ingress of hot water. It is effectively rotting away – hastening the day when it becomes fertile, mineral-rich, soil.

Soon after my walk we met a traffic jam. What could be going on, there wasn’t that much tourist traffic surely. We waited, craning our necks to see what the delay was, even though we were in no hurry. Then two locals came along. I wound down the window and shouted ‘Que pasa? Which I expect that you can guess means ‘what’ happening’, and is also the name of pub near where we used to live in Oxford. The couple explained that two busses had collided as they tried to get around the same corner. We felt vindicated – ‘Ban the Bus’. When the jam cleared we could see the usual litter of broken indicator plastic in the road.

The best mirador we visited was Pico de Ingles, so named because the English were said to have spied on incoming ships from there. It provides a panoramic view of the entire Anaga area and you can see the Atlantic to the north, east and west from the same point. All it lacked was toilets, which we needed by this time, but we found some natural ones nearby.

After this we made a quick dash for the motorway south of La Laguna and started our return to Garachico, we now knew that this was the place for us. Along the way we stopped at Icod del Los Vinos to see the famous, the oldest, Dragon Tree. We had already found one fine specimen in La Laguna but now we were going for the big one – and it was big. I’m not quite sure why it is called a Dragon Tree, but it is weird. And I’m not quite sure that it’s a tree – more like the result of an affair between a cactus, a palm and an ash tree! Its trunk does look like that of a tree, but it doesn’t branch exactly, it explodes into a corona of bulbous branches, each one topped with a miniature palm tree – it is weird. And it has no rings, so there is no way of confirming the age of the thing. So the one we saw at Icod may or may not have been the oldest. At first we mistook a fig tree for the dragon tree. This one was also weird, and enormous – more of him or her later.

It was a pleasure to return to Garachico, just as we thought it would be, even if someone had dented our Berlingo in the car park (perhaps a vengeful coach from Anaga or a vengeful four by four from La Orotrava?). But the pleasure was blunted a little by pressing business – we had to find somewhere to stay. We had noticed a ‘pension’ on our previous trip so we tried that. It was locked and empty. I even tried calling its number – we could hear the phone ringing within, but it went unanswered. We wandered around. I asked someone about accommodation, he recommended the pension, saying there was a hotel, but it was very expensive. It was, very! We returned to the pension. This time a child poked her head out of the window and indicated that we should wait. She came down. I expected to be taken to the mother of father but no, she appeared to be in charge. Her English was better than our Spanish so we used a mixture. English seemed to animate her. The stress of searching for words caused her to dance about. I realised that she was not a child; she was a girl of sixteen or seventeen. She was blonde, very pretty, and clearly not of Spanish stock. She showed us the rooms. They were pretty grotty – but very large, the ceilings were about twelve feet up. There was a vast shared bathroom which could have coped with all of the guests at the same time had they not been shy. There was also a room where a large white rabbit lived, a friendly and lonely creature – I went to stroke him a number of times during our stay and I could tell that he appreciated my concern.

After some negotiation we took the large squeaky bedroom that overlooked the inner quadrangle below which was used as a restaurant by some people not concerned with the pension. This gave me a good opportunity to secretly watch people eating their lunch or dinner – but I soon bored of that. The place was called El Jardin. It was a little dirty and in crying need of a complete and thorough renovation, but it was fun. Mum was away for some days and Ariana, the blonde dancing daughter was left in charge. We didn’t see her much; she stayed in her room from which a male voice could often be heard. If her Mum only knew. On the last day Ariana could not be found at all. We wanted to leave and I hadn’t paid. We entered the mother’s room which was huge even by El Jardin standards. The ceiling was some twenty feet up and very ornate. The floor area wasn’t quite big enough for football, but you could have arranged a five-a-side match quite easily. No Ariana there so we left a note in the ‘office‘, and 70 Euros for our two night’s stay in the room – what else could we do. Naughty girl.

Whilst staying in Garachico I ran, then walked, up the mountain that had poured with lava some 300 years ago, filling what had been the most important port in the Canaries – a major source of ‘malmsey’ which I believe is a sweet white wine, sometimes called ‘sack’ or even ‘canary’ in England. After leaving the banana plantations with their wind protecting clinker walls below me, the country became quite desolate. Black volcanic ash, with some huge blocks of basalt resting precariously on its steep surface, was occasionally relieved by the odd pine tree that had somehow managed to take root. But as I struggled up the rocky path the view over the village, across its old harbour and out to the sun-glinting sea, became more and more impressive. At various heights the blackness of the old lava flow was crossed by lines of white. These turned out to be concrete water courses which were used by the farmers to bring water from above to the growing bananas below.

What a strange plant the banana is. It seems quite incapable of supporting itself; the farmers prop them up with stakes and fasten them with ropes and stays. It produces a growing shoot which bends back towards the ground under the weight of the green banana bunches. At the end of that shoot is a single large and beautiful flower.  The banana forms the Canary Islands’ main export nowadays, and I love ‘em.

I also ran up to San Pedro, a perfect Spanish village with its houses tumbling down the hillside, more like a community building than individual houses. Coming back into the village I passed the man with multiple suitcases. This statue is a symbol of Garachico I suppose. He is called The Emigrant, has a hole instead of a heart and is probably on his way to Venezuela or Cuba. Many Canarians went that way. The links are still there.

Margaret does not accompany me on these trips, but we did go to the old convent building together. This is next to the town hall which overlooks the main square – which, like any self respecting Canarian town, has an ornate bandstand. The convent was a splendid building made of two large courtyards overlooked by continuous balconies above. The building had been converted into a museum of volcanic knowledge and rocks. I spent ages staring at the collection of lava samples and their descriptions, also at the videos and explanatory wallcharts that plotted the growth and demise of these terrifying yet inspiring phenomena. I think my knowledge reached a peak that day, but I won’t bore you with that. Margaret’s favourite exhibit was the large collection of photos and painting of old Garachico, the life of the people. I liked them too, but she read more into them than I could.

On the last night, a Saturday, we parted company. After a pub crawl through the village we ate a poor meal (there were no decent restaurants open) Margaret went to bed and I found a decent bar. We had had a good night; the peak was Bar Cuchillas where we met a nutty landlord called Enrique. He was a small man, spoke little or no English, had travelled to Germany and France and was probably staring bankruptcy in the face – we were the only people in the pub. The place was both basic and neglected, filled with tat from Enrique’s past. A small man he had an odd, rat-like manner. We asked for beer but he insisted upon giving us two sweets and some throat burning liquid which Margaret threw over her shoulder for some reason, then we cooled our throats with beer. Meanwhile Enrique seemed to be busy with his paper work. But no, he suddenly cheered and brought us a postcard sent to him by an English woman called Sally who had visited his bar at some time, loved it, and had sent him the card. She was from Herefordshire and Enrique seemed overly delighted to show us this bit of his memorabilia.

He had taken to Margaret and decided to give her a taste of his mojo! Mojo (pronounced Moho) is the name for Canarian sauces which Canarians are famous for (at least in the Canary Islands). Enrique made his own. He fetched some bread from the back of the dingy bar and then spooned some his golden concoction onto a plate. I tried a little, Margaret tried a lot. It was piquant, tasty and interesting, containing herbs and lots of garlic. We have had lots of it since.

Enrique told us that all of the islands were at each other’s throats and that the world was all about money. Margaret was a little tight by this time and agreed vehemently. I tried to put a different view in my stumbling Spanish, but was ignored. Enrique then complained bitterly about rising fuel prices which he thought were confined to Spain and the direct consequence of the policies of Zapetero, the prime minister. We had a great time with him. I left him my card! He only charged us for the beers.

 

La Palma

La Palma is, geologically, the newest of the Canary Islands, together with its sister island El Hierro. It is probably the greenest and certainly the steepest since it claims to be the highest island in the world in relation to its area. In fact the Palmarians have more words for steep than any other set of people in the world – well not quite true, I made that up, but it could well be so.

La Palma has lots going for it, and few things against. Those few things are Germans and dogs. The island is full of them. Not that I have anything against dogs at all. In their place they are perfectly OK. Here they are noisy, angrily defend their own property and make little attempt to speak Spanish.

We arrived late at night on Tuesday the 11^th of November and grabbed the last taxi left at the ferry terminal. I felt sorry for those behind us who also needed one, but it’s a dog’s world. Our driver was of the would-be rally driver type, as we roared through the tunnel leading to Cancajos, I quietly begged Margaret not to congratulate him on his driving when, and if, we finally arrived at our apartment. We were very quickly booked into the San Antonia complex and shown the way to apartment number 20E. It was rather nice. Not like the grand place that we initially had in Tenerife, but perfectly adequate, with a balcony overlooking first a main road, then a street of other apartment blocks and then the sea – looking towards Lanzarote and then Africa, neither of which we could see of course. However, we could hear and smell something. Immediately below us on the main road there was a bar, or something that sounded like a bar, smelled like a bar and might even have food. We were back out of the San Antonio complex in a trice, ignoring the darkened swimming pool and its surrounding loungers decorated with a notice that they could not be reserved. Now who would that be for?

There was a bar, it was open at the outrageous hour of 11 pm, and it still served food! We, who had had no dinner and just one drink on the ferry, were overjoyed. What a great start to life on La Palma. We even met the owner, or at least the owner’s girlfriend. She was German, a little bit tiddly and blonde. She suddenly beamed at me from the other end of the bar, and mouthed a big hello. I didn’t know at that stage that she was management and felt almost embarrassed. ‘Oh my god, we’ve only been here five minutes and attractive blondes are coming on to me. Perhaps this is where the sex happens’. We talked to her later when she assumed her position behind the bar, but learned little of interest.

The next day was an R&R. No car, so no driving, and no travelling. Just hanging around this place we found ourselves in just a few kilometres south of Santa Cruz. I went running as usual in the morning, ignoring our swimming pool once again (a long kidney shaped affair with a little round pool alongside and poolside bar that never opened, and with loungers that could not be reserved – even by dogs). The coast was very nearby, but there was no chance of swimming here. It consisted of sharp black lava inlets into which the sea pounded creating a beautiful white surf in great contrast to the blackness of the rocks. The apartment blocks and vacant restaurants aside, there was one building of interest there. A notice claimed that this was where the indigenous people had extracted salt from the sea. One of the inlets fascinated me; I went back to it many times. The crashing breakers had discovered a cave somewhat above the level of the sea and thus invisible to me. As the waves crashed against what seemed to be a recess in the rock face, the cave would fill with water, then, as the sea receded the water would come rushing back down in fear of being left behind, cascading down the rocks as if from nowhere in a veritable waterfall which was regularly replenished by the next wave. Erosion in action.

Whilst running I did a survey of the many car hire companies operating in Cancajos which is a very a touristical part of an island that isn’t that strong on tourism. I chose the cheapest – because I liked the name (Co-Co) and the lady behind the desk (Silenia). I told her that I wanted to converse only in Spanish and she stuck to this. We had a number of quite lengthy conversations where she spoke slowly and clearly so that I could understand – and I mostly did. She was great. She told me that her favourite thing was being in bed – sleeping. She loved Sundays because then she could sleep until one or two in the afternoon. I booked a little car for the next day. My run around Cancajos convinced me that the whole area was purely for tourists. It had undoubtedly been farmland some few years ago, now it grew bars, restaurants, apartment blocks, swimming pools and car rental offices plus a few shops. Many of the shops and restaurants were empty and for sale. I suspected that the occupation level of the apartments was low. Our apartment was really very nice, yet only cost 31 Euros per day.

The apartment block had two internet terminals for holidaymakers in the reception area. It also had Wifi so I hoped to connect my laptop directly. No luck, the same problem that occurred before prevented me from making a connection, so I had to wait for a terminal. As I waited one of the existing users suddenly burst into laughter - maniacal laughter. I thought that he had gone mad, but he soon calmed down and continued watching his screen. After a minute or so he was at it again, even more maniacal laughter erupted, ending in sobs. I angled myself at the other end of the room so that I could see his screen, hopefully without him seeing me looking at it. Turned out that he was watching a Mr Bean film! It’s true I swear it. And there I was with important things to do! I felt cross. Should I go over and demand that he gave over the terminal for my important business rather than for watching the antics of Rowan Atkinson? After all, there was a notice saying that use should be limited to 20 minutes maximum. I did not accost him of course, I waited and soon the other terminal became free.

Later in the day Margaret and I walked along the craggy, rocky sea front. I showed her my waterfall; she didn’t seem as impressed as I was. We walked a little further and found the beach. Black, extensive and virtually deserted, it was made up of two curves of volcanic sand protected by two man-made breakwater islands a little way out to sea. I noticed just one man on the first section of the beach. He was dressed for swimming and dragged a small float with him, attached to a rope. He called out as he entered the water, perhaps the chilling effect of the cold water, I thought. Then I heard a responding cry from somewhere out to sea. How odd. I looked carefully at the sea and could then see ten or so heads bobbing up and down between the breakwaters. The bobbing people also had floats. They didn’t seem to be doing anything, just bobbing and drifting. After a long period he managed to swim out to them. There were then snatches of half-heard conversation, and then everyone settled down to bobbing.

What on earth were they doing out there? I thought about it for a few days, then came up with a theory – they were bobbing over a fumadore. I had caught faint sulphurous whiffs as I explored the seafront. There must have been a hole in the seabed where the bobbers bobbed. It released hot gases which warmed the water and the warm water warmed and refreshed the bobbers. I did not have time to confirm this imaginative theory, besides, I had no float and no bobbing friends and I hate being called Bob. Bob the bobber would be even worse.

We ate at an upmarket pizza place which Margaret enjoyed and then went to find the Bar Llamados. David was playing there that night. He was late, of course. So we had a few drinks and watched the bar in action. It was an ‘island bar’ where the drinkers sit around an island made up of an oval bar top within which the drinks, the glasses, the dishwashers and the bar staff live. It was quite small, almost awkward. At first it was staffed solely by a young Canarian barmaid. A dark-haired woman of great confidence and with an unusual face, she handled the busy bar well. She was not tall and many of the cocktail ingredients in which the bar specialised were high up on a shelf surrounding the bar. Reaching for these drinks was quite a stretch for her, and quite a delight for some of the German drinkers at that end of the bar. I’m sure that they were ordering the most distant drinks, deliberately to watch the barmaid stretch. As things warmed up she was joined by the landlord, an avuncular German of some 50 years. He was clearly in his element: joking with the drinkers, smiling, laughing, clapping and even singing – like a warm up for David’s entrance. It seemed that, like the landlord, everyone at the bar was German except for us. But they are generally jolly drinking partners so no problem.

David arrived at last. He looked like a Mexican, wore a dirty T-shirt that emphasised his egg-shaped gut, and wore a baseball cap – backwards. Setting up his ‘extensive’ equipment – a guitar and amplifier - took ages and as we waited, expectations fell. I was pretty sure that David was drunk. Then, at last, he started playing, and singing. But things were not good. He was unhappy with the set up. He stopped and rewired the entire arrangement whilst the barmaid and landlord looked benignly concerned. At last all was ready, he started singing with great confidence, and he was quite good. He sang as if he was singing to the moon, head lifted above the bar, moustache wrinkling into a smile, the ridiculous cap seeming always ready to slide from his head. He attacked songs with gusto – and the bar reacted gratefully. The songs were mostly Spanish and the guitar work certainly was. However, he included popular international numbers in his set, making a serious attack on Pretty Woman which would even have invigorated Roy Orbison – and made him puzzle over the words. Was this English, German or Spanish? It didn’t matter, it was fun.

I talked to Olav and his wife. They were healthy looking German specimens who came to La Palma every year. First they went to Fuencaliente in the south for a few days of calming down. Then they came up to Cancajos for a more lively nightlife during the rest of their stay. Olav regarded himself as a European rather than a German, confiding to me that there were ‘arseholes’ in all races. He loved Scotland, though not the Scots. He also loved Ireland, and the ‘unbelievably friendly Irish’. I asked his wife if she had enjoyed the David show. ‘It is always the same,’ she replied with a shrug and smile. It turned out that they were neighbours – living in the same apartment block, but we did not see them to talk to again.

Next day I picked up the lime green Citroen C2 from Silenia and explained our dilemma. We wanted to stay for some time on La Palma, but we did not want to live with Germans, we wanted to speak Spanish and interact with Canarians. She made some recommendations and Margaret and I set out for the northern part of the island. The weather seemed mostly cloudy where we were living, the eastern side, we hoped that it would be nicer in the west. We climbed up a high ridge which extends from the main volcanic crater or caldera down to the south. It is called the Cumbre Nueva (new summit) and is engulfed in green forest on the eastern side. Soon we were swinging from left to right through Z-bends, cutting through the clouds as we approached the tunnel that punctures the ridge above Santa Cruz. The tunnel is long and wet. On the other side we emerged into brilliant sunshine and were welcomed by a perfectly formed rainbow that arched above a straggling town called El Paso. To the right and behind us was the highest point of Cumbre Nueva, the volcanic ridge that we had just burrowed through. Directly to the right was the western lip of the Caldera Tamburiente (the Drum Crater) and below us was the gradual (for La Palma) slope towards the sea. This was the place for me, I thought. But we were destined at that point for a place called Tazacorte which was much nearer the sea. We zigzagged down by-passing El Paso and Los Llanos (the second largest town on the island) and arrived at Tazacorte. It was pleasant enough. It had a centre of sorts and a semicircular promenade that looked down towards the sea over the banana plantations. We also knew of some accommodation here which we had picked up via the Internet – but we did not follow it up. Tazacorte didn’t quite hit the button. Plunging down towards the coast itself we headed for Puerto de Tazacorte.

Whilst Tazacorte had some old Spanish colonial charm, the development at the Puerto (port) struck me as tacky, though Margaret did not agree. The beach was black, as usual. The few people on it were white and did not look good. Inland from the beach was a vast defunct swimming pool, the crowning glory of which was a large sputnik-like creation in reinforced concrete. I suppose that in better days it had served as some sort of central diving platform for the swimming pool, resplendent in its colourful ceramic tiles, nowadays most of the tiles had fallen off and it looked like the head of petrified and hollowed out Teletubby. We walked around the small seaside town. There were shops and many restaurants of course, plus the usual commercial tat that seaside towns generally attract. One restaurant had decorated its garden with large concrete starfish painted a garish orange. They certainly caught the eye. Glimpses of them would make a Triffid hunter reach for his gun. We bought the makings of a picnic and roared out and up in the C2.

Puerto de Tazacorte lies at the base of some very steep volcanic cliffs. The road upwards is not easy. Clinging to the cliffside that overlooks Tazacorte it rises quickly and provides a few exciting hairpins – but this is La Palma and it was worth it. At the top and some little way north is the interesting village of Tijarefe. It had a street called Adios, imagine a street named Goodbye in England. There was a long and flowery explanation of the name on one house in Goodbye Street, but the Spanish, and the floweriness, was too much for us. Wandering through the lovely Spanish Canarian streets of Tijarefe we happened upon a museum. There was no one there except a thin lady of fading glamour who was delighted to guide us around in slow, precise, Spanish. This museum recalled the past life of the village and was set in the old school. One thing that fascinated me was the annual fiesta. This centred on a ‘diablo’ (devil, I think) as many of them do. In Tijarefe the devil is represented by a metal figure, a little like a robot. In our village in Spain the equivalent is probably the ‘bull’ that rages through the main square spraying everyone with fireworks. Like the Diablo of Tijarefe our bull is a carapace that some poor young man carries on his body. But the internal devil of Tijarefe is lucky, the suit is pretty well fireproof and has an internal oxygen supply! This evil figure dances around Tijarefe at the peak of the main festival that is held there. It is adorned with some 500 fireworks, all but one of which goes off during a twenty minute interval. The last firework is a big one set into the head of the devil which explodes noisily allowing the devil to slink off in the resultant smoke, heat, noise and confusion. Great. I would like to be there, but we missed it. The devil appears on the 7^th of September.

Our excellent guide told us many things, including information about the basic food of the indigenous people called ‘gofio’.  Gofio is ground wheat and corn which is roasted making a whitish powder that is very filling but, as Margaret found when she bought some to replace her breakfast porridge, it is pretty well tasteless and ‘cloying in the mouth’. After a few days she threw the packet that she bought away. Well the shopkeeper did warn her.

Also on display was the simple way in which islanders used to purify water. They created a crucible like shape from the porous volcanic rock, hung it above a cup, filled it with unclean water and in a day or so you had a cupful of clean filtered water. Tea breaks were infrequent in those days.

We tried to find accommodation in the village, but without success. I liked the place, but I don’t think Margaret was too keen. It had good walks, the footpaths of the indigenous people linked villages and had an intriguing solution to long distance communication around the island which has particular appeal to an ex-telephone engineer such as myself, Bob the bobber. Going straight to another place in La Palma takes a long time. The coast is cut by barrancos formed by the old lava flows and erosion. During almost any journey you are going in and out, in and out all the time, so to go north by one mile you might travel five miles following suitable contours, the barrancos are far too deep and steep sided to allow a more direct route. The islanders therefore followed footpaths to the rim of the caldera. They then walked around the rim to the footpath leading to a village that they wanted to visit, then walked down it, had a pint with their friends and began the long march home. This is similar to the way telephone calls go into the exchange and out again – but you don’t want to know about that. There were also caves in the area of Tijarefe (the indigenous people were mostly cave dwellers) and other museums.

The museum guide directed us to a strange travel office set in a narrow rough track beneath the cemetery and guarded by fierce dogs. We managed to get inside, alive, to find the usual array of Internet terminals and offers of sumptuous accommodation in sumptuous complexes with multiple swimming pools and so on, or even more sumptuous country houses. All of these were way outside our budget and as far away from our desires as an ice palace might be to an Arab (hmm?). Off we went, north, not via the rim, but in the car along those wandering roads, mostly wooded, mostly clothed in the handsome Canarian pine trees that abound here. We tried other villages but Margaret had decided that she wanted a place of some substance to live in otherwise she would become bored. So Garafia which had obvious phonetic connections with Garachico, our favourite village in Tenerife, was rejected. They make nice wine there and the church is pretty, it’s also off the main road, but it was rejected, too small, too isolated. So, on we went right around the north of the island seeing little else in the way of habitation until we arrived at Barlovento which was a pretty awful, modern, ribbon development, then Los Sauces which had a lovely church but was too big and is almost impossible to say in Spanish (no, not sauces as in tomato sauce – but something like saoosays).

By that time it was getting dark so we beetled back towards Santa Cruz in the lime green C2 parking in front of, and very close to, another lime green C2 near our apartment, just for the fun of it. Next day we explored the south, casing a number of villages for our first long term stay in the Canaries. In fact that next night would be the third in the apartment at Cancajos, the longest that we had stayed anywhere so far. But it was just a base. We had no desire to stay there another night.

Silenia, the CoCo the car lady had told me that her favourite village was La Caletas. We found the signpost, but we didn’t ever find the village. What we think was Las Caletas was just a string of very well spaced out Canarian rural houses lining the twists of the road as is wandered slowly down the steep (have I used that word before?) slopes on the eastern side of the southern point of the island. No shops, not even a bar. Las Caletas certainly didn’t pass the Margaret test, but recalling that Silenia’s idea of a good time was a long night in bed, sleeping, perhaps this was the village for her. We followed the coastal road, passing Faro which is often mentioned in the shipping forecast and the salt beds of the south. Neither was interesting enough to delay our search for a new home

Then we entered one of the most dismal, the most dreary, the most depressing areas I have yet to encounter. Think of unrelenting high black volcanic walls extending to a height of 10 to 20 feet lining the road for mile after mile with, just occasionally, a glimpse along a side lane, also lined with 20 foot walls and you might just get the picture. The only excitement was the sight of an enormous container lorry growling towards us, or of high gates, solidly barred and locked. These are the banana plantations of the extreme south. These places are so sad that you do not even see a banana plant, let alone a banana. Protected from the sea windows from each side, they are further coddled from the cold by what looks like polythene sheeting from above. Gradually the coast is being covered in polythene, with gaps where the bananas won’t grow or the more lucrative tourist plantations exist. Now I know that the Canaries rely on the yellow miracle as one of their top earners, but we were to see them grown in much more natural conditions elsewhere on the island.

Surprisingly, the nearest neighbour to this banana concentration camp is the most luxurious of La Palma’s resorts. Cerca Viaje has twelve swimming pools and many restaurants and bars, together with numerous swish apartment buildings. I’m sure that it’s very nice if you like that sort of thing, yet in a way it’s a concentration camp like the banana plantations next door. Escaping bananas have sometimes been found in the swimming pools! We did not visit this place but made straight for Los Indias which is quite nice but is a ribbon village with the huge banana trucks passing through it. We much preferred Los Quemados which was very nearby, has no shops, no restaurant, nothing really. It turned out to be Margaret’s favourite!

We completed our southern tour by avoiding Los Naos, the prime beach resort and returning via the main road towards the tunnel we had used to cross to the north the day before. Once again we came to El Paso - my favourite. We had been told that there were many Germans there. All the same I saw that it extended eastwards into areas called La Rosa and El Barrial. We decided to take a look.  It was nice. Lots of traditional houses, close but not too close. Lots of lovely plants and flowers, also goats, pigs and, of course, dogs. We became lost in the place and seeing a sign for ‘Bungalows Elida’ I stopped the car and went in search of them on foot, leaving Margaret to guard the car. The bungalows were quite charming. I rang the telephone number on the sign outside and explained that I would like to see them. ‘Where are you now?’ said the man who answered,’ ‘in England or Germany?’

‘I’m outside the bungalows,’ I said with a laugh.

‘I am inside the bungalows,’ he said with also with a laugh, ‘wait I will come.’

And this young man appeared at the gate with a mobile in his hand. We switched off and shook hands. He showed me around. There were three bungalows. One rather large which he did not show me. One across the garden which he suddenly decided was booked, and another which was perfect. Traditional Canarian in style yet newly built it was very swish. And it looked over the garden, and it had a washing machine. We negotiated a price and I walked back to the car to bring down Margaret for the ultimate decision.

‘Regardless of the area, when you see the bungalow you will want it,’ I said to her, knowing that this would stir up negatives, but knowing that it was true, we drove back to the bungalows.

‘Very sorry,’ said the man I been talking to not three minutes before, ‘there has been a mistake. The bungalow that I showed you is booked. The people come tomorrow.’

I frowned and mentally mouthed an imprecation.

‘But you can have the big one for the same price – 42.5 Euros a day. Would you like to see it?’

Of course we would. It was big. It was an old place, but nicely modernised. Not so fresh as the one that we could no longer have, but OK. And certainly very big.

‘Does it have a washing machine,’ asked Margaret. I had foolishly told her about this incredible facility possessed by the first place. 

‘Yes, yes,’ said our potential landlord. ‘ But it is outside’.

She was shown the washing machine. It was strange to have an outside one in its own little raised cupboard affair. But she was happy. We said we would take the place and that we would arrive by bus tomorrow, which was Saturday 15^th November, sometime after one o’clock. And so we did and our first long term residency began.

The bungalow could have slept six plus a baby – and we were but two, though we did have visitors as the week drew on. In the end I drew a plan of the place, not because we sometimes got lost, which we did, but primarily so that I could clarify the layout in my own mind. What was confusing was that there were two courtyards embedded into the place – outside areas with internal and sometimes external doors. This could be fun - if you wanted to play hide-and-seek. To get to the large bathroom from the back entrance hall you could go directly through the bathroom door or you could go through the kitchen and into the second bedroom. From there you could get into the front entrance hall, up six steps and then into the lounge. From the lounge you could go out into the garden and into the other back door and thence to your starting point or, more exciting, you could go through another door in the lounge into an inner courtyard from which a door led into the bathroom! I could go on, but you would need my plan to understand how to get from the lounge to the first bedroom without ever going through the back entrance hall. This was traditional Canarian ‘bungalow’ (there is also a traditional Canarian house with very high front doors – two or three of them). The bungalow had  two, four-sided, roofs which met at a point, pyramid like and the rooms mostly extended right up into the roof area. The roof was nicely tiled and the walls, which were a metre thick in some places, were made of black stone, mostly rendered and painted white, but leaving some of the black stones exposed. A house for the black and white minstrels.

We had a lovely garden, partially shared with the other two bungalows and the lizards and birds. We had a dragon tree at the side, palm trees and hibiscus shrubs to the front. Also binonias, a shrub with a beautiful orange flower that had three stages, all present at the same time. A long orange bud in an inflorescence that, when ready, could be lightly squeezed which caused it to split into four and peel back to become the flower –before one’s very eyes. Later the flowers would droop and begin to look like used condoms, as used by the headmaster of Rhodean school. Binonias were Margaret’s favourites.

It was fun to stroll around the steep streets of our area, looking at the houses, the grand displays of flowers, including bougainvillea and poinsettia (huge ones), also the horses, goats, sheep and pigs. We finally agreed on our favourite house, set high with a glorious Canarian pine tree in the garden which could be seen from most of El Paso. We also agreed that, though we liked living there for a week, we would not like to live there for much longer: too many dogs, too many Germans. On the last night we went to a musical event in the ‘culture centre’ entitled Jazz and Flamenco. The place was full of them (Germans, not dogs). And they all seemed to know each other, waving and voicing strident remarks. I hated the show, though not because of the density of Germans. I suppose flamenco has to go somewhere, but this for me was not it. OK there was a fine flamenco guitarist, and two, yes two, cajones (the drum that you sit on), but why the saxophone, the xylophone and jazz guitar? I’m sure they were all very good musicians but, with little respite, it was head nodding stuff and, with a minor nod to flamenco, was modern jazz. I despised it and would have left after the second number but for two things: Margaret seemed to be enjoying it and those bloody Germans were blocking my way out. Thank god there was an interval.

‘I’m off to the pub,’ I announced to a thoroughly unsurprised wife – and so we parted, to meet again later in tapas bar for dinner/supper.

I went to the Labrador Bar and got into a long and confused conversation with a local in Spanish (the Germans did not seem to use the local bars). This man was, I think, a stoneworker who was now training to be a car mechanic. He was also a little drunk. During my first glass of really nice La Palman wine (from Garafia) we sorted out the right voltage at which to charge a car battery. During my second glass I found that he was from Tijarefe. I told him that I had been there and I liked the village very much.

‘Mas despachio por favour,’ he said. ‘Repete.’

This was my proudest moment as a very slow learner of the Spanish language. A Spanish man had asked me to speak more slowly! Now I know he was a little drunk and that my accent is, well, Gloucestershire. But all the same, a first for me. Couldn’t wait to tell Margaret, but she was more interested in telling me how much better the second half of the concert was, though she did admit that I was not the only one to leave.

From the start of our stay I conceived a notion to climb to the top of a point on the crater edge which we could see quite clearly when the rim was not clouded. It was the highest point on our side of the crater and the books said that it gave great views into the crater and out to sea. It was called Bejenado and was an extinct volcano – part of a group that formed the Caldera Tamburiente. I went to the excellent visitor’s centre which was a mile or so from our new home. It told me lots about the formation of the crater and about the wild life and plant life in the area. It also provided a map of footpaths: one of them led to the Bejenado peak – excellent. I think it was rated as two and half hours, moderate. I envy the footpath surveyors power of précis. A journey of perhaps five miles, through forest, over rocks, up, down and all around and they précis the entire thing as: experienced hikers only, difficult, moderate or easy. I made my packed lunch and set out. Margaret demurred – not her thing.

It took me two hours of walking to get to the start point, everyone else took their cars to this point, some further. I did not have a car. We were living in El Paso, what did we need a car for? Well, to get to the start of the footpath for one. However, as ever, that part of the walk had its interest and therefore compensations. I found a wonderful tree. I think it was a eucalyptus. It’s common here. It has a colourful peeling bark, a seed pod that is made up of an acorn-like cup with a seed in it which is definitely not an acorn, it is flattish and has a distinct cross like deep indentation on it. The cup turns white at maturity and the flower is a white spray that radiates from the base of the seed (all of these things can be seen at the same time on the same tree – don’t you just love the tropics).

Anyway I got to the start of my walk, and immediately took the wrong track. This one wasn’t moderate, it was definitely dangerous. I recovered myself with the help of a German couple (who else walks?), and started the long climb along a well used wide track. Lots to see, including the blackened Canarian pines which had all been in a forest fire, yet had fully recovered. They seem to thrive on it. Perhaps they should retrain as firemen. Also the petroglyphs of the indigenous peoples, not very impressive behind their strong metal cage, but certainly showing that it was not bestial savages that the Spanish enslaved and effectively wiped out (must be still in the blood though). It was cool (El Paso is already at some height and we used the heaters in the bungalow every night), but the sun was out – perfect. Then the track became difficult, not moderate for me at least. It narrowed and followed a rocky contour with a near vertical fall of heaven knows what depth beneath me. It was here that I found my vertigo is handed. I can tolerate a fall to my right much more than to the left – this one was to the left. I could barely go on. I know that vertigo is in the head, leastways I think it is, but it makes little difference. The head starts to swim and no rationale stops the body from following. I was clinging to rocks on my right as if I might be sucked into the ravine below. Meanwhile Germans were passing in either direction as if they are walking along a city pavement. Now that might sound racial. I’m sure that there are German vertigo sufferers too – it’s just that they do not ascend Bejenado. I wanted to turn back, but even that becomes less attractive as you progress, more of the same. And then I came to junction. For a moment I thought it was the summit, but it was not. However, it was the rim of the crater. Still behaving like a slug, clinging to rocks, I explored my new area. Though dizzy, I could look down into the fantastically deep crater (more than a mile) and down towards the sea and to where our bungalow lay where, no doubt, Margaret was reading her book in the garden. How could she miss this? Easily. Yet it was a great view. The crater is very old, filled with greenery and sheer rock faces. It was surprisingly narrow. The day was clear and I could see across to the other side with no problem, it probably is only a mile or so away. I found a stable place to eat my lunch and knew that I could not go on to the top. My head was still swimming and perching on this ridge was not helping. A German couple passed, the same couple who had advised me at the beginning of the ascent, I think. They had taken an alternative, longer, route up. I asked them how it was. The man of the couple, a chap of about my own age (they mostly were) looked casually down at the path that I had ascended.

‘I think it is similar,’ he said looking up at me in my lunchtime perch. He then looked down at my sandals, which were roughly at his eye level, and continued, ‘but you do not have suitable footwear.’

‘Ah well,’ he muttered as he and his frauline began the ascent of Bejenado. If sandals were the problem I would have gladly donned my running shoes which I had in my little backpack. And what would he have said then?

I did take the alternative way down. It was awful. Once again I took a wrong track and had to cling to tiny bits of vegetation for some time before I could get back to the main path, which was not much better. There I encountered a German couple with a baby! Maybe I was the baby. Their baby was crying. I hadn’t got quite that far, besides there was no one to care for me. The couple stopped walking, comforted the baby, swapped it from one to the other, then continued their descent. But what the hell were they doing with a baby up here. Maybe the baby had vertigo. Maybe I had found a friend. Margaret often tells me of this special feeling that she has towards the children: ‘I carried them in my body for nine months,’ she explains, seriously, emotionally – as if that it explains it all. But this woman had carried her baby for the same time. Yet here she was 2,000 metres up, one false move and perhaps a 1,000 metre quick way down.

I struggled down, actually enjoying the changing scenery, slipping every now and then on the loose rock, amazed at how quickly the couple and baby vanished into the distance, alarmed at a sudden, almost deafening noise like an immense waterfall which turned out to be the wind tearing through the deep valley to my left, the valley that linked the Cumbre Nueva to the Caldera. At last I arrived at the car park. The German couple had long gone, driving their priceless cargo to his cot. I still had two hours or so to go. It was darkening when I arrived at the bungalow, sore of feet, sore of soul – I had not made the peak. Margaret said that she was worried about me, which was nice.

A beer and a shower and I were ready for anything. Still a bit sore of foot, I walked into El Paso proper with Margaret. Another beer in Los Angeles where the landlord was so in love with his daughter of some two years that he carried her everywhere, serving beer and cooking snacks with one hand.

Maybe it was that night that I met Francisco. As you descend the steep hill from our part of El Paso along General Mayo Street, the first sign of life that you see is a jolly fluorescent sign outside the Funeraria – the funeral parlour. The doors are always open, you can see the hearses inside shrouded in green cloth and the broken hearses under repair. A heartening sight, followed by the post office and the book shop which only sells magazines. That night I think we ate at the German run restaurant towards Los Llanos. Well run, perfect food, atmospherically neutral. As usual I had not had enough – booze that is, not food – so we called into the most lively of the bars in El Paso’s colourful main street, a typical Spanish bar with children, football and cards all competing for one’s attention. Franciso was at our table in no time at all, he seemed to have an obsession with foreigners. Fat and effusive, he cared little for language problems. He quickly ascertained my age and gave me his business card. Up until that moment I had not realised that he ran the funeral parlour – or that I might be a potential customer. He explained that he could arrange coffin transport to Germany (in La Palma all foreigners are German) and had asked my preferences with regard incineration or burial. He rarely waited for an answer.

A game began. We had to guess his age. Naturally we started at fairly low levels. Francisco was fat, had virtually no neck that I could ascertain (a common, maybe desirable, feature in some Spaniards) and short curly black hair. He laughed with delight at our silly guesses, then presented his national identity card to us. He was 64 years old, three years older than myself. He then proudly presented his wife’s identity card (presumably he had it for safe keeping). She was born in 1974, 30 years his junior. How could this be? Because he was ‘guapo’ (handsome) and I had a grey beard and grey hair, he said, indicating how I should change, physically acting out the removal of my beard and moustache and, I guess, the dying of my hair. I walked home deep in thought. What was I to do next, now that Bejenado had defeated me?

On our last full day but one, Margaret and I set out together. We were walking to a church a few miles to the east, the church of the virgin of wines. It was a lovely place. Set all on its own, white with a ‘basket handle’ shaped facia and a pleasantly clean interior decorated with fresh flowers and hung with reliefs of the stages of the cross. Then we parted. I went up the mountain to the Cumbre Nueva. Margaret went home to do the domestic stuff that kept us going, and to read her book. As happened on most days, the clouds from the east rose over the summit (cumbre) and cascaded down the escarpment on our side. A lovely sight, though not so much so when you are climbing towards them. At the top was a crossroads of footpaths apparently. The one that I followed rose over the summit and plunged towards the capital, Santa Cruz, on the other side. The other ran south to north along the line of Cumbre Nueva, joining the crater rim and following it all the way around to the sea. From the church the escarpment looked unassailable.

But I made it. Demoralised by my attack on Tejenado, I thought that I might have to give up, and there were moments when the track was narrow, and the wind blew, and there seemed to me nothing around the corner but nothing, that I felt like going back to the bungalow and reading my book. But I made it. And I felt so good. Even though there were two German couples up there at the crest, and even though one of the women was having a fag, I felt wonderful. I knew that I had not cured my vertigo, but it had not prevented me from crossing the Cumbre Nueva. I looked at Bejenado a little wryly, then down the great sweep of the valley in front of me, past the church, past El Paso, past Los Llanos, right down to the sea at Tazacorte. On the other side of the Cumbre Nueva I could see the trees and greenery of the wetter, colder, west side of the volcanic ridge, all the way down to Santa Cruz, my goal. I whistled a happy tune – Leaning on a Lamppost, I think.

Down through the cloud-laden and cloud-fed forest of the eastern slopes with its lovely, but slippery footpath, said to be in use for 300 years. Down to the mirador without a view where I ate my packed lunch. The trees had grown so much that there was now no view to be had. Down to where the sweet chestnuts began to flourish and drop their desirable fruit. Across the busy main road that led to the tunnel that pierced the ridge. Down to where the blackberries grew and where the houses began. Nice houses, traditional Canarian houses, and not a person to be seen – this is still the land of the siesta. Down until I could peer into the windows of the multi-storey buildings that make up most of Santa Cruz nestling in its deep valley on the coast. The bus left at 5.15 prompt. At 6.30 I was back in the bungalow preparing to attend another musical evening. It had taken me six hours to walk to Santa Cruz and just over an hour to get back.

That evening we went to see the local band strut its stuff. This was not a pop band, oh no. This  was a proper band, made up of about 50 people from El Paso, mostly young, playing wind instruments plus a percussion section – an orchestra without strings if you like. We had to get there early of course. There were few people and lots of seats. For some reason that she could not explain Margaret sat behind the biggest, loudest German there. We moved. The audience this time was predominantly local and therefore came in late. The band came even later, and stood around chatting at the back of the hall until 15 minutes after the published start time. My expectations were not high. They started with a spirited pasadoble – and were great. Our experience of the brass sections of amateur orchestras at home made us particularly nervous, but this lot, under the command of their enthusiastic conductor really got it together. My feet were tapping. During the brief interval before the next piece, a trumpet solo, two or three extra members of the orchestra slipped into their places. I thought that they were not needed for the first piece, but Margaret was nearer the mark, these were the late, lates. Typically Spanish they smiled and waved at their friends as they sat down – no shame. At the end of one number the conductor suddenly left his stand and vanished into the rear of the hall – to the consternation of the orchestra and puzzlement of the crowd. I wondered if, like me, he had sunk a couple of pints before the performance (it’s the walking you know, one has to protect oneself against dehydration) and needed the toilet. But no, he returned with some sheet music which he delivered to one of the late comers, said ‘Perdone’ to the audience and resumed his stand.

Afterward we went to the central bar. Francisco spotted us straight away, left his son, who clearly doesn’t approve of his obsession with foreigners, and insisted on buying us a drink. He then berated me for still having my beard and grey hair and, though wearing one of the silliest hats I have ever seen, insisted that he was ‘guapo’. Whilst he bought the drinks he invited me to feel something that he had in his pocket and to guess what it was. I felt the thing through the material but had no idea what it was. It was long mostly hard, but soft in places. I made a series of silly guesses: cucumber, onion, sausage. My guesses made Francisco laugh like a child. Then Margaret had a go – more laughter. Then the thing was exposed – it was an avocado, almost everyone grows them in La Palma. He held it up for the bar to see, it was quite a big one. He took a bite out of it, then ordered the barmaid to prepare it with salt for us, and two Dutchmen who had joined the foreign section of the bar, to try.

After this he called to a man from the other side of the bar who grudgingly joined us. A tall man with a black moustache he seemed a little nervous, not of Franciso, but of what Francisco might do next. He was introduced as a ‘peloquero’ but I had no idea what this meant. Francisco, who was a linguist, realised that I did not understand so shouted the word at me a number of times with growing intensity until I was forced to confess that I understood, even though I did not. Later, talking to Margaret, I understood. The man was the local barber. Francisco was trying to arrange the removal of my beard and dying of my hair right there and then. A little bit inebriated, happy after the music and always willing for an experience, I would probably have gone for it if I had understood. I’m sure that Francisco could also have fixed me up with an attractive 30 year old from El Paso. Later he told me that his son had committed suicide at the age of 32 years, and that the boy’s mother had followed suit within the week. At first I did not understand. I actually though that the action of slitting his throat was another Francisco joke and to do with the son I had met earlier. When I realised the truth I gave him my heartfelt sympathy and told him of Sheena’s death. But he either didn’t understand or wasn’t interested – he was not a  great listener and did not have the patience for my slow Spanish. We walked home via the Los Angeles where we had our now customary coffee with anis. But tonight the coffee machine had been closed down so we just had anis with water.

We spent eight days at El Paso, simply taking walks or even just hanging around the bungalow and its lovely gardens on some days. Margaret sun bathed on one day, but it was mostly too cold for that, especially at the end of the week. This was very different from our rush around Tenerife, and It suited La Palma which is a more relaxed place; there are only about 80,000 islanders here – not counting the Germans and the dogs. Besides, we had Wifi (Internet) at the bungalow and some unexpected visitors. On the first day Margaret spotted a lizard on the wall of the bathroom above the shower. Now we are quite fond of lizards. We have named our Spanish house after them and have many of them on the walls and shelves. But these are stuffed, painted or ceramic lizards. Our bathroom guest was a real one. I named him Larry and we found that he lived behind the beams above the shower, sometimes watching us showering with obvious amazement. He, or she, was a beautiful Canarian lizard with blue cheeks and side marking. He became part of the scene, adding interest to a visit to the bathroom. Later in the week Garry the gecko appeared on a rafter in the back hall. He stayed so still that I thought that he was a previously unnoticed decoration, but he had gone by the next day. On the last but one day we found that a plum had been moved out of the fruit bowl, over the table, down and along the floor to a corner near the fridge. The plum was a large round purple one, it had had been nibbled, I have the evidence in a photograph. We suspected Larry (Garry was too small) but thought that unlikely since he would need to be a super-lizard to push that plum around. Later I removed a banana from the fruit bowl and placed it near the fridge. It worked, Margaret spotted it, gave a scream and called me into the kitchen. I confessed to the banana, but not the plum. There was another plum in the bowl. When we got home from the, best forgotten, jazzy flamenco, it had been rolled out and now lay on the table. Intrigued, we left it there. During the night I visited the bathroom – no Larry. I went into the kitchen and switched the light on. The plum had now moved to that same spot by the fridge. On the worktop on the other side of the room stood the culprit, eyeing me with interest. It stood next to Margaret’s diary as if it had been riffling through the pages. It was a rat. A good-sized one and in good condition, though thin in the flanks. We eyed each other for some time. I, wondering what I could hit and kill it with, it, wondering how to get to its hole beside the fridge without being killed. I could think of nothing suitable as a weapon so decided to photograph Roland instead. The camera was in my bag hanging on a door knob halfway between the two of us. I made my move and Roland, very bravely made his. He jumped onto a chair, then onto the floor then towards me. I stopped, he veered off to the fridge slipping into the incredibly thin gap in which he lived. He did not try to take the plum. We did not feel like eating the rest of the fruit. In fact the kitchen did not seem to be the same place at all after this. When we departed, I left a note, shopping Roland to the landlady. She owned a cat.

On the last but one day, the day of the mystery rolling plum, I hired a car from a very smelly man who operated an office on the main street of El Paso. It was all very casual and cost only 20 Euros for the day. We went through the tunnel and then north through Santa Cruz, then off the main drag to the mountain road leading to the Roque de los Muchachos and  the Observatory on the northern rim of the crater. It was a mistake. Cold and wet, the very twisty road to the highest point on the island was mostly immersed in thickening cloud. Our old guide book said that we should burst through the cloud at some stage into brilliant sunshine. After all, La Palma has the clearest skies in the northern hemisphere, that’s why the observatory is there. We did see glimpses of telescopes as the swirling cloud cleared for a few moments. Ghostly parabolic dishes appeared then disappeared. Golf ball like telescope housings loomed above us then disappeared. There are ten or so of them up there, together with two helicopter landing pads, all linked to a central building. What a place to live. We walked around the Roque de los Muchachos (rock of the children) trying to look down into the crater – but it was filled with cloud. We ate our lunch in the relative warmth of the car and then started the return journey. Not a particularly good day, though we did enjoy the northerly village of Franceses, such as it is. It has one unmarked and unadvertised bar where the assemblage of card playing men looked at us with deep suspicion and the barmen served us with an obvious lack of enthusiasm. I went to the toilet and when I returned Margaret had been joined at our table by a taciturn gorilla like man who stared aggressively around him with a look that said, ‘I will kill anyone who speaks to me.’ We were glad to leave there – alive.

La Palma 2 – Los Quemados

Our new landlord was an Angel! Yes, it’s a first name in Spanish speaking countries and pronounced ‘anhell’. He arrived at the pickup point dead on time, I was a little late - taking some last photos of El Paso. I pointed out that the Spanish were usually late. He laughed and said, ‘not me’. It turned out that he was not at all the typical Spanish male. He drove his Landrover Discovery with confidence, but also with care. When his mobile rang he actually pulled off the road to take the call.

The journey to Los Quemados is not long, perhaps half-an-hour. We talked in Spanish for most of the time, Angel does not speak English, though we discovered that his wife is an English teacher. Angel is a banana farmer and has a huerta (smallholding), as do we since a few months ago, but ours is called a huerto. There are subtle differences in language - and the Spanish mainland is called La Peninsula in the Canaries – as if Portugal is still a part of Spain. I suggested to Angel that he must be very rich, with his houses in Los Quemados and El Paso, his huerta and banana farm. Angel found this suggestion very funny. I said that there are many Germans in El Paso. He agreed solemnly, thoughtfully, but said nothing more.

We travelled through the town of Fuencaliente (also called Los Canarios at times), this was to be our main town, it looked quite lively. We zig-zagged through it, turned off at the signpost to the volcano San Antonio, then dodged down a side road that looked like an avalanche of black sand. ‘Short cut to Los Quemados,’ Angel explained in Spanish, ‘the main road is up there.’ We did not look ‘up there’. Our eyes were glued to the road ahead. At times it vanished entirely, hidden by the bonnet of the Discovery. All we could see was ocean far below. Have I mentioned that La Palma is steep before?

We got to the village OK. Took a hairpin near a car park of sorts for the other local volcano – Teneguia - doubled back at another hairpin and took a right hand turn into a volcanic black road that was even steeper than the ‘short cut’. ‘Nearly there,’ said Angel as he almost winged an older style Landrover parked around the bend and quite invisible until the Discovery bonnet dipped as we dropped towards our new home. The house was black, well, dark grey really – a contrast to the place at El Paso and, though not entirely uncommon on a coast mainly dotted with whites. At first we could not figure out what was going on, there was already a car parked to one side of the place. Was the house already occupied? Did we have lodgers? However, the answer was quite simple, the place was a semi-detached residence (a come down from the detached bungalow at El Paso). The car belonged to our new neighbours. Margaret loved the house from the start. It was nearly new, had two double bedrooms, a nicely fitted out kitchen/dining/living room with sliding glass doors to a balcony with breathtaking views of the sea. There was more. On the dining table was a large bowl, it was laden with oranges and avocado pears from Angel’s huerta. And there was more. Behind the bowl stood two bottles of wine, one was a local wine from the bodega of Teneguia (named after the local volcano, and  a wine which I grew to really appreciate – in fact I decided to declare a beer free week on the strength of one taste of Teneguia wine alone), the other bottle was unlabeled. This latter was made by Angel in the rather nice shelter above the house where he kept his large, old-fashioned, wine press. He told us that this wine would be replenished on Wednesday! This seemed like having a rather corrupt milkman. And to cap it all there was a washing machine – actually inside the house.

I couldn’t wait to try Angel’s wine, but I did. I opened it later in the evening and found it to be one of the worst wines I have ever tasted. It tasted of volcanoes – sulphurous and cindery. So I put out a note out on the Wednesday ‘No wine today, please’. Not really, anyway Margaret said that she liked it, though she did leave most of the second bottle in the house unfinished!

Los Quemados was not much of a place. Above us hung a cluster of houses along the ‘main road’, then a few houses dotted about the steep slopes down towards the sea – like ours. There was a rumour of a restaurant, but you cannot survive on rumours, a bus stop but no buses, and an office that said ‘Car Rental Open 8.30 – 1.00’ above the door. It was true, it was always open during these times. But, though I visited it at least seven times, there was never anyone there. There was also a post box.

The next nearest village was Las Indias, and we knew that this had a bar. We had stopped there for a coffee on our exploratory trip of the island over a week back. We spent our first afternoon in the house enjoying the wonderful views and listening to the persistent giggles of the woman in the other half of our house. By the way we never did get to see our attached neighbours during the entire week that we were there. We would note that their car had either gone or returned, that on one night they had a barbecue and on another they had closed and locked the main gates to the two houses for some reason. But we never saw them. There was a barrier, slightly taller than head height between their balcony and ours, and a shared, yellow watering can on the wall at the end of it. We were only separated by that barrier, a wooden construction of no great thickness, but we never did see them. We could have. We could have climbed onto one of the chairs and looked over the barrier and said, ‘Hi, we’re your new neighbours.’ But that didn’t seem British. They were German, we think. I never really heard him at all. Just a low rumbling noise, followed by the woman’s giggle. A long silence, another rumble and another giggle. Oh and the sound of a machine occasionally. I wondered what it was until Margaret decided to make real orange juice from the oranges left in the bowl. So Angel had also favoured them with gifts. Perhaps it was that fumarole wine of his that caused the woman to giggle all the time.

After tasting Angel’s wine that evening, we decided to explore. Setting out for Las Indias was not easy. First we ascended our drive, not too bad, then downhill to the crossroads, easy, then a sharp turn to face the wide black road that led to the village of Quemados, such as it was. That road was steep, really steep. No one could walk up in one go. You needed at least two R&R stops along the way to get your breath back. And you didn’t walk, you almost crawled. Little steps and leaning forward towards the slope, hands outstretched in case of a slip. After that steep ascent the walk to Las Indias was a doddle. The road that connected the two villages was a mile or so long and quite wide, however, the only thing that could pass as a pavement was a  concrete strip on the ocean side of the road. That too was reasonably wide, the only problem was that the drop alongside it was at least twenty feet into the vine fields below, and no wall, no fence, nothing. Good practice for recovering vertigo sufferers, perhaps. Fortunately there was not much traffic on that road. Unfortunately, it was considered to be a race track by the few who did use it. After all they rarely got the chance to get out of second gear on most journeys, and here was a flat road with just a few foreign walkers in the way. A long, long way below the road you could actually get glimpses of the coastline. Mostly you could not see it, it was hidden by the shape of the land, a fairly steep slope followed by a precipitous drop, the knee of which was normally all that could be seen, followed by the open ocean beyond. This was good because below the precipitous bit were the banana concentration camps. They were not a nice sight from above, like enormous, but distant greenhouses. From the road you could also see Cerca Viaje – a swish resort with twelve swimming pools, five restaurants, two hotels, six bars and a casino plus sports and fitness facilities. What were we doing up here when they were living it up down there?

We made it to Los Indias alive. There was a restaurant there: closed on Sundays at seven, closed all day on Mondays. There was also the bar we had already tried at the bottom of the village which was, it seemed, always open. There were also two supermarkets, yes two! One was called Jeniffer’s and the other had a boring name. They were on the same stretch of road as the bar.

 There was another bar on the upper road, near the church: closed on Sundays, the bar that is. What’s more there was a culture centre, mostly closed, a library (open from 4-7 and with Wifi connection to the Internet, except that the connection was security protected and the librarian didn’t know the password!) and a pizza restaurant which, like the restaurant in Los Quemados consisted only of a sign – so far.

I liked the bar at the bottom. It was, unusually, also a bodegas – a winery – it had a wine press at the back of a side room. This room had tables in it and disco lights and stuff, but whilst we were there it was only used as an overflow for the usual, noisy, TV and male dominated, stainless-steel bar topped, beer swilling, smoke filled environment that constitutes a real Spanish bar. And of course it had a crane for winning toys, sweets for the kids, newspapers scattered around and a casual but efficient bar person who seemed to know exactly how much everyone had spent without making a single note. By the end of our stay I was on nodding terms with the barman and had met the barmaid in another bar in another town. I was becoming a local!

We didn’t do a lot in Los Quemados – it wasn’t that sort of place. The highlights were visits to the local volcanoes and to the ‘big’ town of Fuencaliente. Our nearest volcano, or at least the nearest signpost to a volcano, was Teneguia. It is the most recent too, erupting in 1971 and throwing its lava 100 metres into the air. The flow, fortunately, did not direct itself towards Los Quemados, but went south towards the sea, barley missing the Faro lighthouse - which was cut off from land access for some time - and extending the size of the island somewhat. Exciting stuff, we saw a great photograph of a man with his shirt off looking at the volcano bursting away in the background. No one was hurt, not even any dogs or Germans. Geologists (in my book) say that the Cumbre Vieja, of which this volcano represents the southern tip and itself represents the southern extent of Cumbre Nueva, is one of the most active volcanic rifts in the world! Were we frightened? Not at all. Having discovered that the local wine, also called Teneguia, was strong and one of the nicest that I have ever tasted, I kept myself calm by regular infusions of the stuff. Margaret was still drinking the angel’s home brew and seemed more content than I have ever known her. We stared blankly at some of the most fantastic sunsets that we have ever seen, and thought of England.

On the second day I spotted an island on the horizon, to the south and west of our house.

‘Is it a cloud or is it land?’ I asked.

‘Well, it wasn’t there yesterday,’ said Margaret, and I agreed.

But it is always there, or has been for the last 150 million years or so. It is called El Hierro and, together with La Palma forms the youngest and most westerly of the islands. At first I could not believe that we could see it. It is over 6o miles from La Palma and should be beyond the horizon. My old scientific brain was awakened. I thought that I could calculate the radius of the earth from our balcony and enlisted Margaret as a disinterested assistant. I came up with an answer of 39 kilometres – a little on the small side even accepting the inaccuracy of my measurement. Then I realised that I had calculated the distance to our horizon, that plus the fact that El Hierro, like La Palma, is steep and tall, explained why we could see it. Calculations aside the sight was beautiful and exciting. Later we were able to see Tenerife and La Gomera from the western side of the island, though I am sure that they were not visible when we first arrived in La Palma – it all depends on the weather, of course.

We went exploring, together. Having made the exhausting ascent from our house to the trail that leads to Teneguia and started the long walk to the volcano, we began to pass many Germans on the way, some going, some returning. By this time we had begun to assume that all tourists, apart from ourselves, were German. Just as the Germans and the locals do. It was normal, though faintly irritating to be greeted and addressed in German. We always replied in Spanish. This is Spain, and has been, rightly or wrongly, since 1493. The weather was incredibly variable. Just the T-shirt to start, then jacket on for a storm. Jacket off because the sun is beaming down. Jacket on because the wind is so intense and cold.  Off with the jacket ‘cos it’s hot again – and so on. The trail lies alongside the San Antonia volcano which rose above us for all the world like one of the huge slag heaps from the coal mines that dominated the land of my father (South Wales). As we rounded a corner we could at last see Teneguia, below us and to the south. It was craggy and differed from the much older San Antonio in two other important ways. San Antonio is black, yet relieved by the green of Canarian Pines clinging to its flanks. Teneguia is mostly red and is too young for the growth of plant life to begin.

We finally arrived at first base, a secondary crater. We felt the rocks and they were indeed warm. The weather had worsened and we could see people above cowering behind the upper crater edge for shelter. They were waiting for a break in the wind before crossing the thin ridge that led from our position to theirs.

‘Another day perhaps,’ we agreed gravely and bravely. We began walking back along a different path, one that at first followed the man-made aquifer that tracked the coast far below, then we walked to a large outcropping of yellow rock, then up and up to regain our original path. There we had lunch in the shelter of some pine trees. Margaret professed complete exhaustion at this point. We ate in silence. Afterwards I persuaded her to take a different trail up towards San Antonio, tempting her with coffee and the shops which awaited at the ‘big’ town of Fuencaliente above the volcano. To my amazement she joined me on the zig-zagging path that takes walkers up the side of San Antonio. She said very little, looked pale and absolutely exhausted and stopped countless times to ‘admire the view’. I didn’t think that you could admire the same view so many times. But we made it. The path is not difficult, though sometimes you had to climb over the roots of Canarian Pines. These roots reached enormous distances from the tree itself, I suppose that they need a phenomenal root system to survive in that harsh black sand. But they have also developed another aid, they water their own garden. The needles of these pines are very long and serve to condense the moisture out of the low lying clouds which are so common on most of the islands. The water then drips onto the ground below. They create their own rain!

At the top of the path is a car park, a visitor centre and camels. The camels can be ridden for 10 Euros and the visitors centre entered for 3.5 Euros. This is a tour bus destination and it is not pleasant. Besides the wind was still blowing strongly so we did not fancy an excursion along the rim of San Antonio, though many stalwart Germans did. After recuperation in the visitor’s centre we walked on to Fuencaliente.

When we say ‘ribbon development’ in England we think of a village straddling a main thoroughfare, a thoroughfare which may have a few bends, but does pass straight through the village. In La Palma things are not like this. The slopes are so great that straight roads are a rarity. The roads snake up the gradients so that ribbon developments join to form a blob. Walking through the villages you can take the main road with its lower gradient and snakingly long course, or the direct routes which are incredibly steep. We took the long route through Fuencaliente finally arriving at the main street – which is also the same street.

Fuencaliente has lots of bars (some closed) and the rumour of an Internet cafe. Having walked up and down the main street three times we found the cafe. It had two PCs – one each. On mine the keyboard stuck a lot – so if anybody receives and email saying ‘thgs gd in L Pama’ or the like, that’s where it came from. The library opened at seven and there I was told by the enthusiastic young librarian that Las Indias also had a library, and that it had Wifi, but that’s another story. Unable to find a restaurant we settled on a bar that served snacky stuff. I had a Venezuelan style wrap (many Palmans emigrated to Venezuela when times were bad – inevitably some came back bringing South American recipes with them) which was OK. We then stumbled down the shortcut back to our little black house on the slopes of Los Quemados. The giggling neighbour was quiet that night, thanks be.

Frustrated that I had not been to the crater edge of either volcano and resentful of the crowds that were there on the day before, I set off early (for us) to climb the path again, then to return to the house to do some writing. I had not prepared well. Though the weather had been cloudy yesterday, today I could barely see as the brilliant sun peeped from behind the volcano’s cone. I had forgotten my sunglasses. I was soon at the top, passed through the visitor’s centre and out onto the rim of volcano. But not far. The vertigo got me and I retreated to a safe wide area backed by rocks. I got the camera out and made a quick sortie out to the edge, looked down into the black pit where Canarian Pines had started to grow, looked to the other side of the ridge where the cone sloped deeply down to Los Quemados and then to the sea. The wind tore at my clothes, my head started to swim, and I beetled back to my safe area. Two tourists, the first of the day, arrived, passed me by, then stood chatting on the edge of the crater. They then walked off along the ridge towards the far side where they would, no doubt, be able to look down on Teneguia and the sea. How I envied them.

I retreated, past the car park (empty), past the camel park (not there yet), past the sign saying no admittance, and on to a fairly well used black track. If I could not walk the rim of San Antonia, I would have my own adventure. The track led around another cone and down, down towards vine fields. The track was clearly used by the owners of these places, though at this time of the year the grapes having been harvested, there was no traffic. I walked on, hoping to regain the path we had taken yesterday to Teneguia. After a while I could see the young volcano from above, but my track led me away from it, towards the east. At long last I had to branch off and cut through the black sandy vine fields to link up with a path that I could see well below me and which looked as if it might lead me back. On the way down I examined the vines. Here they grow like creepers, supported by short catapult-like wooden crutches and suitable volcanic stones, just enough height so that the grapes did not touch the ground, I suppose. Further down, nearer to the sea, the farmers had built low walls of volcanic scoria to shelter their crops from the wind. I saw no one on this long walk with the exception of a couple of men, near to Teneguia, working on the shelter walls. As I got nearer to the volcano I decided to reject the path back and follow a little used track that seemed to lead me beneath the volcano’s main lava flow. It was a good choice. The scenery got wilder and wilder, more and more lunar, with nothing growing at all and huge swirls of thirty year old lava next to the older black sand. This lava was sharp as nails and contorted in a way that I had not seen before. The forces of nature had had so little time to smooth and shape the rock. I linked up with a well marked path which led away from my home and down to the south. I decided to follow it, the views of Teneguia were so incredible and the rock formations so variable, I could not resist it. I passed through a barrier of lava flow after which the ground began to fall quite sharply as the footpath snaked downwards. Around one corner I suddenly spotted the lighthouse far below me: Faro. I decided to follow the path all the way and later found that I had happened upon the main footpath around the island, the G121, which takes serious walkers all the way from Faro, along the spine of the Cumbre, around the rim of the Caldera Tamburiente and down to the coast at Tazacorte. It was a good path, and of course I was going down, not up. My morning walk to San Antonio was turning into a major trek. But I could not stop, the scenery was both dramatic and lovely. Approaching the sea all of the time, I turned a corner at one stage and could look to the west, right down to the coast itself. There was a sizeable black beach there and just two people on it – completely naked. Not really, even at this distance I could see that they were fully clothed.

It took a long time to get to the lighthouse, but it was worth it. I had no food with me so This is how  the well-prepared hiker survives in the wastes of southern La Palma! The lighthouse (in fact there are two) had a museum of underwater life, but I was more interested in the salt beds next door. They were very extensive and I climbed through them travelling down towards the sea, traversing a land dotted with cones of pure white salt and walking on roadways that were so engrained with the stuff that you could easily believe that you were in England on a cold, snowy, winter’s day. Except that it was warm, and the rocks were black (giving more contrast to the whiteness of the snow.

The lava flows from Teneguia had ended here and that, together with the beating of the Atlantic Ocean has produced strange shapes and formations. I found a lovely natural arch through which the waves ebbed and flowed, and beside which a small group of yellow wagtails went about their business. I found a deep hole at quite a distance inland from the sea shore via which I could hear the beating of the waves. I crept closer to the hole, trying to look into its depths, there was a sudden crash and water surged up at me, spraying me slightly then quickly falling back. It was frightening, yet exciting. I spent ages trying to photograph this blow-hole in action.

I explored the other side of the lighthouses where there was a pebble beach and cliffs. The cliffs were interlaced with badly built huts and houses, some of them in very poor condition. They were adorned with large, hand-painted signs which asserted the squatters right to be there, claiming that the sea was theirs and protesting the government’s action in trying to evict them. I hope that they win.

 I caught the bus back! Yes, it turned out that there was a bus every two hours. It ran all the way along the coast, through the banana concentration camps, slipped into the luxury resort to pick up tourists who had been issued with day passes (not really, or perhaps?), then up the steep road to Las Indias where I alighted and walked the mile or so to our house. I was footsore, but contented. That had been a good walk.

On the next day we stayed mostly at home, walking to Las Indias to use the Internet terminals in the library – for free! Then a few ‘copas’ in the Las Indias bar followed by the assault of the pizzeria. This place actually existed, it was not just a sign. It perches high up on a bend in the main road. The approach  road to it is certainly the steepest I have ever encountered. Cars are prohibited from attempting the ascent, it is the nearest thing to a one-in-one sloped road that I have ever seen. We made it, ate pizzas, drank more local wine and waddled off home to watch the awful Canarian TV. But that night they had a Canarian traditional (after the conquest) musical recital. Lots of musicians and singers dotted around a large table, singing and clapping and playing guitars, some of them very tiny (the guitars that is – called timbles). It was great. It was on again the next night – but once was enough.

More walking. I had a plan. The next day we would walk into Las Indias, catch the 10.15 bus up to Fuencaliente (the ‘big town’) then follow the footpath along the Cumbre Viejas – more volcanoes, more adventures. Margaret had decided to come with me for some of the walk, then return to the big town. All went well until we saw the bus on the road way above us as we walked into Las Indias at 10.13. It was early, we had missed it. I decided to hitch a lift. The fourth car picked us up. He was a Moroccan who worked in the casino at the luxury resort far down below. He had lived in the Canaries for nine years and loved it. He looked like a criminal, he had the Arabic equivalent of the London spiv look (are there still London spivs?) But though he took us on a strange route through the streets of Fuencaliente he did not abduct us and would take nothing for the ride. Cheaper than the bus!

It was a nice day for a walk. The weather here is mostly mild, mostly cloudy, but with generous bursts of sunshine. Average temperatures are about 18 degrees, this was an average day. Margaret did well at first given that the path was quite hard going at times. It was tree-lined and offered little in the way of views, but was still interesting. She tired after an hour or so, said that her legs were giving out and started the walk back down to Fuencaliente where we had agreed to meet if I got back whilst she was still there. As we parted we both noted a droning sound in the distance, as if we were hearing traffic noise from a distant motorway – but there are no motorways on La Palma, and no continuous flows of traffic. As I walked on I came upon a peak beneath which the drone was loudest. I looked up and saw a cellular antenna up there, the drone was produced by the generator which powered the cell’s electronics. You can’t get away from technology.

I came to a footpath crossing and saw, coming towards me from a ridge above the first walker of the day - besides Margaret of course. He was an earnest looking chap, descending at great speed and with barely time for a nod. At his speed he would overtake Margaret before she got to Fuencaliente.  I was a little disappointed, beginning to assume that I had the path to myself.

I had to round the bottom of a volcanic cone on a thin path with a fast drop beneath me. The vertigo began to set in and I feared that I would have to follow then earnest walker and Margaret back to Fuencaliente. But I got around it OK and at the other end found a stick and my courage. I carried on. The pines began to decrease in density and I came upon an area of great beauty. I left the track to see it better. Behind me was the volcanic cone that I had circled, in front was a line of three cones, higher than that one already passed and stretching into the distance. A long river of solid lava seem to dribble down from the side of the middle volcano making a grey river of twisted and cracked rock that descended towards me and then down to the eastern face of Cumbre Vieja. Around me were dells in which small pines grew, surrounded by a rounded blanket of dead pine needles, yellow against the blackness of the volcanic sand in which the trees were rooted – like a patchwork of sandy golf tees in a tiny course of black grass.

I enjoyed all of this then went to rejoin the path – there was a couple there. I waited until they had moved on then started off myself, a good distance behind them, I hoped. They were German, about my age. It was here that I injured my right foot, I stubbed the big toe against a sharp rock that jutted from the footpath. If I had been wearing ‘suitable footwear’ no doubt all would have been well. But the sandals offered no protection. I walked on for a while but the pain was worrying. I stopped,, removed my sandal and saw a small pool of blood where my big toe rested, my sock was also bloody. I removed the sock, wrapped my big toe in a tissue that I happened to have in my pocket and changed into my running shoes. Walking was painful, but at least I would not stub the same toe again. As I rounded a bend the couple were there! They had stopped to put on their jackets, it was getting cold as we climbed towards the three cones. I passed them by with a quick ‘Ola’. Later, as I sat looking at view, they passed me. And so it went on – irritatingly – I wanted to be on my own.

The going got harder as the path got steeper and the black sand softer. My shoes dug into it and some sand inevitably got inside and, inevitably, worked its way along to the wound – very painful. I trekked across an odd valley formed by the first two cones and then followed the footpath rapidly upwards towards the cone that had spilled all that lava. There were three people already at the head of the path and as I reached it, more came down from the cone above – all German. I rested for a while lodged between some rocks and looking into a deep crater, an old one in which the pines had begun to take hold. It’s greyness was enhanced by the splashes of green. To my right was another crater, overlooked by the cone that the Germans had descended from. This was quite spectacular, on my side the rim was edged by a very red rock with some orange splashes enhancing the deepness of the red. Two of the Germans were standing on the narrow rim, conversing. I walked nervously along the path towards them and looked down into the crater, this one was deeper and made more memorable by the red rock that seemed to spill down its side. I could not go out onto the rim itself, for the usual reasons, but did have a good look down and took some photos, then went back to my rocky perch above to eat lunch. As I ate more Germans arrived. Where were they coming from? Was this place linked to Germany in some strange way, was this why there were so many of them here in La Palma? I investigated. The next stage of the pathway was across a narrow pathway which linked to the next cone. On one side was the deep grey crater, on the other the deep valley that I had crossed to get here. One glance told me that I could never cross that thin path. Yet the Germans were passing it in groups. I can’t really say that they were singing ‘the hills are alive’ as they crossed – but nearly. I got brassed off with saying ‘Ola’ to their ‘Halloos’ or ‘Gutten dags’. Any way I had gone far enough. I started back down the path in order to return to Fuencaliente and meet Margaret. Then ,blow me if the couple I had become entwined with going up weren’t just behind me. Fortunately they turned off onto another track. Then, blow me if, just around the bend, I found eight or so Germans cleaning out their boots. They had taken a short cut from the cone above the crater and were now in front of me – the buggers were everywhere.

I did not enjoy the trip down to the crossroads. There I found yet another German couple consulting a serious guide of the footpaths of La Palma. They looked at me grimly. I asked them if they spoke English and they said a little, which usually means a lot.

‘Could you tell if the path to the left leads eventually to Fuencaliente, because,’ I added, ‘ I am thoroughly cheesed off with being surrounded by people of your race here on the Cumbre Viaje, though of course I am always pleased to meet Germans in Germany.’

Well no, I didn’t really add that last bit. And they were very helpful. It seemed that the left hand path would lead me to Fuencaliente, but it would be longer. They asked me how long it would take to get to the town on the main path. I guessed at  about an hour. They told me that they had walked from the Refugio de Pilar, some 18 kilometres to the north. So this was the source of the Germans, a place not so far from El Paso where we had lived the week before  - and was full of ... dogs.

The path led down through the lava flow I had seen from above, down again through another flow of rocks that were encrusted with a luxuriant grey lichen which softened the rocks and produced a lunar landscape, down through a never ending forest of pines and finally back to the original path near where Margaret and I had parted and so to Fuencaliente. The path double back on itself very seriously, so the trek took a long time – both feet were in pain by the time that I reached the town. It was also getting dusky. I rang Margaret, she had left ages ago and was happily resting at home. I watched a funeral procession and formed a theory as to why the Spanish walk so slowly, then found a suitable bar  and drank two glasses of my favourite volcanic wine. Strangely I was joined there by the barmaid from Los Indias who talked to me for the whole time, non-stop, despite my regular protestations that I could understand very little. My protestations seemed simply to reset her conversation to the beginning. I finally dragged myself away and sore-footed it back to the black house where Margaret made a delicious fry up and we had an evening at home.

Our stay at Los Quemados terminated on Sunday. On the day after the walk we caught a bus to Fuencaliente and another to Santa Cruz, the capital. There we searched for accommodation for the next day, finally settling on the only place we found, a small apartment block above two tourist shops in the old main street, Calle O’Daly, yes, named after an Irish man. The block was run by a very helpful German chap in his fifties who worried a lot. He also fixed us up with a hire car – the plan was that we would use the car for some last minute visits to  places of interest in La Palma, and to bring our luggage from Los Quemados. Oddly enough the car had to be delivered all the way from Cancajos, where we had first lived and where I had hired a car from Silenia. But this car was from another company – and delivered by a German whose name, we later learned, was Oscar. He was a fascinating find. He had lived in La Palma for ten years. He came to the island on holiday, met and fell in love with a Palma girl, took her back to German with him where they lived for two years. She pined for Palma so he had to choose between her or Germany. He chose her. He disliked the Germans who live on the island, making it clear that he had no social contact with them whatsoever – just business. He had been partly absorbed into the family of his wife and loved it and them. A tall and serious man, he had had various careers including selling ice-cream for two years in Berlin, very successfully. He believed that unification had ruined the city. He told us that many Germans on the island were bad people. They tricked their own countryman, especially those new to the place , out of money and sold them houses and land at inflated prices. The German mind was obsessed by money, he told us, the Spanish (of La Palma at least) were obsessed by life. If a German gave a child five Euros he would put it in a bank account for the child’s future. In La Palma they gave a child five Euros and insisted that they go out and spend it – right then. He had adopted the Palma mindset, he claimed. I smiled and he admitted that he had not entirely gone native. He ran the Oasis car hire branch along German lines, which puzzled his workers, but lived his social life in the ways of La Palma. Oscar was an interesting man to talk to, and once we opened the floodgates he demonstrated his Spanish side by a willingness to talk at length and not concern himself too much about renting the car. His English was good too - but we had to go, we are still English.

We visited the Guanche (indigenous people who arrived on the islands some 2,500 years back) caves at a village near Mazo. The cave was run by someone who had a Certificate in Responsible Tourism, which seemed to mean that they tried to sell us various things including honey rum and banana liquor! We were offered tasters but, being a responsible driver, I refused (how English). The cave was interesting though, provided that you ignored the recoded sounds of pigs and goats as you approached through a tunnel under the main road. It is more of an overhang than a cave, looking down the barranco towards the sea (a major source of food and implements for them). It provided a big covered space in which they kept animals, slept and had regular karaoke sessions on Friday nights. There were other, detached caves above and some petroglyphs, large ornate carvings in stone, mostly based on swirling, snailshell patterns.

That night we did something daring. We took the hired car (a rather nice Leon) down to the Cerca Viaje – the new tourist complex near the sea. I think Margaret hankered to visit it and I was interested too. It is vast and, as far as we could tell, virtually empty, though there were two couples in one of the many pools (a heated one). Apartment block after apartment block formed chasms through which we walked guiltily. We had decided to have a drink and did find, in one of the hotels, one of the biggest bars I have ever seen (and I have seen a few). It was virtually deserted and had no atmosphere, the wine was three and half Euros a glass, in Las Indias it was one. We left, passing many adverts for fitness lessons, organised trekking and bicycling. It was all rather sad.

I drove the car along the twisty road to Fuencaliente, parked it outside the restaurant Era and had a good meal and lots of Teneguia wine on this, our last night in the area. We walked home and the next morning I climbed the volcano side for the last time in order to get the car back. On the way to Santa Cruz with our luggage we visited Port Naos, the most popular beach resort in the island. We had avoided it, but the beach itself was nice enough. Black of course, but hot on that day, and plenty of people swimming and sun bathing – but we could not stay, and we would not want to stay there. Most of the accommodation is in tallish blocks set back from the sea and with no views.

We had another musical night. As we wandered around the capital looking for a restaurant after a few beers in the Rock Bar opposite our apartment, Margaret spotted a sign for something called Miende. We had little idea what it was but the poster looked interesting. The performance started at 8.30, it was then 8.10. With a great deal of help we found El Teatro del Circo in its eyrie up many steps, bought tickets at 10 Euros and joined what passes for a queue in Santa Cruz. Lovely building, a bit like a circus top with minimal decoration and many doors, all with splendid crimson curtains. We waited with interest as the audience, which covered a great age range and seemed to be entirely local, piled in. There was the usual babble that the Spanish produce when waiting, then all of the crimson curtains were carefully drawn covering ten or so entry and exit doors and the show began, noisily. There were some big speakers at the front which boomed out powerful and evocative drum beats. The stage was in near darkness, all we could see was a set of eight pillars.

It’s amazing what some performers can do with a minimum of props. In this performance there were the pillars, some nets on big racks and a lot of silky coloured material. The pillars were quite large but, when the actors appeared, singing, from behind them they proved to be light constructions that looked like stone and were used time and time again to build walls, pyramids and so on. The nets were used to crawl up, to stand on and to build cages. The material was used in dances and as a general effect. The most memorable dance was that of the seven veils, in reverse. An attractive young woman of medium build appeared naked from the waist up and was gradually wrapped in the silks. None of this meant a thing to Margaret and I. We could not understand the words and hadn’t the foggiest idea of what the storyline was (a Greek tragedy perhaps?) – but we enjoyed the show, sheer theatre. Afterwards most of Santa Cruz was closed, we dined on half warm tapas. And so to our rather crummy beds in our rather noisy top floor apartment – quite a come down from the lovely house at Los Quemados.

Gran Canaria

Our expectations of Gran Canaria were not high. We both loved La Palma and had enjoyed our three weeks there very much. Furthermore I became a great fan of the wine and I could hardly carry much of it away in the plane. We had not planned to go to Gran Canaria at all. We had been told that the ferry to Lanzarote called at the place anyway and so decided to give it a try. Then the ferry was cancelled, so we flew. Why we flew to Gran Canaria rather than direct to Lanzarote I’m not quite sure, I suppose the idea had taken root so we went with it. The approach in the plane showed an island which was pretty much round, the other islands were more misshapen. It was taller than expected and displayed massive valleys emanating from the centre and down to the sea. As we drew nearer things did not look good. We could see the massive resorts to the south with their high-rise white buildings seeming to grow directly out of the desert.

Hiring a car was a doddle. Same company as in Tenerife, cheap daily rate and no tricks where they sell you a tank of fuel at ridiculous cost and tell you to return the car empty. ‘That is because you hired for seven days,’ said the couldn’t-be-more-helpful chap behind the desk when I complained of this duplicitous trick. I told him that we were looking for somewhere quiet and non-tourist on the island, somewhere we were more likely to mix with locals. ‘Agaete,’ he said with confidence, ‘it is small and the tourists from the south do not go there.’ He gave me directions and we set off - a new island, a new car (a Kia, and our fourth hire on the trip so far) and a search for a new home (this would be our eighth). I felt great, but the journey soon burst my bubble.

The road north from the airport is good: a three lane motorway in fact. Lining it is the most awful comurbia I have ever seen. Lots of those large shed-like warehouses forming industrial estates and retail parks; villages that were not so nice in the first place were invaded by those awful buildings and cut in two by the wide road. The intervening wasteland looking very much that - a wasteland. We carefully by-passed Las Palmas, the capital of the island - with its one third of a million inhabitants it has more than four times the population of the entire island of La Palma. Driving on towards Agaete did nothing to improve things, the only saving grace was the sight of the sea and, when we got close to it, the sight of large waves trying to erode this overpopulated place. Then, as we rounded the north-eastern corner (can a round island have a corner), the population began to thin right out - and we approached Agaete.

First impressions were not good. We turned off at a roundabout pointing to the town centre and this led us inland, away from the sea shore and those beautiful crashing waves. What’s more the place was made up of extremely narrow streets which were full of extremely large lorries. The little Kia car was nestled between two of them in a line that was edging towards the centre of the town and so we were pushed up a road that had a clear ‘no entry’ sign at its junction. An old man banged on my window saying that I should not be there, this street was only for lorries, I would get a ticket! I looked at him bemused. I gesticulated. In front was a large lorry, motionless in the jam of lorries. Behind was an even bigger one, also motionless and with easily enough space to squeeze and orange through on both sides. He said that I should turn off at the next junction, which I did. I parked the Kia in a space that would barely hold my motorbike (it’s a small car, and quite nice) and we started to explore.

There was something about Agaete that we really liked. It wasn’t the name, which is hard to say, and it certainly wasn’t the lorries. Probably it was just so Spanish: it had life. There was music from loudspeakers in the main square. There were people and hustle and bustle as only the Spanish can hustle and bustle. Loud shouts carried from one side of the road to the other, old men were sitting on walls watching the world going by and saying ‘Hola’ to anyone who might reply, There were bars with the usual line up of men smoking and keeping a weather eye on the football which was permanently fed to them by a large TV screen. And the lorries for some reason added to the atmosphere, thundering through the town causing blockages and mayhem which invigorated the life of this lively place. We climbed amongst the steep streets looking for accommodation, but found none; so we headed back towards the sea to find Puerto de las Nieves, the true reason why this little town had formed. It was delightful. A large old, and larger new, harbour washed beneath staggeringly high cliffs that formed the first part of a ridge of old volcanoes that staggered down to the south in a misty ragged sawtooth that confounded the eye. There were restaurants and a ferry to Tenerife – and we could see El Teide, the great volcano of that island floating in the distance above its own sea of white clouds, a mystical sight and one that we never tired of. There were two hotels in the port, and what seemed to be lots of low rise, attractive, apartment buildings. This is where we wanted to be – but it was not to be. The hotels were too expensive and the only apartment we found to rent, we rejected.

The apartment was above a shop, called Tienda Loli. Loli ran the shop and saw me looking up at the apartment and shouted across the street. ‘You want apartment, lovely apartment, views, bathroom, television, everything.’ She was a woman of about sixty, soft skinned and fleshy; she had an outgoing personality in the way that some gypsies have, backed by the same burning desire to make some business with the non-gypsies. She all but pushed Margaret and myself up the stairs to look at the place, then carried on tending her customers who had been kept waiting whilst we nosed around. The place was big and had vast terrace that looked over the harbour, the cliffs and the volcanic ridge. But it did not seem at all clean, no more than Loli. There were crumbs all over the table. Margaret sniffed the pillows and declared them used – she is clever at that sort of thing. She also inspected the sheets and gave the same conclusion. We looked into the bathroom. Towels were used and wet. Perhaps the apartment was waiting to be cleaned after previous occupants. We went back down to the shop, feeling that we had invaded some other couples’ space.

‘The apartment is not clean.’ We said sheepishly. Loli grabbed my arm and patted it.

‘Clean, yes, is clean, very clean. You take apartment yes. For you only 45 Euros.’

That was a good price for a big place in a smashing spot.

‘You will change the sheets, the pillow cases?’ we asked with great difficulty. Neither of us could remember the Spanish words for these things.

‘No, no. No problem. All clean. Very good. Good apartment.’

‘They are not clean. They need to be changed,’ we responded dismally.

‘Yes, yes. I change. No problem. You take the apartment – good apartment. Best in the port,’ she grabbed my arm again as if she would not release it until I said yes.

‘We will think about it,’ said Margaret, gaining my release. We did - and thought, no. It’s seedy and we would feel seedy.

Some apartments up above the port had even better views, but they were near the noisy road and even more run down. The German man who ran them seemed to sense that we weren’t keen. Why he wasn’t spending money on repairs I don’t know – the gardens were beautifully kept. Perhaps the problem was lack of guests, no money, no maintenance, a spiralling situation. We said that we would think of it, he did not grab my arm, seeming resigned to the implicit refusal.

Above these run down apartments were some beautifully finished new houses, gleaming white and sparkling in the sun, for these we would pay a premium, but they were not for rent. We had failed. What next. We phoned a German lady about some rooms in Agaete – they were already let, no good. We decided to try further down the coast, at a place called Risco, not too far away. We had time. We had left La Palma at nine that morning, but it was only about two o’clock now. We would survive, we always found somewhere.

We nearly died in the attempt to get to Risco. I have never experienced a road quite so bad. The surface was OK, but it was so narrow. It clung to the cliffs high above the sea and constantly wound in tight bends that made both of us dizzy. The road demanded total concentration, not a second could be spared for the driver to admire the view, study the rocks or, sometimes, even to breath. Meeting other traffic was awful. There just did not seem enough space on the road for two cars, even if one was a Kia. But somehow we managed to pass a number of vehicles going in the other direction. Then, as I approached a very tight bend to the left, the crash barrier and the drop being on my right, I heard a deafening noise. At first I did not realise what it was, then it became clear that it was the sound of a strong horn. I thought at first that it was coming from behind me, that some truck driver was trying to get by me or force me to speed up. I glanced into the mirror. Nothing. Then I realised that the truck must be coming towards me, around the bend. I was almost into the bend itself. I banged on the brakes and leant on the horn. Nothing happened, the car juddered to a stop but my horn did not sound – perhaps Kia’s don’t have one. Then the road ahead filled with this great white lorry which was rushing towards us. I was sure that there was no room for it to pass between the Kia and the cliff. It was coming very fast and there was nothing, absolutely nothing that I could do. No time to reverse - which would have been madness anyway - no forward motion to steer any closer to the crash barrier, and I was close enough anyway. In a second or so it was on us with a deafening roar, it was gone. I’m sure that the gap between our vehicles was almost nothing, and I’m sure that the driver did not even brake. If he had hit us, even glancingly I’m convinced that we would have been forced through the barrier and then to a certain and very painful death far below. Phew, I was really shaken. But I had to carry on, though even more nervously than before. We made it to Risco. It was a small, run-down town with a bar and a shop. We bought a very light lunch in the bar and discussed our future – now that we had one.

The Kia was short of petrol – it’s a long story. I asked the barmaid if I could get fuel in Risco. She had been asked this many times before. She interrupted my questions saying that it was fourteen kilometres to Agaete or twenty something kilometres to some place down the coast. I looked at the map. The coastal road to the south would be just like the suicide route I had just driven, and I doubted that I would make it with the tank nearing empty. I wasn’t even sure that I could get back, and also felt a sense of failure in retracing my route, but that’s what we did. Retracing our route, fearful now of white trucks driven by maniacs, and fearful of running out of petrol on a dangerous bend. Part way along the warning light lit on the petrol gauge. I tried to ignore it, but started to coast downhill when I could to save fuel. Other cars started piling up behind. Three of them, all locals, all of whom had probably died in front of a white truck and been reincarnated. I ignored them and swished from bend to bend in fuel saving mode.

We made it, and I asked the lady at the service station who seized the hose from my hand and insisted on putting petrol in the Kia herself (they still do that in Spain) if there was anywhere to stay in Agaete.

‘Casa Tecla,’ she said, and her assistant hose holder agreed. She gave me quite precise instructions which simply led me back to the main square (actually just a fat bit on the main through road). I went into the bar on the corner to ask for help. An elderly lady with a youthful air and with hippy tendencies came to my aid. Dressed in denim jeans rather than the black widows weeds that are customary for aging women in Spain (and, of course, the Canary Islands) she led me up the steep slope beside the bar to a doorway that we had already seen, and admired, on our previous tour of the town. She knocked on the door – nothing. She unclipped the piece of wire that maintained the door in a partially opened state and shouted: ‘Tecla’.

No response. She beckoned us inside, inside to a stairway bedecked with family photos and artificial flowers. ‘Should we really be here,’ we thought.

She offered us seats in the hallway and then called again; ‘Tecla’.

No response, so she went into the hallway to the right calling as she went. She finally returned with a much more conventional lady of her own age – dressed in widow’s weeds, fat and dumpy where she was almost skeletal. We asked Tecla if she had an apartment to rent. The reply was long, but the answer was no. Meanwhile, behind our potential landlady, our guide made the conventional motions of implied madness, screwing her right finger into her temple. We looked disappointed, distraught. Senora Tecla then said she had a room, but there seemed to be some problem, it seemed that it would not be available until seven that evening. We asked why not, but were unsure of the response. Was the room already occupied? Did she rent rooms in shifts like some houses of ill-repute? We asked if we could see the room. This was greeted with great enthusiasm and we traipsed upstairs following Tecla who groaned and held her aching back as we rose to a pretty terrace decorated by an artificial Christmas tree and overlooking the little street in below. The room was pretty crummy. The bathroom which was across the terrace was sort of OK, the price was 30 Euros. At last we began to understand why we could not have the room until 7pm. Senora Tecla’s daughter, her beloved ‘bambina’, would not be able to clean it and make the bed until then. We were desperate by now, so we took the room and moved the suitcases in. We then went for a tour in the car, up the valley towards the centre of the island. It was beautiful: green and with stunning mountains dressed with clusters of white houses. It was also very quiet (except when those damned lorries rolled through, I guessed that there was some big construction project going on above somewhere). We then returned to the port where Margaret slept in the car (she had not slept the night before for fear of missing the plane and because of the noise in the Santa Cruz apartment) and I walked around the small town looking for the finger of god (a rock), trying to avoid Loli (which was difficult) and taking a few beers in a deserted local bar.

We returned to Casa Tecla and the room. Nothing had happened. The bed was unmade and there was an incredible noise filling the whole place – a sort of vibration, as if from a pneumatic drill, but constant. I crawled about the place trying to find the source – we couldn’t possibly sleep in that noise.

We went downstairs to find Senora Tecla. I knocked on her private door. After a while a young man appeared, carrying a flashlight. I explained that we wished to see Senora Tecla. He went back along the corridor with the help of the flashlight. We never did find out why he used the thing - the electricity was on and all the lights seemed to work. She accused me of locking the door of the room, which I had not. Disgruntled she and the man, who transpired to be her son-in-law, went up to our room to make the bed!

She returned in better humour and invited us in for a tour of her apartment. It was vast. At least four bedrooms and two bathrooms. The furnishing was sumptuous and in many cases the place was a mausoleum. One room was dedicated entirely to the memory of her husband. It held huge ceramic statues, silver figurines and richly varnished furniture. Two bedrooms held ornate cradles for babies. The bathroom was beautifully tiled, though the toilet was clearly broken. In one room there was a large doll’s house. A doorway from this room led to the bar cum restaurant below, which she owned. As she showed us all of this she often pointed to photographs of her husband, her mother, her father – all dead.

‘Jesus is my only friend now,’ she told Margaret as we passed a large rendition of the crucifixion in silver. Margaret sympathised, she has great empathy on these occasions.

‘My head does not work too well,’ moaned Senora Tecla, ‘And my back aches so bad,’ she continued, sitting for a while before continuing the tour. We made sympathetic noises.

‘And what about the noise from above,’ I asked rather selfishly, thinking of our crummy room in relation to all of this refined luxury.

She laughed, then announced, ‘It will stop in half an hour.’ And it did.

Senora Tecla came to see us in the morning. She had a doctor’s appointment she explained whilst holding her back and making moaning sounds. She had come to collect the 30 Euros but did not actually say so. We paid up and were left alone in the house, though the mausoleum where Tecla lived was firmly locked.

Over breakfast cum lunch in the bar beneath Tecla’s flat we discussed our next move. One night in that cell-like room was enough. Margaret ordered a mixed sandwich and I had a roll with Spanish omelette inside. I was so jealous. Her sandwich turned out to be a full English breakfast in a stack of toast. A little circle had been cut out of the top to expose the egg. She is so much better at selecting food than I am, my expertise lies elsewhere. We decided that, despite the terror of the roads we must explore the interior of the island, maybe the inner roads would be better, though our old guide book warned us that they were not for the faint-hearted.

We set off for Argudas on the main road, cutting inland before reaching the capital. This town was quite large, it had two major claims to fame: it had an odd Baptist church that dominated the approach to the place. Grey, gothic, foreboding and of cathedral proportions, it suited this town like a glove suits the hand of a jellyfish; it was also the main source of rum (‘ron’ in Spanish, which was the staple drink of this island, not wine). It had fine houses but I had no desire to stay there so we moved on to Teror, which had little to commend it that we could see. So we moved on along roads that were getting thinner but were nothing to drive along compared with yesterday’s wall of death. We arrived at San Mateo, a large quiet place with many shops and no accommodation and nothing to attract us. We were at a loss. We did not want to hit the beach resorts where there was everything the traveller might want – except solitude. We wanted to see rural Gran Canaria.

There were two interesting villages inland: Tejeda and Artensa. It was clear from the map that they were approached by very wiggly roads. Time was getting on and darkness would fall at around six. I went into a bar and asked if there was accommodation at Tejeda. This initiated a drunken debate between two of the locals and the barman which was quite inconclusive. I entered another bar and was immediately referred to a local expert. He had been drinking, of course, but seemed quite cogent. He assured me that there was a pension (small cheap hotel) in Tejeda. ‘Near the town hall, very good, very cheap,’ he said, bathing me with rum fumes. I took him at his word and we set out for the interior, braving hairpins, narrow roads, cloud and rain – but once again, nothing compared with the wall of death near Agaete.

The clouds evaporated as we approached Tejeda and the village and its surroundings were breathtakingly beautiful. Now I knew why we had come to Gran Canaria. We had seen many stunning sights during the last four weeks, but this had to rate amongst the top landscapes. Huge and strangely shaped rocks towered above us, sites that we later learned were sacred to the early settlers of this island. One of them was called El Nublo – the cloud. Beneath was the village of Tejeda, white houses tumbling down the valley to the fertile fields below and the valley tumbling on and on with mountain peaks within it as far the eye could see. We loved the village itself with its many restaurants and bars, its beautiful town hall, village square and views over the Barranco de Tejeda. Why, this place even had a petrol station! Such civilisation. The only negative was that it was a bit cold and windy – and set at 1,200 metres above sea level this wasn’t surprising. There was a pension and it did have a room – well lots actually, we were the only people there. The room was clean, had an en-suite and only cost 25 Euros per night. We decided to stay for two nights. Everything was perfect. We moved in, walked around the village deciding where we might go for a drink and food that evening. We then returned to the room where Margaret read, cuddled up in bed whilst I wrote, fully clothed in my thickest jacket. It was cold and there was no heating. The light fell and we regretfully closed the shutter on the fading view of the large rock that dominated the village. With the darkness came more wind and the temperature plummeted. We went out in search of warmth, booze and food. The old lady who ran the place was not now wrapped up in the book which she seemed to be learning by heart, and there was a man with her. They greeted us enthusiastically, clearly hoping that we would eat and drink in their capacious but deserted and cold bar. We went exploring.

Everything was closed. Everything, that is, except a hotel which we had not seen before, the door of which was ajar. Inside it was warm. This place had central heating. How we wished we were staying there. It had no restaurant but the receptionist told us of a place that might be open. I could not understand the instructions but Margaret seemed to (or was just being encouraging). We found the place by luck as we toured the dark and deserted village of Tejeda in the searing wind. Three lonely drinkers sat at the bar and showed only a slight interest in us. The barmaid wore a hat like a tea cosy and was wary of us, but once she realised that we wanted to eat and we realised that she had food, she became quite animated beneath her strange hat. We were shown into a back room which was moderately warm and completely empty. The food was basic but mercifully hot. I had bits of pig, fried and Margaret had the local stew. We then crept back to our cold room through the windswept streets and spent a mostly sleepless night, further disturbed by a surprising amount of early morning traffic. Still a nice hot shower soon gets you going, we though. But there was no hot water. I went to find someone, the man we had seen on the previous evening was preparing food in the kitchen of the bar downstairs, for whom I have no idea. Perhaps he did this as some sort of habit or something. I told him that there was no hot water, he expressed surprise and concern. Surely he knew. He immediately diagnosed the problem. The strong wind had blown out the heater, he told me and marched up the stairs with a box of matches in his hand. ‘Ten minutes,’ he called, anticipating the obvious question. An hour later we did what we could under a trickle of warmish water. We could not stay here. I paid the man the 25 Euros and we left.

But now the weather was splendid. Though still cold out of the sun, it was sunny and the place was as beautiful as ever. We decided to move on to Artensa, a village to the west. This place was even better: for views, for houses, and for the general, higgledy-piggledy, nature of the place. Looking down from the balcony where a realistic figure of a man had been installed (they like their statues in the Canaries, and so do I) we could see layer after layer of small fields interspersed with mountain peaks and agricultural tracks in a delightful green, brown tumble. The rocks of Gran Canary are not like those of La Palma and Tenerife. It is geologically much older, browns, yellows and reds are mixed together and there is little in the way of the basaltic black rock except on the coast. Many people still live in caves in Artensa, though they now have nice frontages and gardens. We found one with the Casa Rural (Country House, usually to rent) sign outside and decided that it would be a great adventure to live in a cave for a few nights. Besides the book that I was reading at the time (on China) said that cave dwellings tended to be warm. We tracked down the tourist information office that deals with renting these places, it was closed. ‘Closed for three weeks,’ said a woman in charge of road sweeping in the village, smiling kindly as she said it. The village had a pension – it was also closed. It also had a cave church with the bell embedded in the rock above it. The pulpit, altar and so on, were all carved from the rock of the cave itself. So sweet – and it was warm. Perhaps we could live there. But  just then three minivans of tourists arrived in the village and we knew it was time to move on.

In fact we found a hotel in Teror, the place we had visited the day before. It was reasonably priced, clean, and had heating – so important to us just then. We had travelled to the Canaries for warmth, there was plenty of cold in England. On the way we had been to an upmarket place on the edge of Arucas (the source and downfall of Ron). It was rather nice and a suitable anti-dote to life in the wild. However, the suave, elegant young receptionist told us that the charge for a night was 125 Euros. As we left with lifted eyebrows she offered us a card, we did not accept. Still, so many little failures in travel lead to interesting asides. The flash hotel was next to a banana plantation. As I went to get the car a man appeared from amongst the thick growth of bananas and I began to question him about the plant and its growth – it fascinates me. Besides I have an ongoing bet with my sons about the direction in which bananas grow. ‘Have a look round the huerto,’ said the man, ‘help yourself.’ So I did.

It is a strange plant. Huge leaves of course, but also a huge flower. Behind each set of petals is a ring of tiny bananas to be. These are left behind as the flower shoot extends (supported in the plantations because it is all so heavy), more petals open and another little ring of bananas is discovered. The bananas behind meanwhile growing into bigger and bigger fruit. So the flower hangs down on its lengthening shoot and the bananas behind grow upwards. But what I also wanted to find was the start of the flower, the initial bud. And at last, as I walked down row after row of banana plants I found one. This of course grows upwards from the middle of the tree, just one of them, until its sheer weight keels it over then towards the ground. So there is the answer, bananas grow up and down, according to age.

Teror was OK. It has a nice old colonial style centre which we had missed travelling through it on the day before – there is an impressive square and large church, all colonial. It is claimed that the colonial style originated in the Canaries. There were quite a few bars, but no restaurant. We asked and followed directions, when we did find a restaurant, it was closed. Finally we ate a passable meal in a tapas bar. We were the only people there and the doors were closed and locked whilst we ate. Fortunately, when we returned to our hotel the bar was still open and quite lively. We had taken a drink there before starting our nocturnal tour of Teror and found that two people remained from the early evening bunch, a white-bearded man and a short, older woman. She had spent her entire time on the fruit machine earlier. He had been drinking rum and coke and was now surrounded by empty coke cans. I asked the landlord, a very avuncular chap, what all the silver cups were for, there were loads of them, some really big, all gleaming in the lights at the back of the enormous bar and dining room.

‘Dominoes,’ he said proudly. ‘We have five teams here and they are very good. They travel all over the islands, win many competitions. Also six a side football, but most of the cups are for dominoes. People play cards here too.’

We started to discuss cards and he took out the Spanish pack. I had seen them before, but they still seemed odd, cudgels and cucumbers seem to dominate rather than things that we are to like clubs and diamonds. I think they play some form of whist where it is essential to throw down the cards with great verve. Our conversation drew in the white-bearded rum drinker, let’s call him Ron. Ron offered to show Margaret a trick. She took a card then handed it back to him. He shuffled the pack, let her shuffle, then somehow found her card. Given the strangeness of the cards this might well have been any one of them, but Margaret agreed that it was her card. He was delighted, laughed a lot, then spoiled the whole effect by showing Margaret how he did it. Ron will never be invited to join the magic circle. For his next trick salt, ice and a glass of water were called for, also  a toothpick. There are always plenty of toothpicks in Spanish bars, men chew them as they play cards. Ron set me the task of removing a cube of ice from the glass of water using only the tooth pick and the salt. I tried a few things, but quickly gave up. Once again Ron was delighted. He moved me to one side in order to show me how. It didn’t work. The glass was changed, more ice was brought – no good. Another ice cube was selected. Salt was poured on it, the tooth pick placed on it and raised carefully – no good. And so it went on, and on until everyone had lost interest. And then he did it. Ron lifted out the ice cube with just the aid of the tooth pick and salt – a victory for physical science. He was delighted and so were we, even the fruit machine lady cheered. It had taken ten ice cubes, seven glasses of water and half a container of salt, but he had done it. Now we could go to our warm room, into our warm bed, and sleep in a warm bed.

Next morning there was a problem. Unlike the pension in Tejeda where there was a shortage of hot water – here was no water at all. I went down to complain. The bar was deserted. On the bar top lay a container of salt and a glass of water, the only water in the place perhaps. I called ‘Hola’, nothing. I tried the water in the downstairs toilet, nothing. Back to the room, still no water. Back downstairs, still no one. Could we wash in a glass of salt water. Don’t be silly. We had to return the car to the airport that morning, we had to go, shower or not. As we left someone came to open the bar. I complained about the lack of water, just for the sake of complaining – nothing could be done, of course.

Having returned the car at the airport we easily found the bus to the capital, Las Palmas. How confusing! We had left the island of La Palma just three days before. Now we were entering the big city of Las Palmas, the capital of Gran Canaria. The bus dropped us at a bus station near to a park. I managed to find a half-helpful tourist information office that somehow got us, via taxi, to another park, called Santa Catalina, out on the peninsula which helps to make this city such an intriguing place. I deposited Margaret and the luggage on a park bench near a children’s playground and set off to find a hotel. What a weighty responsibility. We had spent three nights in dirty, sub-standard accommodation, without hot water and then without any water. I had to make amends, and within budget. I was shown some seriously crappy places which I rejected, and was rejected by some seriously expensive hostelries. I was about to give up. Then I began to pass streets that bore all of the names of the islands of the Canaries. All of them ended at the city beach. The last street was called Tenerife, and there I found the Hotel Tenesoya. I stubbed my toe at the entrance, the same one that I had damaged on the volcano walk from Fuencaliente and which was still painful – not a good sign. The receptionist was a bit arsey about my Spanish, preferring to demonstrate his perfect English to me. He told me that the room charge was 62.40 Euros per day, including taxes, but for accommodation only – such precision. The room was perfect. It overlooked the entire beach from the fifth floor, had hot and cold water (I tested it!) clean sheets and towels – perfect. In the lift I met an English woman who came to that same hotel every year (how could you do that when there are so many more places in the world to visit?) She told me that the people here were very good – including, presumably, the arsey receptionist.

I went off to find Margaret and the luggage. She was not happy. The park personnel had asked her to move whilst they disinfected the seat for some reason. Two cases, my computer bag and backpack, plus her own personal bag that I do not know the purpose of, were too much to move. So she didn’t and was cross. All was well after the long traipse to the Hotel Tenesoya. Margaret, who does not like cities, and does not like beaches, was delighted with the place. And the receptionist, a Swiss, was no longer arsey now that we were customers, he was Mr Nice, even Mr Jokey. He told us that he was from Switzerland and listed all of the languages that he spoke. Picking up on Margaret’s birth date (from her passport - Christmas Eve) he listed the birthdates of all of his three children – all around Christmas, very expensive. I pointed out that he should have been more careful during the months of March and April and he found this very funny, stating that it was not his fault. I entered the lift which took us up to our room in some confusion. Whose fault was it?

This was a very different life for us. High above the Playa de Los Canteros, claimed to be the longest city beach in the world (there has to be one, I suppose), we could watch people enjoying a way of life we mostly shunned. Swimming, sailing, surfing, sunbathing, wandering along the front, shopping, listening to the many buskers playing their instruments, it was all rather relaxing. One night after sampling many rons (having found that Gran Canaria's main tipple is rum, I took to rum and cokes – I am very flexible in these matters – though I always insisted on the local stuff from Arucas and always refused ice) I spent almost an hour watching a child scooting around the tiled area beneath our fifth floor balcony meanwhile keeping an eye on a woman waiting for a man who never came.

For one reason and another I spent quite a lot of time with the hotel’s receptionists. There were three of them. The oldest one spoke English so badly that I was not sure that it was English. It sounded like Spanish, but I could not understand a word of it – so we settled on Spanish as our common language. The youngest receptionist was also Spanish. He spoke English rather better than I spoke Spanish so we dotted between the two. His name was Octavio and it was this young man who introduced me to the Las Palmas bus system and to the Gran Canarians affinity for rum. When we talked of drink he giggled a lot, as if talking of the stuff made him tipsy. He confessed that he not only added Coca-cola to rum, but also to wine, and found this very funny. I thought it a revolting practice. He also told me that many local youngsters preferred to dilute their rum with a strawberry flavoured fizzy drink rather than coke. He told me of the night life of the city and was very specific in his information about the discos.

‘They do not open until 11 and if you go in at midnight they are empty. No one goes until one in the morning or later – and then they stay there all night. It is very good,’ he concluded with a grin. Did he think I was going to the disco? The next day I told him that Margaret and I had spent the whole of the night in the disco and were now very tired. He was quite sympathetic until I told him that I was joking.

How do they keep it up? When do they sleep? Of course Octavio told me that this behaviour only occurred on Friday and Saturday nights. Most people do not have to work the next day - but some do. On Sunday morning our waiter in the old section of the city had clearly been up all night. We had ordered a special breakfast with a mixed sandwich. He brought the coffee, yawned, then returned with the orange juice, yawned and never returned. Margaret had to accost him about the sandwich – which he had completely forgotten. He gave us the bill, then wandered off down the street smoking a fag. He did not return. We had to find someone else to take the money.

The old section of Las Palmas is called Vegueta and it is an excellent place. The city itself is big, more than one third of a million people, and busy. It has the usual traffic problems though there is motorway along the seashore which takes the port traffic away and serves as a by-pass for vehicles wanting to get from one part of the city to another. There is a major road bisecting the Vegueta but it is wide and graced with plenty of trees and public works of art. Our area of the city was called Santa Catalina, it formed the thin neck of a peninsula that ends in small group of volcano cones. On the Northern side of Santa Catalina was the port and docks, on our side was the long beach and its attendant strip of bars, hotels, restaurants and shops selling essential beach equipment such as buckets and spades and rubber (now plastic) rings. We were quite a way from Vegueta but could get there quite easily by taking the number one bus. There were other buses going there, but the drivers denied that this was their destination. On our first visit we got off at a street called Calle Mayor de Triana. It was a long street boasting early Colonial architecture, lined with shops and fully pedestrianised - as were the network of streets around it. A joy to walk down, even if you are not a shopper.

Margaret became very excited as we approached a branch of Marks and Spencer. I do not understand this excitement, for me it is just a place where you might go to buy socks, for her it is something else. We agreed that I would take the next turning to the right, find the first bar in that street and wait there until the M&S thing had been done. It turned out to be an exquisite bar. Called a Cerveseria it did have a few more beers than normal, dispensed from shining brass fonts shaped like miniature Victorian streetlights. There were chandeliers and mirrors to catch their light. Smartly dressed barmen in long aprons hovered expectantly behind the bar, cured hams hung patiently above their heads. I got my drink and moved to a mahogany island with its own chandelier above. Margaret could spend as long as she wished indulging her M&S addiction, I was happy here. But in fact she was soon back. ‘It’s too small,’ she explained. So it is a size thing with M&S.

Octavio had told me that the best place to eat was a place called El Herron. We found it after spending time looking at the cathedral, walking around San Francisco Square and entering a lush building which we never did find the purpose of – it seemed to have many rooms where people were eating, but was not a restaurant. El Herron was manic. I counted twelve waiters at one point, all busy, mostly very tired and edgy. They repeatedly gave change to the wrong person and got orders wrong. What’s more the two men carving the cold meats were quarrelling. This doesn’t mean much in Spain where a discussion about the weather can create emotions that others reserve for arguments leading to divorce, but this was serious. At one stage Margaret saw one of them threaten the other with one of the long carving knives. We decided not to eat there, the drains smelled in that area – a real problem in Las Palmas.

We liked the old part of the city so much  that we returned the next day, particularly to look inside the cathedral. It is a strange building. Outside it is impressively neo-classical. Inside it is claimed to be gothic. This is also true of All Souls College library in Oxford – but in reverse. Unfortunately I did not get to see the inside. It was closed, the day was a bank holiday – constitution day. Fortunately, the museum nearby was open and this was really interesting. It is called Casa Colon, a reference to Christopher Columbus who allegedly stayed there as he passed through the Canaries on his first trip to America. Most of the house is in fact quite recent, nevertheless it was interesting. Inside the various rooms traced the voyages of Columbus, and he certainly was a voyager. There were also large models of the three ships (Pinta, Nina and Santa Maria) and a mock up Columbus’s cabin in the latter, full size and quite tiny. The building was quite intriguing. Traditional in style, it had a balconied inner courtyard and a second courtyard which proudly boasted a gothic well of some antiquity (well supposedly gothic). Beneath the courtyards the Casa Colon had a deep cellar full of South American artefacts. During my visit the ‘gothic’ courtyard was invaded by two parrots, much to the amusement of a group of English people who were supposed to be hanging on the words of their animated tour guide.

‘Well, that the most interesting thing I’ve seen today,’ said a woman from the English group as the parrots descended the stairs to the cellar, using their beaks as brakes at each step. I don’t think the tour guide heard this ungrateful remark.

 

Fuerteventura and Lanzarote

We had not intended to visit Fuerteventura. We had read that it was flat, bleak and windswept – famous only for its beaches. But during a discussion with our avuncular landlord in Teror, Gran Canaria, we had learned that ferries did not often travel to Lanzarote, our next island, from Gran Canaria. However, there was one each day to the southern tip of Fuerteventura, and from the northern tip of that island you could easily get a boat to Lanzarote.

‘But how would we get from south to north,’ I asked, thinking of the two suitcases and all the bits and bobs that we had accumulated as Margaret built new homes at our various stops.

‘Bus,’ he said, ‘you can get a bus all the way, it will only take a few hours. Fuerteventura is a small island.’

I should have known by then that one islanders knowledge of another islanders transport system (or anything else come to that) was limited. But that became the plan. After a short crossing of three hours or so we arrived at the port of Morra Jable at 5.30 in the evening with no accommodation, and great hopes of a bus that would spirit us to Corralejo in the north where we would quickly get a ferry and then quickly find accommodation in Lanzarote’s Playa Blanca ‘plenty of apartments and hotels there.’

There was no bus stop at the port. After asking a number of people - some helpful, some not - we found a place where buses were supposed to stop. It was completely sealed off from the road and hanging, neglected, from the wall alongside it was an aging timetable showing the times of buses to Esquizo, wherever that might be – it was not on my map. Cross at my lack of success I returned once again to the Armas ferry office. The woman there should help us; after all we had travelled on her boat.

‘Where is the bus stop,’ I asked in my best and most assertive Spanish. She waved her pencil vaguely to the front area of the terminal building, and then waved it towards the back where a bus was whizzing by. I ran to the front. The bus shot by before I had even reached the doors. It did not pause, let alone stop. I checked the timetable. There was a bus to Esquizo at that time. We had missed it and we still did not know where Esquizo was. Usually whilst travelling when you are lost and confused, some kind soul steps in and helps. No one did, no one seemed to know where Esquizo was, whether there was a bus from the port to Corralejo or even where the bus stop was - if there was one. We were stuck. One man thought that there were buses to the capital, Puerto del Rosaria, but that we would have to change there. However he did not know where the bus stop was and how often they ran. He also thought Rosario was a dump – there would be no accommodation there.

We had to do something. The next bus to Esquizo was, according to the ageing timetable, in half and hours time. I would stop it by jumping in front of the thing if necessary. We would take that bus to the end of the line where there was bound to be a bus station or hotels or something. It was now quite dark. The possibility of getting to Lanzarote that was negligible. I asked Margaret if she wished that there had been one of those ladies, usually dressed in red, to meet us off the boat and conduct us to our hotel.

‘Yes,’ she said with an expression that convinced me that she really meant it.

The bus came, I stopped it and we struggled in with the suitcases and all. I bought two tickets for a mystery trip to Esquizo and we sat back, watching hopefully as the bus went from resort to resort, hoping for a sign. What sort of sign I do not know. Large hotels and apartment complexes came and went; we had no idea what they might cost, whether they had vacancies, what they were like. We were placing all of our eggs in the Esquizo basket.

It was a mistake. The lady who had been chatting animatedly to the bus driver for all of the journey got off the bus and indicated that we should do so. This was the end of the line. This was Esquizo. It was nowhere. The woman walked away and we were left in a semi-dark road with white houses on the one side, an area of wasteland on the other side and, in the middle distance the ugly sight of a motorway style bridge across a wide valley. I left Margaret to guard the luggage and set off in pursuit of the unlikely. The street opposite the bus stop was lined with more white houses, mostly in darkness. No hope there, I turned to the left and saw a hotel or something like one. Its reception area was in darkness and firmly bolted. I saw another reception area, this one offered apartments to let. It too was closed. But below it was a restaurant and that was open. I went in and asked about the apartments. The woman looked suspicious but said she had some – at 50 Euros per night.

‘Could I see one?’ I asked, knowing that it was pretty unlikely that I would reject it.

She pursed her lips, talked to someone behind the bar, found a key and led me to a wonderful apartment not far from the restaurant. I said that I would take it, and put out my hand for the key.

‘First I need your passport,’ she said in English with a strong German accent, but with an Italian lilt as well.

I said that it was with my luggage, with my wife.

‘I must have your passports,’ she repeated.

I rushed back to Margaret, dragged the stuff around to our new home, took the passports to the German lady and opened up the apartment. Margaret was delighted. There was a free bottle of wine on the table, with a pretty bow around its neck. We knocked a hole in that and by 8.30 or so were sat in the restaurant making the most of a 15 Euro buffet meal. It was good. We had starters, main and sweet – unheard of indulgences for us. Then we had seconds. We deserved it. We glared at a big table of freeloaders nearby. Apart from ourselves they were the only diners there. I guessed that they were travel agents on a freebie - you can tell. And I was right. These were the people who arranged for the ladies in red to meet you at the boat. Good luck to them, I thought as we headed back to our apartment. They do not have the excitement of not knowing where they are, or how they are going to get to the next place on their itinerary. Itinerary – what itinerary?

The next day we had a lady in red to help us. Well, not quite. The receptionist returned our passports and gave me clipped advice on how to get to Corralejo. She was German and did not speak English that well, in fact whilst she was dealing with me a delivery man entered and she seemed much happier speaking to him – in Spanish.

‘You go to the top of the road, you turn to the left. You go to the big road, there you will see the house of the bus. You must wait on this side, not the other. Here is the hours of the bus to Puerto del Rosario. At this place you must change for Corralejo, I do not know the hours of the buses from there. Goodbye.’ She handed me the bus timetable and I was dismissed.

It was a hot, day. An event during our stay in the Canaries. We did have sun, but most days were overcast, and many downright chilly – though still warmer than England. There was no ‘bus house’ on our side of the road; in fact the whole area was a confusion of roundabouts and slip roads. Fortunately I met a German couple there and the man spoke good English, though he modestly denied this. He showed me where we should wait – the bus stop sign had fallen over and his wife was sitting on it. The sun was stronger than we had known it for the whole of our stay in the islands, and this area was devoid of trees or shelter as is most of Fuerteventura. The only shade was provided by the ‘bus house’ four lanes away on the other side of the road. We were surrounded by the usual wasteland that covers most of the island. It is not attractive and mankind has made it worse by littering the place with the spillover from constructing the large resort that lay between us and the beach, entirely blocking our view of it.

However, I had seen the beach on my morning run. I had also seen two German penises and one German vagina! Well I assume that they were German, the whole area seemed to be. Not everyone was a nudist though.  Oddly, I thought, the man walking hand in hand with the naked woman was wearing swimming trunks. Shocking. The sandy beach was yellow, but not particularly attractive. All along its length people had built little castle of volcanic stone about a metre high in which they sheltered from the wind for which this island is infamous. One castle that I investigated had a wooden shelf upon which drinks could be stood. I bet many a towel has been thrown all the way from the resort in an attempt to reserve that one.

I came upon a rather run down hut. It was large and surrounded by sail boards and the other paraphernalia of marine sport. At this time I did not know whether we were staying in Esquizo, so I thought I would enquire the price of hiring a sailboard. Though not an expert, I had owned one for a while (it had been included in the price of a house we bought) and had sailed in a number of places around the world – including Abu-Dhabi and Singapore.

‘Have you got a license,’ asked the smiling, relaxed young man who was hanging about near the hut.

‘A license for what?’ I asked genuinely puzzled. Did I need a license to ask the price of sailboards?

‘A licence for sail boarding,’ he replied, still smiling.

‘No, of course I haven’t got a license, but I have windsurfed before.’

‘I am sorry, this is Germany, you must have a license to hire one of these boards.’

I am sure he did not mean to say ‘this is Germany’ but he did. I guess he really meant that he worked for a German company who owned the rental business. I laughed, he smiled even more saying, ‘I am very sorry.’

‘No, no,’ I answered, ‘Don’t worry. I have enjoyed this conversation. That is the funniest thing I have heard for a long time.’

He continued to smile – perhaps he was the prototype for the ‘fixed smile’.

Back at the bus stop my new German friend was telling me about the islands that he had visited and Margaret told him of our travels so far. He had recently stayed at the resort that lay below us in Los Quemados, the one that we had visited for a drink one night and had quickly dashed back to the reality and the lower prices of our local bar. However, it was Fuerteventura that was the German couple’s island; they had been back many times. From what I had seen so far, I couldn’t imagine why. He and his wife were waiting for a bus Costa Calma and they were soon joined by other Germans on a similar mission. I asked him why he was going there.

‘Oh,’ he said vaguely, ‘it is much the same – but the shops are a little better.’

Their bus came, ours did not. Lots of buses came and went, but none to take us to Rosario. We were in danger of getting heatstroke so we sheltered in the ‘bus house’ leaving our luggage next to the fallen down bus sign. I tried to lodge myself into the bus shelter in such a way that I could watch for incoming buses, keep an eye on our abandoned luggage, and keep in the shade. I became a contortionist. At last, after a wait of almost two hours in the blazing sun we clambered onto a bus headed for the capital of the island, journeying through countryside that was remarkable for its monotony. We did not like Fuerteventura much, though the isolated bus station was modern and clean and the connection to Corralejo was good. More monotonous country to cross before we arrived at the northern port, boarded another Armas ferry and began the half hour journey across the sea, passing the Island of Lobos (seals) and eying the white sand dunes that surrounded Corralejo as we left. Another island beckoned us now: Lanzarote, our final destination in the Canaries.

We arrived at Playa Blanca. As usual we had no accommodation but, after some plodding around whilst Margaret sat guarding our stuff, I found a place that my wife described as ‘adequate’. Later we found that we were surrounded by flats, bungalows, houses and hotel rooms, the majority of which were empty. The next morning I found myself trying to hire a car from an Indian gentleman whose language was equally obscure in English and Spanish. The moment we got near to completing the deal he would try to upsell me.

‘Now dis ca too small for you. Need bigger car, this car just four Euros more each day. It a bargain.’

In the end I gave up, walked away and found another supplier. There is no lack of them in Playa Blanca. In the main shopping street every other place is a restaurant cum bar, every third a car rental place and the gaps are filled with bucket and spade shops or cheap electrical stores staffed entirely by Asians. It is not a particularly nice place though the port, beaches and coast are pleasant enough. From the shore you get good views of Fuerteventura (which looks better once you’ve left it) and the resorts are linked by a nicely paved, nicely walled, wide walkway. I finally rented an Astra which was bigger than I needed and was a diesel – I hate diesels. It stopped at the most embarrassing places, often took ten presses of the remote key thingy before letting me in, and had funny controls for the wipers and indicators – one-click levers that do not work in the way that I do. Moan, moan moan. This was our fifth hire car, perhaps I was getting fussy.

We set off in the Astra in search of a more permanent home. We didn’t like Playa Blanca or all that it, and the other resort towns, represented. We went to Yaiza, which is claimed to be the prettiest village in Lanzarote: white houses, pretty gardens and a restaurant designed by Cesar Manrique. Who? Cesar Manrique – he designed almost everything of note on the entire island, he is so famous (on the island) that everyone has heard of Cesar Manrique. We though the houses very blocky and the place flat with nothing much in the way of views - and there was no accommodation as far as we could see. We drove on through some very serious lava flows, past the queue of cars waiting to get into the National Park of Timanfaya (volcanic and our main reason for coming here) with its centre designed by you-know-who – let’s call him Cesar for short. We skipped other white villages for various reasons, we were beginning to realise that Lanzarote was a very different place to the other islands. It seemed that the beaches were the only places to stay. We even walked around La Santa – a sports complex where you could eat, sleep, rest and play. There were people sitting on large balls doing whatever their instructor told them, people seriously swimming in a serious pool, people playing ball games and one lone windsurfer out on the club’s own inland sea. I asked if I could hire a board and use their lake.

‘Not unless you are a resident sir.’

‘How much would it cost to stay for one night?’ I asked.

This caused some confusion; it was clear that people didn’t just turn up at the reception desk and ask for accommodation, they probably booked months in advance. However, a price list was found. The cheapest rooms, those without a view, were 105 Euros per night, equipment and instructor charges were on top of that. I decided that this was not my sort of place at all. Margaret had already drifted back towards the car.

We found some strange bungalows, built in crescent plots and arranged in a strict grid formation, all designed by some Norwegian fellow. They nestled beneath the huge and dramatic cliff of Farmara, a cliff which had formed the eastern edge of a huge volcano. The sea had eroded the rest of the crater, leaving a vast arc of cliff facing looking over an equally dramatic beach. With its huge waves and lots of surf, this place was a favourite for surfboarders, and the few people we saw were ardent beach-boy types. We could rent a bungalow for 50 Euros per night – but there was little to do there except surf. It was remote and the village next door was really run down, the only thing I can remember about it is rubbish bins.

On and on until we reached Teguiste. This was it. Margaret had the best coffee she had tasted during the whole holiday in a cafe that was beautifully decorated and furnished. Is this the real Lanzarote, I thought suspiciously. It was a nice little town. Lots of arty shops and quite a few bars and restaurants, there was even a music academy there – and, of course, legions of nice white houses. On the down side there were no views to speak of and, as we learned from an English estate agent with an office there, no places to rent on a short term basis. He told us that nothing much happened in Teguiste except on Sundays. It was then transformed as people from all over the island, and other islands, descended on the place to attend the famous Teguiste market (designed by Cesar, not). He brought his friend/colleague into the conversation. It was just like talking to English estate agents in England. They were friendly, relaxed and asked questions like: ‘And just what is it you are looking for Rob?’

Pete, the friend/colleague enquired, ‘What about bed and breakfast, would you consider that?’

It was an odd question. Lanzarote is not a bed and breakfast sort of place. More of a bed and beach sort of place.

‘Not really,’ we both said.

Pete said that he knew a few people (as estate agents do) and would do a bit of ringing round for us. I thought he meant then and there, but no, he wanted my phone number and would call us back later. At least that was something.

We drove on to Haria which was pleasant. It nestles in a sheltered valley and is dotted with hundreds of palm trees with, of course, the usual assortment of gleaming white houses. I began to realise that, next to tourism, the business to be in on Lanzarote was the manufacture and supply of white paint. It all looks very nice, especially since the fields and gardens are black, yes black. More on this later. However, there was nothing for us in Haria, unless we could live beneath a palm tree – and believe me it’s not that warm there in December; the wind blows most of the time and the sun rarely peeps from behind the clouds for long.

At the top of the island is a viewing place – Mirador del Rio. I was astounded to find that we had to pay to get into the place. I decided to climb around the commercial entrance and walk to the brow of the hill and look for free. It was no hill. The summit was an extension of the great cliff I had seen before, the cliff of Farmara, some 600 metres above the sea. At first I did not dare go too near the edge, hence I saw what appeared to be a peninsula of Lanzarote with a few islands beyond. As I got closer to the edge, leaning on an old gun emplacement for support, I could see that this was no peninsula, it was a large and beautiful island with a small village, sparkling white, next to the clear blue of the waters that separated it from the main island. This was Graciosa, the only island off Lanzarote that is inhabited. It’s quite small, about 8 km long, but does have its own volcanic mountains, one of which looked incredibly beautiful in the sunlight. Its valleys were wide and deep from erosion and, at the western end, looked just as if it was made from woven textile, colour band ran into colour band, all outlining the contours of this mountain far below. To my left I could see people in the official mirador (designed by Cesar, of course) They peered from a cave like hole in the rock face, protected from the wind by a strong sheet of glass. They could also buy a coffee from the bar or a meal at the restaurant (all DBCM – designed by Cesar Manrique). I’m sure that I enjoyed the view more from my gravelly platform, partly because it was free and also because it was not DBCM. This Cesar Manrique thing is a bit overdone on the island. They now base their years on his birth date. So when a Lanzarote person says that the big eruption on the island was in the year 180 BC they mean before Cesar, which to us would be 1730 AD. And according to them this article was written in 92 AC - after Cesar. Now if you believe that you will believe that I changed my name to Ron during our trip, or that Lanzarote people have 100 different names for lava. All possible.

Whilst I was at the mirador there was a call on my cellphone. It was Pete, the estate agent from Teguiste. He had rung around; this person was full, so was that, another was not renting at present. I thanked him for his efforts.

‘There is one other possibility,’ he continued before I could end the call.

‘Oh yes.’

‘Would you consider bed and breakfast?’

I thought we had dealt with that, but now things were getting desperate. ‘I might, do you know of any?’

‘Well it just so happens that we do B&B from by home.’ He mentioned the village and gave me the lowdown.

‘OK,’ I said, ‘I’ll let you know. I’ve got your number.’

Back at the car I told Margaret of my sighting of Graciosa and of Pete’s call.

‘We haven’t come all this way to stay with English people,’ she said concisely. She was right, of course.

We continued our search for accommodation, but nothing turned up. As darkness fell, I drove in desperation down a road to a marina next to Puerto del Carmen. It was really attractive. The marina itself was pretty and full of expensive boats. On the shore there were expensive shops and a variety of restaurants, Above were estates of low rise apartments, houses and bungalows. It was not really what we wanted, much too touristy, but it was so much better than anywhere we had seen. We found an information office and a really helpful German lady soon put us to rights. Yes there were apartments to let there, they started at 110 Euros per night. We went ‘home’ to our ‘adequate’ but noisy place in Playa Blanca for which we paid 40 Euros a night. We were determined to leave there the next day, but had nowhere to go.

But the sun always shines somewhere. Whilst out running I found another marina complex not far from our current place and found an estate agent there. I also made a few phone calls and, by mid morning, we had the choice of three places: a big bungalow at the marina with its own small swimming pool; a three-bedroomed house somewhat further away in a complex with a shared pool; and a three o’clock appointment to view Josephine’s apartment in one of the inland villages. We chose the house. I’m not sure why we chose it, but we did. Margaret loved it. She was tired of moving, she wanted to wash our clothes, to relax, to keep house. I phoned Josephine with the bad news, we would not be coming to see the flat after all. I felt a bit mean. She was just coming out of hospital (rehabilitation, she said) that day, and she had said of the apartment: ‘Don’t worry, we are just downstairs. Any problems, we’ll be there.’ This sounded nice, but was one of the reasons for choosing independent living at the Iris Residencia. And so, after our many minor adventures we bit the bullet and became tourists in a house which was far too big for us and in one of the many resorts which make up the Playa Blanca, ours was next to Colorado, but I did not make a note of its name. It was owned by an English couple who left a sturdy collection of notes on the house and tips on where to eat, where to play and so on. The notes also warned not to wear shoes in the house because the lapilli (little black bits of volcanic ash) might scratch the floor tiles. Fascinating reading. There was also a book for visitor’s comments - all were delighted, there was just one page ripped out. It contained really good advice from a couple who stayed in the April of 2008 and I quote: ‘Beware Cruela Deville in number 15 in case you put a foot wrong at the pool.’

We didn’t meet Cruela, unfortunately, and neither of us put a foot near, and certainly not in, the pool. We did, however, get to know our neighbours very well, though they did not know us. They were Spanish, had children and did not believe in bedtimes. The children may not have been happy, one of them seemed only capable of saying one word: ‘hola’. This it did loudly and regularly, way after my bedtime. The walls were thin and, though the adults voices came through indistinctly, this regular ‘hola’ pierced its way though as if we were in the same room. I tried to think of ways of channelling the ‘holas’ into number 15. I’m sure that Cruela Deville would have dealt with the problem. After a while I began to think that the children were trying to send us messages: in Morse code. I’m not sure of this since my Morse is poor and so is my Spanish. However there was, on many occasions, a sharp tapping on the wall that could only have been Morse. The family had a bulldog. I saw it once, tied to a small tree in their front garden. White and extremely chunky, it eyed me morosely. It looked a lot like the bulldog who appears in the Churchill adverts for car insurance and always says ‘oh yes’ to the leading questions it is asked. This one was different, it would have said ‘oh no’.

‘Do you like Lanzarote?’

‘Oh no.’

‘Do you like me?’

‘Oh no.’

‘Would you like to tear yourself from that tree, charge over to my garden and bite my leg?’

‘Oh yes.’

It was lovely to see Margaret so happy. She was smiling and singing. She had a washing machine, an ironing board, an iron, a nice kitchen, a drying frame for the clothes and a TV that receives English programmes (first time during our stay in the Canaries). It was just like being at home – except for the holas, the Morse and the dog.

‘It’s good preparation for going home,’ said Margaret wisely as she curled up on the sofa with her book. ‘Letting us down slowly.’

I didn’t particularly want to be let down at all. Or at least I would prefer to be up ‘til the last moment. But reality cannot be denied forever. From the English TV channels I learned that that the CRISIS, as it is called in Spain, was getting worse rather than better; that Woolworth’s had gone under and that the car companies were clamouring for government cash to bail them out. But what could I do about it? Nada.

The high point for any visitor to Lanzarote has to be a day on the beach followed by a night in one of the many Irish pubs. Not really, the high point is, without doubt, a visit to the National Park of Timanfaya, the place I passed by on our first day – the Mountains of Fire. In the years before 1730 the villagers who lived on Lanzarote began to experience strange and dreadful rumblings from the ground beneath their feet. Then the earth split and spewed fire all over the place. The eruptions continued for six years. The lava from the many volcanoes that formed eradicated at least ten villages. The epicentre of this cataclysm is the starting point for a bus tour through some of the most tortured and some of the most startling landscapes in the world. I had seen a great deal of volcanic rock during my stay in the Canaries, but nothing to equal this. It is the scale of the thing that impresses. Teneguia in La Palma erupted much more recently, less than 40 years ago, but it was tiny and short lived compared with this ... this catastrophe of construction. And, though there is a sense of destruction as you tour the area encased in a special coach that twists its way through the roadway of the park, this activity, this volcanism is precisely how the islands came into existence in the first place.

I resented that coach, and the recorded music and the other tourists who blocked my view, thrusting their cameras left and right in an attempt to capture something that is not capturable in just a few images. I was no different. I‘m not how many pictures I took, but when I looked at them afterwards they were not very good, they did not capture the awe-inspiring magnitude of that vast rift of eruptions. I resented the coach because I wanted to walk, to study the contorted lava flows, the rocky spouts that spewed it out, the piles of lapilli that look so soft but are not, the craters and cones. I wanted to do this in my own time without the music and the crush and babies being sick in the next seat. But that is not possible. Though once you could, in order to preserve this harsh, unabraded landscape, you are no longer allowed to walk through the park - the pressure of people makes that option untenable. You can however take a camel ride around the periphery, quite what camels have to do with it I don’t know. Is there some affinity between camels and volcanoes? The commentary on the coach was good, but lacks depth, partly because it was repeated in three languages. The music is unnecessary but I must confess that this journey, especially the final stage in which they play, very loudly,  ‘Thus Spake Zarathrusta (sp)’ by one of the Straus family, the one that was used at the end of the film ‘2001’, did set me off. I couldn’t speak and was so overcome by emotion that I cried a bit. That was good.

Afterwards we were shown that the rock beneath our feet was still hot. A dried bush thrown into a pit bursts into flame, water poured into pipes sunk into the ground is spat back up at great force. I took a movie of this whooshing but my bloody batteries failed just as the water jetted out of the pipe. There is a restaurant at the centre (DBCM of course) and some of the cooking is carried out there using heat directly from the hot rocks just below the surface.

Afterwards we went to a visitors’ centre some way outside the park itself where we were shown a pathetic demonstration of a volcano in action. It consisted of a bit of steam released from rocks, a lot of flashing lights and some very loud sound effects. But the wallboards were good. The lava from that 1730 eruption covered a large part of the island and the flow stretched right across Lanzarote to enter the sea on the eastern coast. It is still there, raw, black and contorted; waiting for the lichen, followed by other plants, to combine with wind and rain to slowly, oh so slowly, break it down into rich black soil.

Terrifying as the whole thing must have been for the residents of Lanzarote (some thought that the devil was punishing them) there was one happy by-product. During the six years of activity masses of lapilli (small black particles of volcanic ash, a bit like coke, dreadful stuff if you wear sandals) was thrust out of the cones and into the air covering growing crops all over the island. At first the islanders thought that they were in for more misery, then their crops started to push through the lapilli, growing strongly. The lapilli tends to capture ground moisture, retain it then release it to the plants below. Soon the islanders were spreading the stuff on their fields deliberately, after all this is a dry and dusty place. So today you see the lapilli in use everywhere, from cottage gardens to the vine fields around Femes. In the latter the lapilli is scooped out into hollows in which the vine grows protected from wind, or, as in La Palma, within semicircles of volcanic rock which are erected around each vine. The landscape produced is quite strange and the wine quite good.

An older volcano (Corona) in the north of Lanzarote is the source of spectacular lava tube. This volcanic cave stretches from the original volcano right out to sea. It has collapsed at various points and the openings are called ‘jameos’ in Spanish. One of the most well-known is the Jameos de Agua. It consists of a number of caves formed by the original lava tube one of which contains a large, and very clear, rock pool. It is salty since it is linked to the sea by the sub-oceanic part of the tube. As you look into this lovely pool you can see little blotches of white. At first I felt annoyed by this, thinking that they were bits of paper left by irresponsible previous visitors, but then I realised that they were moving. They are little white crabs that usually live at the bottom of the sea where no light penetrates. They are blind and fortunately cannot see the thousands of people that come to see them.

The Jameos de Agua has a bar, a lecture theatre and a restaurant, also an incongruous swimming pool complete with tall palm tree. The whole, with the exception of the lava tube, of course, DBCM, of course. Above Cesar’s ridiculous swimming pool, there is an interesting volcano museum which includes a display of the equipment used to monitor active volcanoes for signs of potential eruption. Comforting stuff for those who live in these dangerous islands. And for us visitors.

On Lanzarote Margaret and I were living in tourist world: an artificial place created to relieve tourists of as much money as possible, yet to give them a good time so that they might come back. I hated the environment, but Margaret was quite content there. Opposite was a large Iberostar Hotel – the Papagoya, Margaret discovered from the notes that it offered a buffet at 20 Euros per person and you were allowed to attend the family entertainment afterwards. Fortunately I managed to avoid this wonderful indulgence, on the night that we almost went Margaret returned from the hotel with the distressing news that the ‘Entertainment Team’ were having that night off - phew. But time soon passed and I could see that the end was soon nigh. We had just three days left, and two of those were spoken for. On the other I thought I might go for a long walk, but that was not easy from our current location and we did not have a car at that time. I decided to propose a daring alternative plan – an English slobs’ day in Playa Blanca, Lanzarote. I though Margaret would reject the idea out of hand (she is more of a snob than a slob) but she saw the funny side of it and began to make a list of essential slob activities.

We got up at eleven having had plenty to drink the previous evening, an evening that saw us dancing to an Eric Clapton CD in our spacious lounge. We strolled up the road in order to miss the bus to the Playa Blanca hot spots - missing the bus was part of the plan. We had adopted alternative personas for the day: I took the name Ron (rum in Spanish) and Margaret became Anie, short for anis (the Spanish liquorish spirit similar to Pernod). I had stuffed a towel into my Oxford Beer Festival T-shirt to produce a Ron-like gut, but Margaret said this was going too far. We got off the bus at the wrong stop then found a newsagents to buy our papers, the Daily Mail for Anie and the Sun for Ron. We then argued about the bar in which we would have breakfast. Finally we chose Snoopies. It had an English football flag flying, large screen TV showing football, full English breakfast at 3.5 Euros and, of course, lager on tap. I ordered lagers in very loud English then complained to Margaret that the waiter didn’t speak our language properly. Later, much to my pride, the owner of the place asked me if I would like a whisky! What did he take me for? An alcoholic slob? A pint of lager before the heavy greasy breakfast and a pint afterwards did little for my hangover – but we had started the day right and Margaret was able to tick off a few items from the slobs’ day list. Exhausted after the heavy meal we found a beach which belonged to some hotel and slept in the sun on their loungers. We were supposed to get red skin but couldn’t keep the lounging up for long so went for a nice cup of tea, then afterwards Anie had an ice cream. More ticks on the list, we doing so many things for the first time on our Canarian Holiday.

We thought that Ron and Anie would be tired after all this activity so we caught the bus back home and went to bed for a long sleep (or siesta as Anie called it). And so the day sped by.

At about eight I went up to the supermarket and bought ten litres of sangria. Through good planning on Rob’s part there was a sack of sand at the house, stolen from Dorado beach the day before. Ron tipped the sand into the bath and then poured in the sangria. Ron and Anie stripped off then made love in this exotic bath – on the sand in the sangria. It was good, but the sand got everywhere.

Of course, there were occasions during our slob’s day out when Margaret could not stay in character, besides, sex would frighten the children, so, in reality, we drank one litre of sangria and went out on the town. The town was mostly dead, but there was an area beyond the Marina Rubicon that had some life. Ron and Anie went into DJ’s Sports Bar and were delighted to see Guinness on sale at the bar and the finals of the X-factor on five separate large screens: this was the place. Margaret and Rob did not know what the X-factor was or why it was so important. However, as Ron and Anie they soon got into the swing of it, lapping up the mawkish shows of emotion, the sight of a grown man from a boy band crying because they had not reached the finals, the screams of ‘My god, this is the greatest day of my life’ as the winner was finally selected. A big girl she seemed to break down completely, tears streaming from her eyes. Yet so brave, in moments she was back to her old self and belting out her victory number seemingly unaffected by her achievement. Then time for a good old traditional English meal – a Chinese, eaten with knives and forks of course. And so to bed. What a day. I felt sick.

At the end of our stay we hired another car – our sixth I think, and this time a Citroen C3 (pokey little number) – and toured some more of the remaining spots in Lanzarote. I think the highpoint was a visit to La Graciosa, although the highest point was in fact a small church called Ermita de Nieves, (church of the snows). I had looked out over Graciosa from the Mirador del Rio (DBCM) on our first day on the island – however,  getting there was something else The drive to Orzola, the most northerly town on the main island, is not particularly difficult, or interesting. Compared with the switchbacks and curves on the other islands Lanzarote’s roads are surprisingly mild. But it was still interesting to see the lava flow from the 1730 eruption that crossed the entire island; it still has a freshness – which means black, ragged, untamed and unvegetated. We also crossed the older flow that gave rise to the lava tube that we had visited, the one with the white crabs (DBCM).

Orzola was much like the other Lanzarote towns, as distinct from the tourist resorts it looked a little down at heel, had a strange road system and areas which seemed to be entirely abandoned. The ferry to La Graciosa is the main attraction of this place, together with the glass bottomed or ‘glass botton’ as they would have it) boats which allow tourists to view the fish without contact with the water. The port itself is small and though there was a little swell as we boarded the ferry, it seemed quite peaceful. Was it hell! As we turned towards the harbour mouth I climbed the slippery stairs to the upper deck, an open area that would give me a better view. There were just two passengers up there, crouching beneath an overhang behind the bridge and one man who was crew signalling me to sit down. I walked towards him, the boat was beginning to roll a bit so I had to hang on to the tables. He became very agitated, shouting at me to sit down and gesturing violently. I did, just before we hit the first large wave that came plunging into the harbour mouth. It was a big one and threw the boat, quite a large vessel into the air – and me with it if I hadn’t been gripping the table passionately. And that was just the beginning, the waves got higher and seemed to hit us from all sides. They towered above the boat and we had to ascend many of them. The ferry strained up to the crests and then we were launched into mid air, slamming into the trough with an impact that must stress the hull to its utmost. It was crazy, frightening and exhilarating. I tried to take photos but could not let go of the table for long enough to get good shots. Suddenly we were dangerously close to some large jagged rocks. Then, just as suddenly, the man who had ordered me to sit was strolling towards me, indicating that I could stand up. As we rounded the rocks the sea was suddenly calm. I’m not sure why, possibly because we were in the lee of Graciosa. I descended the stairs to find Margaret.

‘You are never there when I need you.’ she said. But she had enjoyed it too. There was just one thing hanging over us besides the huge Famara cliff, that was the fact that we had to get back to the main island later in the day. We would have to face the furious Atlantic again.

Graciosa is very pleasant. Quiet, small and idiosyncratic. The ferry was loaded up with goods; everything except fish and prickly pears has to be brought there from the main island. There were boxes of milk cartons, beer, biscuits and so on – and, surprise, surprise, big fat containers of white paint, lots of them. At the quayside the goods were unloaded into wheelbarrows, there were lots of them, and then transported to wherever they were needed in the island’s only village. The wheelbarrow is the main means of transport in Graciosa. Disappointingly there were motor vehicles as well – mostly Landrovers, they seemed to be chiefly employed as a taxi fleet for visiting tourists who didn’t want to walk or hire a bicycle. Many of the islanders wear a strange palm leaf hat. It looks like two inverted flower pots, one slightly bigger than the other. Stylish ones had a black bow as a hat band. One woman we passed had a bucket on top of her hat – but she was the only person that we saw transporting things in this way, wheelbarrows were really the thing.

The place is not large, you could walk all around it in a day. It is mostly fairly flat, but has four volcanic peaks, including the one I mentioned earlier that has a textile like surface – this was called the mountain of Agujes. We walked right across the island. I was keen to get a closer look at Agujes on the way and to see the northern coast The mountain is clearly an old volcanic range with well worn valleys, much eroded and hence soft looking, quite unlike the sharp cragginess of the recent eruption on the main island. As I neared it I began to imagine what had caused the effect the textile effect that interested me so much. An eruption had occurred on one side, the western side of the older volcanic ridge. It had blown through and the molten rock that had been spewed out had varied in consistency, mineral content and so on. This had left layers of rock in a concentric circle around the eruption that had them been cut through by a couple of barrancos or valleys. The effect was very beautiful. Less tapestry-like as we neared it and could see more detail, but still lovely as the sunlight scudded across it, filtered as always by the clouds above. A blue sky was a rarity throughout our stay in the Canaries.

It was quite a plod to reach the other side of the island and Margaret was having problems with her foot. Along the way we were surprised to pass huertos (gardens) hiding in the lee of Agujes (it also sheltered us from the strong, cold northern wind for some of our walk), but there was little growing except cactus and palm trees. A figure in a red anorak preceded us, that aside there was no one except the occasional Landrover passing by, seemingly filled with lazy tourists. As we slowly ascended to the north the first of the other islands appeared on the horizon. However, it was a long time before we saw the waves crashing on the northern shore and observed the great pile of rubbish which represented the accumulated detritus of many years of village life. I didn’t go near enough to examine the content, but it looked like a typical Spanish rubbish dump, all respectable villages have them, ours has two.

The outer islands of Lanzarote are impressively barren; no one lives on them though they are quite large. We stood on a beach of yellow-white sand and ours were the only footprints to sink into it, at least on that day. On either side were low-profile rocks onto which the sea pounded relentlessly and furiously – reminding us that we had to return to the main island later that afternoon on the bobbing ferry. We stayed there for some time, just looking at the waves, the surf, the delightful aquamarine colour produced as the waves broke and the misty islands beyond - meanwhile ignoring the flotsam and jetsam of mankind that decorated the tide line of this remote beach.

As we returned we saw the figure in the red anorak – I was never sure whether it was a he or a she – emerging from the area of the rubbish dump laden with free goods. I had taken him for another tourist, the only other one walking across this windswept little island. Now I could see that he was an islander and green one at that, reusing items from the dump which is even better than recycling. I think that he, or she, avoided us. We were always headed in the same direction, our paths crossed, but we never met. I would have loved to observe what booty had been found on the dump (I am a reuser myself, especially in Spain).

Arriving back at the harbour we were pleased to be out of the wind for a while. We had a pleasant lunch time snack: a fish bocadillo (hot roll). Fish is still a major part of the economy on Graciosa, but looking across the harbour at the marina I could see many expensive yachts and motorboats. These clearly did not belong to the natives who hung their fish out to dry on the washing lines (or so it is claimed). Walking around the place I had noticed that the sand roads were lined with white houses, some a little run down and lived in, others in perfect condition and deserted. The gentry were moving into Graciosa, buying up fisherman’s cottages and parking their yachts in the calm marina. Who the gentry were I do not know – Spanish, English, German, Italian, who knows? But they will change the place, which is a pity. On the other hand it seemed to be doing OK. It had a school, a hospital and a bank, plus two supermarkets and various restaurants.

It was time to go. We boarded the ferry with some trepidation. This time I sat with Margaret, in the middle of the boat, in the covered, downstairs area. We sailed very close to the cliff, which was interesting, and even closer to the rocky headland, which was dangerous. But as we sailed out into the full force of the Atlantic to be tossed around like a polystyrene coffee cup, things were not so bad. Yes, I became Bob the Bobber for a while, but the sea was a little calmer than on the outward journey, or perhaps the direction of travel makes a difference.

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