- La Gomera, Canary Islands
- Santa Cruz de la Palma, Canary Islands
- Funchal, Madeira, Portugal
- Lanzarote, Canary Islands
- Las Palmas, Grand Canaria, Canary Islands
Today we visited the island of La Palma, the fifth largest of the Canary Islands, coming in at around 273 sq. miles with a population of near 85,000. Quite a difference from yesterday at La Gomera. While both are volcanic islands, La Gomera is quite old (the last volcanic eruption there was around 4 million years ago) while La Palma is one of the newest with the last eruption taking place in 2021 (and we saw some steam/smoke from one of the volcanoes today). If I was to classify La Palma, it would be all about its Spanish history, its volcanoes, and its bananas. While La Gomera was somewhat dry, La Palma is lush, with forests over much of the island. I’ll talk about each of these.
Like La Gomera, local indigenous lived here starting in the 5th century BC and appear to have been quite organized. The Spanish conquered the island in 1493 after duping the natives into coming down from the mountains for peace talks (why does this sound vaguely familiar to me?). Because of the dense forests and rich volcanic soil, La Palma became a major shipbuilding economy as well as an agricultural one, shipping out sugar/rum, and red dye from the local cochineal beetle. In fact, Santa Cruz de la Palma (the capital) was the third most important port in the Spanish empire. It is believed that the Spanish launch of conquest and trade in the New World had deep roots here. During the early 20th century the island economy fell on hard times and there was mass emigration to Venezuela, Cuba, and Uruguay. In fact, our driver/tour guide was born in Venezuela to a family who had gone their for opportunities (now the situation is almost in reverse. Today the economy is based on bananas (all exported to Europe) and tourism. We started and ended the day in Santa Cruz which is strung out along the shore, built more or less on volcanic tuff. We started at the edge of the old town at the Castello de la Virgin Mary, a fort built in the 17th century to fend off pirate raids, which were quite frequent. From there we could look down on the replica of Columbus’ Santa Maria (yeah, he was here too!). It turns out that only a few miles offshore of Santa Cruz de la Palma, you could pick up the tradewinds that would take you more or less direct to the New World (forests for shipbuilding + sugar cane + tradewinds = major outpost for the Spanish Empire). From there, we went to the Shrine of Our Lady of the Snows, dating back to 1740, and the center of Marian devotion on La Palma. Catholic Mariology focuses on Mary and her place in Catholicism). Throughout the day, we say many instances of Mary, Virgin, etc. One thing that is interesting is that the 15th century statue of Mary pre-dated the Spanish conquest by quite a long time and nobody is sure how it got to the cave where it was protected by the original indigenous people. And why “snow?” It’s a mystery. What is clear that people are devoted to Mary and she is brought down to the capital every five years as part of a big celebration. We also visited another small pilgrimage church (Ermita de la Virgen del Pino) which was built adjacent to an 800 year old, 100+ foot pine tree which has been a protected cultural icon as the Virgin is said to have appeared in its trunk. Before heading out into the countryside, we stopped at the Mirador de la Concepcion, an amazing 360 degree viewpoint of the city and mountains behind. It actually is at the edge of a crescent shaped volcanic crater that today houses a neighborhood (not sure I’d want to live there).
A good part of our day was taken up with the volcanic history of the island. The nearly 30 mile island of La Palma is made up of two large volcanic centers. We first stopped at the older one (Caldera Taburiente, about 4 million years old), which today is part of a national park. The caldera here is massive (around 6 miles across and up to around 6000 feet in height from the caldera floor. It’s believed that this volcano is responsible for the creation of a good part of the island. The park is dotted with trails and there were a lot of hikers out there. We spent a lot of time, though, in the south where the younger Cumbre Veija volcano, which is about 125,000 years old and has erupted quite frequently (around every 50 years), spouting a series of new cinder cones and craters along its axis. The most recent eruption was in 2021 that covered parts of several municipalities. That eruption, like many before it flowed lava all the way down to the sea. This eruption lasted about three months with new lava jets popping up all over the place. Needless to say, this was nerve wracking for residents, not knowing if their property would survive. We even saw one house in the El Paso neighborhood that was surrounded on three sides by lava. As we traveled to the southern part of the island, we saw the Teneguia volcano that erupted as late as 1971 and also the San Antonio volcano which has a crater that is 1.5 miles in diameter and rises nearly 2500 feet above the ground (the highest peak on the island. What’s interesting is that despite the frequent eruptions, people rebuild and/or repurpose the land.
One of the repurposes of the volcanic landscape is for agriculture. While there are vineyards in some of these areas, far and away the biggest crop is bananas which is the leading export from the island. The industry is only about 120 years old, supplanting the old sugar industry. It seems everywhere you look, there are bananas growing, whether in individual farms or in large plantations. While growing bananas takes a lot of water, there is sufficient precipitation and natural springs that keep the crop supported. As we have seen in Mexico, growing bananas is an iterative process. Once a bunch of bananas is harvested from the “tree,” that’s it — they cut it down. So there are always two others (one baby and one mid-sized) that are ready to take its place. What’s also amazing is how quickly bananas are replanted after an eruption with lava flows (sometimes as little as two years after the flow). The only restriction these days is that the government will no longer allow the protective plastic sheeting over the banana tree fields for any new plantings.
We squeezed a lot into our visit here. At the end of the day, we walked along the Santa Cruz de la Palma waterfront, taking in the old houses with traditional Canadian balconies festooned with flowers. Many of these houses date back to the 16th century and have been converted to shops and restaurants. Sadly, we were there during siesta and most places were closed. We are now off to Portugal and the island of Madeira.
I am a traveler and sometimes clay sculptor, following a long career working in consulting. My work allowed me to travel the world extensively and I was hooked. Today, I travel with my wife/best friend to explore new places, meet new people, and learn new things.
