Why I Love Early Mornings

El Médano 8.30 it’s mid-October so it’s just after sunrise. I’m strolling the early morning beach two minutes walk from where I live. The dawn and the sunrise have been  inspiring. Instead of running or swimming I’m taking it easy to try to capture with my camera a sense of what the beginnings of my current days are like, recording memories for when I’m far away.

Currently my days begin here. Another early morning camera foray last month revealed a sub-culture of what I think of as “the sunrise folk” – people out at first light, walking, running, swimming, doing yoga and other exercise regimes, and most dominantly, a group of older, er, well-endowed ladies who were featured on local TV in the summer doing their aqua-fitness program. How could I possibly be embarrassed by my buxom-ness and my legacy-of-summer unfitness in this mixed company? Over 50% of them are, well, over 50, and most attempting less than I.

Of course there are the young/fit/beautiful too, but it would be the height of foolishness to compare myself to them after all. I decided that possibly one of the reasons for giving up at the beginning of the summer (using the sore foot as an excuse maybe) was that my route, chosen to keep me away from people in my embarrassment, had become boring, and so I came down to the main beach here, and it has been a delight, stimulation for my soul as well as my body these last, few weeks, and critical glances are cast my way I haven’t noticed!

Glancing inland, I spy Alto de Guajara bathed in rosy sunlight, framed between the town’s apartment blocks.  I seek out the mountain most mornings. It reminds me of one my best days in recent years, sleeping in a cave on its flank, to rise early and be caught in that same early glow. It’s a reaffirmation for me of life’s possibilities.

The memory sets off a train of thought –  memories of other early mornings, in other places, other times, perhaps even another me:…………..early mornings in cities, like York, ambling along the riverbank, bacon roll in hand, as the locals scurry or ride over the bridges on their way to work,  or driving past the race course, where the brume still hugs the grass; an early winter morning in its namesake, New York, the icy air making me catch my breath as I step onto the street, so it tumbles back into that freezing air like steam,  dodging into Macy’s for coffee and a bagel to fuel by body against the cold.

I think of early mornings in London:  pressed up against strangers, sweaty on the Tube, even in winter, emerging into the chill and the traffic chaos, we spill out of the stations like roaches out of an opened manhole. Especially I remember the early morning to watch the London Marathon; awed by the elite runners; and even more by those with disabilities, as they career through the damp streets in those vehicles looking so fragile yet being so strong; cheering on my son who dances his last few yards for joy .

I remember early mornings in Provence: a dim memory of a campsite in Port Grimaud, learning to ride a bike and childishly delighting in taking it every morning to collect fresh baguettes; later, Nice –  in winter, chèvre with sweet honey on chunks of bread and hot chocolate in a corner café with  steamed-up windows, or in summer wandering the market and choosing fruit for breakfast. Grasse – walking up to the bakery for fresh, buttery croissants, which spoiled me for croissants anywhere else in the world thereafter.

I take myself back to the utter peace of an English Lakeland early spring morning, magical mists rising, slowly revealing that beauty hiding underneath.

I remember early mornings in Rome, which on every visit seems to be bathed in a golden light, despite the hoards of tourists now, people-watching in pavement cafés, sipping cappuccino and envying the elegance of the local women: or in Paris – defying the drizzle to see sights I’ve only ever seen in movies; Scottish early mornings, sitting in damp grass waiting for a pheasant to rise, or tramping iconic  heather, purple upon purple, searching for elusive grouse; bright mornings cruising Florida’s Overseas Highway across the Keys, impossibly turquoise waters, warm air, a sensation crossed between driving and flying and sailing;  standing on a sandy shore in the Outer Banks gazing across an ocean from the other side, drinking in the peace.

My addiction to early mornings is not even diminished as, soaked to the skin, under threatening Welsh skies, I see off my son and the dozens of other runners for the Snowdonia Marathon…….you can see them snaking around the hillside if you squint.

For me it’s early mornings;  for you it might be sunsets or airports or a full dinner plate, a sip of wine or a hint of a familiar tune but whatever our trigger is, how lucky we are to have these wonderful travel memories, to be able to transport ourselves to places around the world at the pushing of a particular button in our heads. For now – another photo from the other morning. How lucky am I to be here right now?

Subtropical Autumn

Coming back to this blog is like opening up a house which has been locked up for a season.  This year it’s badly in need of renovation and upgrading. The metaphorical cobwebs are thick with metaphorical dust, after weeks and weeks of neglect. What has delighted and surprised me is how people still read it, even though there is nothing new. That gives me a kick. It’s something kind of permanent that I’ve created. Something other than my kids, of course. Good feeling.

Autumn is always when I begin to stir, as if  my brain has been hibernating for the summer. Why Fall and not Spring? My best  guess  is that, although I was brought up in the country, with three or four acres of land on which to act out my fantasies, I don’t remember Spring being so awesome. I just don’t. There was a cycle to the crops my grandfather planted, and, yes, I tended to count the years by the plantings and harvestings, but mostly I was just glad Spring meant I could get outdoors more!

Autumn, however, was crisp and fresh and new. It meant going back to a school which hummed of  newly varnished desks and new books, the  potential of new kids,  the exploring to find out what had changed, and a promise to sate my curiosity. One of my favorite lines in any movie is Tom Hanks telling Meg Ryan that he would send her “a bouquet of sharpened pencils.”

Autumn here, in a sub-tropical archipelgo, barely exists, of course. You have to go in search of it, up into the mountains, where there are trees whose leaves turn, and where those eerie mists do glide through the forests. Perhaps it is simply the apparent infinity of this year’s heat which is getting to me, but the restlessness which always comes over me at this time of year is powerful this time, probably because it is more an evolution  than a new sensation.

Firstly, a renovation of the blog is afoot. It will be, hopefully, more modern, more fun and easier to navigate in the techie sense…….for me, that’s fun and HARD to make happen at the same time! But I need challenges, and it’s so good to learn new things! That’s why it has been so slow of late, because what’s happening is in the background, and won’t be obvious for a little while. Basically, it’s an evolution, or perhaps a gestation.

So far as content goes I will give away two things for now  one is  that there is going to be far more emphasis on age. I’ve reached screaming stage with the perceptions and misconceptions about life over 60, and you can expect more ranting, more inspiration and more concentration on that from now on. The sub-title of the blog, in fact, is going to change from “Life on a Small Island” to “Celebrating Life and Island Travel after 60″ – or something like that, I’m not sure yet.

Secondly, an examination of my  state of mind makes me realize that it is the lack of travel in my life which is largely to blame….. now there’s a surprise!  And what is to blame for lack of travel? Two things lack of money and a faithful, old dog. I set out on the path to simplifying life oh, ten years ago now, not, necessarily, from a huge desire to shed possessions because I was quite content with many of them, but from necessity. It’s been an ongoing process. There is very little left to shed now, which, in turn means there is no money to travel. My optimism, my intention to look around me in the spirit of it being “the journey, and not the destination” is, it seems, petering out, and I am fairly desperate for change.

I wracked my brain, lost sleep, dreamed, traveled millions of miles vicariously, until I found a solution, not only to being able to travel but to not leaving behind Trixy. The answer, I figure is to shake the commitments to rent, utilities and telephones (which are, basically, the only ones left after the ten years), because I can’t afford to both travel and maintain a base here. Duh – how many travel blogs have I read over the years with that kind of advice? Still, we all have our own needs, and rushing into being a nomad at 60+ isn’t the same as approaching it at 20.  Having loosed those commitments I should be able to travel the islands with Trixy. I’ll begin with the Canarian archipelago; after that, the plan is the rest of Macronesia for starters, and then, to quote Tennyson “….my purpose holds to sail beyond the sunset…”

The embryo plan is to stay as long as I like wherever I choose, but long enough to get to know a place….unless I truly hate it! I know there will be complications, but hecky thump nothing ventured, nothing gained, Carpe Diem and all that.

So this is the dawn of a new day, a new path, a new adventure. I’m scared. I’m excited. I’m very happy about it all. I’m not off tomorrow. There are preparations to make,  enjoyments to be shared, and commitments to complete first, but I am getting into gear, and you will soon see the changes here.

Tenerife Under my Skin

Some time after 9/11 CNN’s Aaron Brown, who was anchor that unforgettable morning, was interviewed about how he’d coped, watching from the roof of the CNN building as the towers fell , knowing he had to keep on talking to keep the world informed. One of the things he said in that interview was that, although he had lived in New York for some years, it was on that day that he truly felt like a New Yorker.  That notion stuck with me. I kind of know how he felt. I’ve lived on Tenerife on and off for a tad over 25 years now, but only the last couple of weeks have I realized just how deep my connections are.

There have been fires before, but never a year like this one. This year has been like a “perfect storm” for  fires – a countryside which is tinder-dry from two years with insufficient rains, a summer of heatwave after unforgiving heatwave, and a topography which often makes fighting the fires almost impossible. The western islands are steep and riven by dramatic fissures called barrancos, often too steep for fire-fighting equipment to access. This is one reason why some fires are brought under control so much more quickly than others. Those barrancos sometimes act like wind tunnels, channeling the draft to fan fires, creating what they call the chimney effect. Fire travels faster uphill, with all that implies.

Now summer ekes out its days. We’ll be lucky if there is rain before October. It’s an indication, in fact, of how at home I feel that I say that as a matter of fact, without giving a thought to the alternative climate which was my norm in England for so many years. So far fires have scorched La Palma, Tenerife and La Gomera. The devastation in La Gomera is utterly tragic, both in terms of what people are suffering and what has been lost environmentally. It’s still early to have firm statistics on the destruction, but the talk is that around 50 homes were destroyed, and many folk, in this time of financial crisis, had no insurance cover. Countless more, of course, have been damaged.

Whilst there are numerous personal tragedies, and even more knock-on effects for businesses, the irreparable effect is the loss of forests which have survived for millions of years, and are one of the last surviving examples of humid, subtropical forest in a Europe which was once covered in such woodland. That this is sounding each day more and more like arson is something I can’t get my head around.  There are crimes I can understand, though obviously don’t approve of, but arson of this type isn’t one of them. For me it defies logic. I can’t even begin to understand what drives anyone to do this. I can understand the reasons for some evil-doings, even if I don’t condone them. I can understand what might drive someone to kill or steal, but what on earth makes someone want to do this?

There was a time when I knew, more or less, only the south west coast, where all the resorts are. My days were filled with motherly concerns and wifely duties and a fair amount of nonsense, and although I’d marveled at the mighty Teide, and shopped in some of the inland villages of the south, barbecued in the mountains and swam constantly in the ocean I didn’t feel the pull in the same way I do now. That came later, after the day-to-day preoccupations of motherhood had eased, and the wifely concerns had disappeared, and, in all honesty, I found myself fairly broke (that’s somewhat of a joke, because I had so much more then than I now do, however…) my life became open to the alternatives around me, because there were no funds for travel, and so I played “what if…..”  What if I were seeing this place for the first time, what if I were eating this food for the first time, what new experiences can I find in this place?

That was something over two years ago, and what I found were traditions, landscapes, food, wines, music and culture I’d known little about in the preceding years. As an ex-pat it’s petty easy to live like a tourist, in fact. I didn’t think was doing that, but evidently I was, perhaps not to the degree that some do, but nevertheless I’d built my own comfort zone, a kind of halfway house between the culture of my birth and the culture in which I was living. It would be wrong to say that I no longer do that. I was born English and I’m proud of being British, and I lived in that culture for far too many years to lose or want to lose the ties I have, but this, my second home, and the emotions it arouses in me are pretty strong right now. I grieve for the land and the folk who have lost precious possessions; I rejoice that no lives were lost; I admire and respect those involved in any way in containing and helping to extinguish the fires; and I am intensely angry at those who might have provoked them. In other words, I feel like a part of this community.

It’s been a while since I updated this blog, and even longer since I updated with any up-to-date content. This hot summer has been tiring, the calima has affected me for the first time (slight respiratory problems) and perhaps I have become a little jaded. Perhaps that’s inevitable for someone with wanderlust. I’ve found myself turning down opportunities to revisit fiestas, markets and events which I was lapping up a couple of years back. Sorry to say, I’ve been feeling “been there, done that”, which is not to say that these happenings are in any way not enjoyable if you are the sort of person who likes stability, or that they aren’t marvelous if you’re experiencing them for the first time. I’ve admired the mindset that plans for a carnival or a fiesta, that is reassured by the date coming around again, and just maybe somewhere in my future there is that feeling, but it’s not a part of my make-up right now . I have plans churning in my mind and perhaps I have been thinking more about them than about the present, and that’s always a mistake. One misses so much that way, and I’m afraid I may have done that this summer.

I looked up Aaron Brown on the web the other day. He doesn’t live in New York any longer. I will never, ever stop wanting to see and experience new places, and perhaps I might move on sooner rather than later, but there is no doubt that Tenerife has a very secure hold on my heart.

Capture the Color Competition Entry

I’d read about TravelSupermarket’s Capture the Color travel photo competition, but I really felt to shy to send in anything, with some really prestigious travel photographers and bloggers entering,   I didn’t want to make a fool of myself! But, then, Elaine from RunawayBrit nominated me, and I thought, “Well, why not. Nothing ventured, nothing gained,” and it sounded like fun.

The idea is that there are five categories, each one being a color – red, blue, white, yellow and green, and each category has its own judge, and each category winner will receive an iPad3, and the overall winner will receive £2,000 to be spent on travel……not bad, eh?

Entries are due by the end of this month, and I was tempted to wait & see if I can do better, but then I’d probably just procrastinate until it was too late (who? me? oh, yeah!), so I’ve just spent a very pleasant few hours travelling a bit down memory lane via my photos. It’s been a jolly nice trip, so I should thank TravelSupermarket and RunawayBrit for that too. I have to write a little about each photo so you can come down memory lane with me.

Er …. I think that’s it, so here are my photos:

Red

In photos you usually see of surfers, the sea is incredibly blue, but Canary Island locals  go out early, before the tourists get out of bed. Before the day has warmed up, the sea can appear quite grey. My son, Guy, had just returned to the island after years of living in the US, and we walked down to the beach as dawn was breaking. It was a treat for me, not only because Guy was back home after his US adventures,  but also because back when my sons were in their teens the last thing they wanted was mom hanging around when they were surfing! Hence I didn’t actually have any photos of them on the water. There was little surf this day, as it turned out, but this was my favorite picture, taken with my little point & shoot too. Guy’s board was the only point of color at this time of day.

Blue

My friend, Cristina, was showing us around her family’s home in the hills just above Icod de los Vinos (one of my favorite parts of Tenerife), the house is set in the forest, surrounded by aromatic pine and rich chestnut trees. It was cool and tranquil, and so very different from the south of the island. We wandered around the land surrounding the house and came across this beautifully decrepit old door, just by the orchard. I’m a sucker for peeling paintwork, especially if it’s blue. The hydrangea were past their best too. It was October, but blue is kind of an everlasting color……

White

Coincidentally, my “white” pictures comes from that same stroll with my friends when we saw the blue door. I really didn’t think this wee butterfly would stay still long enough, but I got a two or three shots before he moved on. It wasn’t until after I saw in on screen that it struck me how very white he was. Although the Canary Island is often called “The Land of Eternal Spring”  seasons do exist here, especially in these woodlands of the north, where tourists rarely roam. It was late October, the chestnut trees were heavy with their spiky fruit, and there was the scent of woodsmoke in the air as neighboring houses lit fires and barbeques, and this fellow seemed almost like a ghost of the failing summer.

Green

It’s a common misconception among visitors to Tenerife, those who stray no further than their sun-lounger on a beach on the south coast, that the island has no greenery. They couldn’t be further from the truth, the peaks and slopes of the north (and the south higher up) are home to mainly pine forests, and the north east tip of the island is lush variegated forest. However, when I thought about green I thought about cacti, oddly, perhaps.  Cacti grow just about everywhere n the Canary Islands, so much so that we take them for granted, but often they are the only hint of color in a harsh landscape. I have loads of pictures of cacti, but this task made me realize that most are pre-digital and I need to get out there & take some more. However, here is one of my favorites.

Yellow

I racked my brains over yellow, because I couldn’t remember nor find a photograph which I thought of as “yellow.” Then I remembered going up to Granadilla de Abona at the beginning of May to see the traditional floral crosses made for the Day of the Holy Cross (El Día de la Cruz), and how there was a lonely sunflower in one of the small crosses by someone’s door. The Day of the Holy Cross celebrates the finding of the original cross by Helena, mother of Roman Emperor Constantine, and any town, village, island or city in the Latino world with the word cruz in its name celebrates the day. The main festivities in Tenerife are in capital city, Santa Cruz, but since the name of the entire province is Santa Cruz de Tenerife, communities all over the province display these beautiful floral tributes. Outside the churches they are huge and abundant, but private houses like this one often display them too.

Nominations

Now to nominate five other travel bloggers to participate in the competition if they want. The problem is now that this has been around for a few weeks, and I really don’t know who has or has not already been nominated, but here we go:

Katrina from Tourabsurd.com  ……. who should have no problem with the “green” part since she just arrived in Ireland! And I have to wonder (if she has time to do this!) if some of her colors might involve food – since there have been some mouth-watering photos on her blog in recent months!

Marianne from EastofMalaga who has some gorgeous photos of Andalucia on her blog which express a deep love of her adopted home.

Jack from BuzzTrips  because I LOVE his photos and because he must have some stunners for the “blue” category having been in Morocco not too long ago!

Barbara from HoleintheDonut  Barbara’s photos are breathtaking, recently returned from Nepal, they just pulse with local color, both real and metaphorical.

Mariana from TravelThirst   …..whose photos totally succeed in her desire to stimulate our senses! Beautiful, virtual travel :=)

It might well be that some, or all, of you guys have already been nominated, and apologies if so, or if this nomination catches you in a moment when you are too busy or traveling too fast to do it!

 

To Mess or Not to Mess? That is the Question…..Photographically Speaking.

I may have indigestion later…….. I just ate my hat…….. Ok, it was an imaginary hat, but there is imaginary indigestion, no? An imaginary hat as in the statement, “I think photos should be natural and not tampered with, and I’ll eat my hat if I ever do that!” You get it, no? In other words, I was a photography purist and I am converted.

I blame the Guanches. It was on a thundery-looking afternoon I went with RunawayBrit to see the pretty, little town of Candelaria. We’d been enveloped by chilling mists most of the day in the Teide National Park and descending the northern coast of the island,  I’d abandoned plans, and turned south, but when we reached Candelaria, the clouds had risen so that they hovered, thick and menacing above, but least we could see stuff! So we changed plans again, and stopped there.  My photos of those imposing statues of Guanche kings were disappointing when I came to look at them on the screen, though…..which is when I began to mess with them, and this was the result.

And in the time it takes to click a couple of times, there I was – hooked! In my defense I state that I always said that what I wanted my photos to do was convey a message, and the truth is that the camera doesn’t see what the eye sees, let alone what the heart sees. And for me Pelicar towering into the stormy sky was threatening the Spanish invaders, and preparing to fight to the death, and enhancing the photo conveyed that message. Or am I trying to justify my conversion?

I went out to capture the sunrise a couple of weeks later. Now, I know – I’m lucky to live somewhere where scenes like the one below are, well, quite common, really, which means that by my standards the photos weren’t that special, yet when I “messed” with one of them and put it on Facebook I got more comments than usual. Vindication? Well, no, because now I was feeling the guilt. Were my photos more  ”some tart with too much make-up” than “a natural beauty?” I wasn’t at all comfortable with the messing.

Still feeling the guilt, visiting Icod de los Vinos on a very dull day (dull as in overcast skies that is….which is not to say overcast in the UK sense, but that the sky was an utter white-out, and the sun hidden), I snapped the dragon tree because it was in full flower, a noteworthy event, I couldn’t wait for the possibility of a blue sky. More disappointing photos, but would they look ok if I messed with them? What do you think?

Hmmm. Maybe? I began choosing random photos from my files.

Am I a total convert? Well, probably, so much so that I’m making a whole, new page just for photographs, ones, that is, that a more than just snapshots to illustrate text.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m not totally happy with any of the above photos, and I know I’m still experimenting. Wishing I’d had the extra money for the third part of that photographic course I did a couple of years back, which dealt with this sort of thing – perhaps I would have had a different perspective a while back. I only use Picasa right now, there just isn’t money for anything I actually have to pay for, and I appreciate that with a more sophisticated program I would get better results, and I assume that if I was using something more advanced I would, yes, be a convert…….so excuse me while I go look for the imaginary Rennies.

The Forest Fires and Responsibility

By coincidence last week I changed the background of this blog. I’d experimented with plain backgrounds (in order to be taken seriously, but they seemed too serious) and seascapes and sand (I love to be by the ocean, it’s a big draw for me in making my home here, but I am very conscious that the outside world needs to understand that there is more to this island than beaches). Finally, I settled on a picture I took on a hike three years ago. It was New Year’s Day; there was an achingly-clear, blue sky, misty visions of the islands of La Gomera and El Hierro shimmering on the horizon over the bluest ocean, and in the foreground acres of simply beautiful pine forest. We were walking close to Ilfonche.

The photos I took that day remain some of my favorites of the island. On the occasions I need a photo which I think typifies Tenerife I usually go to that file first. The pictures seem to encompass  ocean, mountains, island and forest,  the main components which make up this island, giving it its special personality and atmosphere.

Returning south last Sunday from a day wandering the street market of Santa Cruz, we spotted a huge plume of smoke around the hillsides. It was what has been dreaded for over a year. Anyone who’s read my blog before, or follows me on Facebook, knows how often I use words like arid, barren, parched or dry when talking about the state of the landscape over the last couple of years. The last time I remember any substantial rain in the south of Tenerife was around two years ago, a bit more in fact. It happened the week I moved house, and I remember lying awake as it thundered on my roof terrace – I hadn’t had a roof terrace before, and had visions of it overflowing and making a waterfall down the stairway. It didn’t, and I don’t remember any more nights like that in the two years I lived in that apartment.

I took the photo around 5.30 in the afternoon. The fire had broken out around 3. By the next morning it was raging out of control. By the next day it had spread in every direction, despite the valiant efforts of 7 helicopters constantly dousing the area with water. At one point choppers were diverted to deal with a fire which broke out on neighboring island, La Palma, where they had more success. Two planes arrived from the mainland to join the helicopters. The were 3 press conferences a day updating us on the situation. An entire village and some smaller hamlets were evacuated as the flames got closer. All the emergency services sprung into action. I don’t name them in case I miss one out. All, both professional and volunteer were outstanding, but you have to especially think of the firemen. Gradually one front was brought under control, then another, though  the fires still burn and are not, by any means, totally extinguished.

Each hike in recent months has re-enforced the sense of dread, as each one bore witness to the seared landscapes, ever drier. The subject of the dangers always came up in conversation at some point during a hike, especially when we saw a cigarette carelessly thrown from a car or noted cigarette ends along a trail. In the end it seems that it wasn’t smokers who caused the fire, but it could have been.

It seems at this point, and there is no absolute confirmation of this that I know of, that it began in a smallholding somewhere in the area in the first photo. One witness I saw on tv said something like, “Who would have thought that all this devastation could be caused by a little old bonfire?”  My question would be, “Who would not have thought that before lighting a bonfire?” If it’s true, and I don’t know that it is, it was an act of crass stupidity, and/or arrogance.

Arrogance because we seem to be living in the culture which thinks that the rules don’t apply to them. “It will never happen to me.” I don’t imply this is true only of Tenerife, I see it just about everywhere, and it’s time that we stopped to think of others. I’m not, even,  talking about the big issues, of wars, or famine or earthquakes. I’m talking about how we go about the minutiae of our daily lives; about whether we let our dogs foul the pavement; about whether how we park obstructs someone’s view at a crossroads; about how our cigarette smoke affects those around us or whether we toss our litter from the car window; about giving way on the supermarket aisle or a narrow street to those less agile or with bigger burdens or  whether our dog’s incessant barking frays neighbors’ nerves, and, of course, the consequences of lighting a bonfire when the earth is tinder dry……and those are just off the top of my head. It’s time we thought about the consequences of our actions instead of our immediate needs or pleasures. Almost everything we do affects the life of another person in some way, and it’s time that we owned up to our responsibility.

If this fire was started, however accidentally, by such arrogance and stupidity then the law here has severe penalties, but it can’t restore trees which took decades to grow, destroyed crops which are peoples’ livelihoods or compensate for the heartache and panic. Really, it’s a shame that we have to look to the law to provide penalties to deter folk, and that we can’t just care enough about each other and the earth to be more responsible.

The Myth of the Tree which had the Power to Move Roads

Long ago, on islands on the edge of the known world, there lived a dragon. These islands lacked for nothing. The ocean bore them moisture on its winds, so that when water didn’t fall from the sky directly, the trees and plants of the islands reached up and gathered that moisture to nurture life. The sun gently warmed its earth, so that plants and trees and flowers flourished and grew strong. It was said to be the most beautiful place on earth. The dragon‘s work was to guard this paradise from the dangers of the outside world, and so they rested peacefully in the waters of the Atlantic, blessed in every way.

Tending the garden which was these islands were a group of nymphs, sisters, called the Hesperides, daughters of the Titan, Atlas, who poured all their love into their work, so that the garden thrived and its beauty was, indeed the stuff of legends. For its further protection its location was known only to that wily sea god known as the Old Man of the Sea, who, once he had you in his grip, wouldn’t let go until you died from the exhaustion of attempting to escape.

 
The dragon, whose name was Ladon, had an easy life, for most lacked the intelligence or the courage to even try to reach the islands, but, of course, there were those who couldn’t resist. None had succeeded, until the invincible Heracles was ordered, as one of the tasks assigned to him as punishment for killing his own children in a moment of madness, to steal apples which grew on a certain tree on one of the islands. These apples were made of gold, and much coveted by Eurysthesus under whose orders Heracles was bound until his penance was served out.

 By trickery, Heracles discovered the location of the Garden of the Hesperides from the Old Man of the Sea, but he knew that even he was no match in strength for the dragon/serpent Ladon. There was, however, one who would be, and that was the mighty Atlas, who had been condemned by Zeus to shoulder the skies in an attempt to prevent them from rejoining earth. Heracles struck a deal with Atlas; in exchange for Atlas seizing the golden apples, Heracles would relieve him of his burden for a spell. Atlas, weary of his task, agreed.

In stealing the apples he first had to slay Ladon, which he did, and it is said that as the dragon’s life blood drained away into the earth trees sprang up in the places it had touched, and these are the trees known as dragon trees, when cut they ooze not sap but blood. Atlas was reluctant to return to his task of shouldering the world, but was tricked by Heracles into returning to his position, and year by year the dragon trees grew and multiplied.

That is just one version of the legend, in others it’s Heracles who slays the dragon, before Atlas, who is father to the Hesperides, steals the golden apples, and then there is the version where the body of Ladon is carried to the skies to become the constellation Draco in the northern night sky; and yet another tells of a shipwrecked sailor pursuing a beautiful maiden, who rejected his advances. The sailor, not knowing that this maiden was a magician, continued his pursuit, but found a strange tree in his path, whose many branches and twisted trunk blocked his way. In anger he struck out at the tree, severing its branches, only to find that blood spilled from every cut. The tree, of course, was the sorceress, and as her blood seeped over the earth more trees grew, just as in the Greek legend. Yet another myth says that every tree is a slain dragon – which would explain why, when Pilar & I were hiking the valley close to San Miguel de Abona the other week, in the Barranco named Barranco del Drago, we saw scarcely one……..there just ain’t that many dragons living, let alone dying these days!

 Legends, are, naturally, much more fun than the truth, but for sure dragon trees are weird, and there is one which might well be crucial these days to the economy of a small town in the north of Tenerife, Icod de los Vinos. This tree has the distinction of being probably the only tree in the world which had the power to move a road. When I first immigrated to Tenerife it was one of those sights one has to see, and to be honest, we drove past it a couple of times without realizing that we had found it. It stood by the roadside with some sort of undistinguished plaque proclaiming its vast age, but as the good folk of the town realized it was attracting visitors to an area which was earning less than of yore from agriculture they decided to protect it, and re-routed the entire road system to bypass it. Dragon trees are very, very slowing growing but have an amazing ability to survive. Some are said to have lived for thousands of years, and so to further protect this one, they also placed a fan inside to prevent the accumulation of fungus which might damage it, and created a small park around it, making it more worthy of the attention it was attracting.

 Their efforts were rewarded this year, as last, with a splendid flowering – a proof of the ancient tree’s good health, and not bad for a living thing which may be anywhere between 3,000 and 300 years old! It’s been christened the “thousand year tree,” but it’s doubtful that it is even that old, although the best guesses are somewhere between 500 and 300 years old. It may well have borne witness to the invasion of the Spanish Conquistadores. Unlike other trees, Dracoena Draco, to give it its proper, Latin name, doesn’t have rings, so it’s impossible to tell its specific age. History, rather than legend, tells that no lesser personage than Alexander von Humboldt (whose visit to the island is much vaunted) saw a splendid specimen in Orotava, which easily rivalled the one in Icod de los Vinos, but perhaps happily for the economy of Icod, it was destroyed in high winds mid 19th century, and I hear tell that the search is on for a successor now, should the same fate befall the current icon. A little way up the road, there grows a contender in fact, secured by steel wire, since it looks in imminent danger of falling onto nearby buildings. The danger being to the tree as well as to the buildings, since those branches can’t support themselves in the way a normal tree’s branches do, they simply break.

 And icon it is. Its image adorns postcards, plaques, mugs, fridge magnets and all the other trivia of modern life, which might be sold as souvenirs. There is no doubt that it’s existence is important to the economy of the town, but I doubt it’s crucial. Icod is a lovely, meandering place, with lots of history and tradition other than those which appertain to just one tree, but more of that another time.
In the times between the Greek myth and current, economic-icon status the sap of the dragon tree has had different uses. Its sap does resemble blood, and was said to have healing properties. Aboriginal Guanches used it as part of the embalming process when they mummified their dead, but it is probably best know as a stain or lacquer. It is even said that Stradivarius used the resin in the making of his violins, although his methods are also the stuff of legends, so I am not clear as to whether that can be verified or not.

I’ve been a sucker for myths and legends, ever since my first high school English Literature teacher told us that we must have a “willing suspension of disbelief” in order to appreciate fiction. I was ready, willing and able to suspend mine at the drop of a hat, so seeing this dragon tree in full flower was a must this year. I loved standing and imagining all the things this tree has witnessed over the years, let alone the mystical overtones to its being. There weren’t so many tourists that the atmosphere was totally lost, and mists  crept along the horizon and up the mountain roads as we descended into the municipality….. and what’s a good legend without a foggy backdrop? Icod is one of my favorite island towns, but the dragon tree really deserves this post to itself.

 Two things for sure: one is that the absence of trees in Barranco del Drago was almost certainly due to their having been cut down for use in as lacquers or varnishes, and not because of the dying out of dragons; two is that these fascinating trees really are the stuff of legend from early history to present day. It was nice to see Icod’s superb specimen in full flower, and looking as if it might live another 500 years……..or 1,000 who knows?

Hiking Surprises: San Miguel to La Centinela, Tenerife

Say the word “hike” to me and, after years of living on Tenerife, I conjure images of arid badlands, shady, mystical forests, volcanoes and other such exciting stuff, so a few weeks back,  hiking closer to home than usual,  I didn’t expect to find anything other than exercise to be honest because the hillsides of the south of Tenerife are barren at the best of times when compared to other parts of the island, and now, after around two years without any substantial rain, they are especially seared and tan, hence the low expectations……….but it proved to be a day of surprises

Pilar and I set off from the village of San Miguel de Abona around mid-morning, under one of those crystal clear, achingly-blue skies which make you double-check the contents of your daypack:  Sun cream? Check. Hat? Check. Plenty of water? Check. Ok to go then.

Daytime San Miguel perfectly fits the description “sleepy village.” Every time I visit, it has that siesta time air, as if the population are all whiling away the heat of the day behind closed shutters. It’s pretty, and well-maintained and restored.

We  sauntered out of the village. It almost felt like tip-toeing to avoid waking  residents.  The hillsides were parched, dusty and achingly dry, but within minutes we’d left all of that behind and  descended into greenery.  It was a revelation to find a certain lushness around us. Remember there are no rivers on Tenerife (many were already underground, and others were long ago diverted to take advantage of the natural, underground storage, to conserve water supplies). The reason soon became evident; along the way we passed places where water trickled  down the rock face, and in a couple of places we stepped into mud, clearly there was water underground, although the mud was the only evidence above, and there was the merest whisper of its running.

Pilar crosses a recently-installed bridge as we near Fuente de Tamaide

Probably that presence of water was the reason for all the other surprises that day.

One thing I miss  hiking here is birdsong. Summer hiking England and the air fairly vibrates with song. It isn’t as if there is nothing here for bird lovers, in recent weeks I’ve seen kestrals, buzzards, woodpeckers, hoopoes, great grey shrike, partridge, plovers, egret and a dove which is endemic to the island, as well as numerous gulls, blue tits and canaries, but there isn’t that  unseen pulsing  you feel  in England. Normally, that is – in this wee valley it seemed as if all the island’s missing birds were come together to celebrate spring, and the air was sweet with their chatter.

At some points we could look up and see the peaks of the caldera above us

Second surprise – we hadn’t been walking very long when we came across very visible water in the form of  La Fuente de Tamaide, a natural spring, like so many here, where water which has filtered underground in through the porous rocks of the mountains above eventually emerges into daylight. Even dew or light rain seeps through the this rock  and trickles downward, often finding its way out in scenes like this.

You can see how the basin of what is, really, a small waterfall when there is a lot of water, has been adapted to human needs.

Below a link to the past, and up above modern life intrudes.

Throughout history, and even before of course, water has always been important. The world over, byways and settlements sprang up close to water sources, and this, particular one, like others in this valley, served not only for practical purposes, like drinking water, washing, and watering of crops and animals, but also as a meeting place. There was a plaque explaining what it was we were looking at, with some old photographs. The photos didn’t tally exactly with what we saw, so I assumed that they were an illustration of how natural pools of water like these are adapted and harnessed by man to fit his needs.

The natural pools had a helping hand and you can see how it must have been a rendezvous for the village women. Can’t you just imagine them dishing the dirt as they beat and scrubbed their washing on the beveled sides of that  tank, or blushing as that handsome young man rode up on his horse? Beats hypnotizing yourself watching your machine’s wash cycle doesn’t it? Fresh air, a nice gossip with the girls, but then you have to remember that this is a valley, and they had to return with the wet washing uphill. They were made of strong stuff these country lasses.

Photo of the village washerwomen on the plaque.

There is no date for the photographs,  so I presume that they are intended as an example of how a pool like this fitted into daily life two or three centuries ago. There are, apparently, three such pools in the area, but we saw only two. It was noted that the first written record of this spring was in 1849, and it’s certain that it was used by man long before that, even by the aboriginal Guanches before the Spanish conquest. History hung in the air.

Sheltered in the barranco, it was easy to leave the modern world behind and imagine oneself back into history. We passed only one other couple until we got to the end, although, it’s for sure that it must have been busier back when than it is now. Abandoned cottages dot the landscape, as is common here, families long since absconded to the more profitable pursuits of the coast; the hillsides are swathed by barren, desolate terraces but here and there a green oasis, a terrace still cultivated. As we began to gently climb out of the barranco we had views right down to the coast. In Tenerife you are never out of sight of the ocean for very long.

Abandoned terraces

An oasis on the parched hillside.

As we emerged we came to a modern road and there was the next surprise. The odd-looking building by the roadside turned out to be another piece of history. It was an old tile kiln, built in the late 19th century, and restored for posterity, and once again a plaque explaining how it was used, and in English and German as well as Spanish too, another trip into history. The rest of our way took us past old houses,  an immaculate rural hotel and thirsty hillsides.

Tile Kiln La Hoya

Beautifully restored building which now houses a rural hotel.

This isn’t a difficult walk, looking back now I don’t remember puffing or panting at all until the last few yards of the outward journey, which took us to the mirador which clings to the rock just under the peak of the volcanic cone of  la Centinela. There there is a restaurant with an impressive view from its sweep of windows taking in much of the island’s south-east coast. The food is good there too, but this day we had to do a quick turn around back to San Miguel, so we lingered only long enough to take in the views, from the very peak, above the restaurant you have a 360º view, taking in mountains, ocean, agricultural fields, the resort areas of the coast and neighboring island, La Gomera, on a clear day you would be able to see Gran Canaria, La Palma and perhaps El Hierro too.

View from just outside the restaurant on La Centinela

We followed a slightly different path back, but its surprises were less evident, a mysterious door to nowhere; trying to catch a glimpse of the cackling we knew was a partridge hidden in the dusty scrub; climbing the side of a barranco and hearing that bucolic and satisfied clucking which indicates chickens laying eggs – it took us a while to identify from where the sounds came, then we realized that hidden under brush and branches in the dip below us was a row of chicken coops, hidden, we assumed, from aerial predators – we’d seen huge birds riding the thermals earlier, but were sure they’d come from a local zoo which specializes in bird life, whose eagles and vultures fly free for demonstrations during the day.

Chained and locked the door to nowhere, but it would be easy to hop over the wall. A mystery!

Almost back in San Miguel we turned to look back at La Centinela across the valley, and were surprised how far away it seemed to be. It hadn’t been a taxing walk, and we didn’t feel as if we had walked so far, but it had been something like time travel, a glimpse of other, earlier worlds, and we arrived back to find the village still snoozing in the mid-afternoon sun.

Close to where we parked in San Miguel this cave, clearly still in use for storage, may well have been inhabited in times past.

Sometimes it’s the People, Not the Places

I read this  great post by one of my favorite travel bloggers, Jodi from Legal Nomads this week, and it brought back some happy thoughts about folk I’ve met over the years, and that I’d written about one chance meeting for some competition or other last year. It didn’t win, or even get a mention, so I am free to reproduce it, because I think it’s a story worth the telling:

I hadn’t slept well, despite the airport hotel’s comfy bed. My first flight had been delayed, so I’d arrived at Heathrow late, set the alarms on both cell phones, asked for an alarm call from reception for back up, and tumbled into bed. Still my subconscious worried about missing my flight to North Carolina, and when all the bells went off next morning, it was clear to me that I’d wasted money on the hotel room. I could have gotten as much sleep on the airport floor.

I made the flight. I had a window seat, and was all set to sleep away the next six hours.  I organized my space, and crossed my fingers that my fellow travellers wouldn’t turn out to be jumbo-sized chatterboxes, who would disturb me.

“Hiya, I’m Mandy,” a beautiful, fragile-looking, young black woman beamed as she slid her bags into the overhead rack, and sank gracefully into the aisle seat. I introduced myself, we made small talk and it was time for take-off.

She turned out to be the perfect travel companion. We joked about airline food, talked about our destination and the weather inLondon. She didn’t intrude when I read. She exuded a kind of tranquil excitement, but she seemed to be a seasoned traveler.

Unable to place her accent more precisely than “African” I asked her at some point where she came from, and she replied, “Sudan.” Her answer filled me with both curiosity and an overwhelming need to be tactful. It’s not as if she’d said, “Amsterdam,” and I would have replied that I’d been there, and we could exchange experiences.

During the course of the previous couple of years  I’d met lots of refugees from Africa, very few of whom had been from Sudan, a country whose atrocities occupied headlines daily, leaving one with a feeling of despair and helplessness. I felt sympathy but didn’t know how to express it, sitting there in my western skin.

It was as we began our descent that I probed a little, and she explained, charmingly, that she had had some horrific experiences, but that she preferred not to talk about them.  She had, however, written a book, and she jotted down its name, “Slave,” and her name, which turned out to be Mende (and not Mandy, as I’d thought I heard) Nazer.

As I breezed through immigration I turned back to look, and she seemed to be, as she had predicted, having a hard time.

I didn’t see her again, but first thing next day I went to Borders to buy her book, and then I spent most of the next, two days reading it. Mende had had a happy childhood (excepting the trauma of female circumcision), until the day that her village was raided by the Mujahidin. To read a first-hand account of this, as opposed to neutral  reportage, is to feel the terror. I felt the dust in my throat, a deep fear in my belly and rising anger as I read.

It’s hard to describe in a few words how she was thereafter sold into slavery in Khartoum; how she survived, literally,  on scraps from her masters’ tables; how she learned to appear to be subservient in order to spare herself from further violence; how, unbelievably she was presented as a gift to family members in London, and lived in the heart of democracy as a slave; and how, finally, she managed to escape with the help of  Damien Lewis, with whom she co-authored her book, and others.

I’d travelled around 5,000 miles to North Carolina on that visit, but my internal journey had been far greater. It was a learning experience I will never forget. I hadn’t been to Sudan, but as a result of travelling I’d met this extraordinary young woman, and learned about things I didn’t know were still possible in this modern world. I was well aware of poverty, corruption and wars, but I didn’t know that slavery could exist on the scale it does. I’ve read a lot more about modern slavery since then. I sent Mende’s book to an American friend when I left, and I’ve bought other copies to give away. Her story is terribly important, and if she hadn’t sat next to me on a routine flight from London to the US, I would never have known about it.

Travel can broaden the mind in more ways than one. Often it’s the people and not the place which define our travel experience.

Just an Average Island Day

At 6.30am El Médano wears a very different face from its usual sunny but breezy one.  There’s a faint chill in the air, little wind (it blows in with the sunshine), the  lights in the square  are still atwinklin’, but there are no kids skateboarding beneath them, and the air clanks with the sound of dumpsters and recycling bins being emptied, and the whoosh of the high pressure hose as streets are cleaned.

Trixy and I place hesitant feet (well, paws in her case) on the damp pavement.  Sometimes the paving they use here gets dangerous when wet. Trix is always suspicious in the dark,  she sniffs along less than usual and sticks close to my legs.

I hang around at the end of the street, where pavement meets beach, waiting for her to do that which she has to do, when a beaten-up old truck passes slowly by, then reverses.  I tense.  Now I’m the suspicious one, and I hope that Trixy looks suitably fierce, even when performing her toilet.  However, they are simply surveying the dumpsters to see if there is anything worth taking before the council truck arrives to empty them.

It’s a familiar kind of sight these days. When I moved last  I put out some old, surplus furniture alongside the containers, and it disappeared within the hour, possibly to be tarted up and reappear at the car boot sale. I admire the entrepreneurial spirit of these guys.  They don’t let pride get in the way of their trying to keep body and soul together – unlike some of us.  I shudder.  It’s a thought which has crossed my mind in these times, the need to get so desperate, especially since my pension rights got lost in the fog of bureaucracy.

The sun announces its imminent appearance in a thin, bright light which ekes along the edge of the low cloud which is hugging the horizon. A brighter flash, like the gleam of a lighthouse, and then it emerges, slowly, but much quicker than it does further north. Soon it is a flaming sphere, balanced on those clouds, melting those clouds, and I have to look away.

We return home, greeting neighbors on a similar mission to ours. Feed Trixy, mop the floor, the coffee is ready and welcome. I swear I feel it touching each nerve in my body to bring it to life. I know it doesn’t work like that, but the notion helps wake me fully. Breakfast, shower, dress, check emails and Facebook and Twitter, then the big question: how many hits did the blog get yesterday? I know it isn’t important, but, dammit, there is a little thrill when it proves to be more than normal. I’m certainly not in the big time, and not sure I even want to be, but it’s nice to know that people actually read what I write.

Toss Trixy a biscuit and head out the door. It’s just after 9, and the autopista isn’t too bad. May through June is low season, and this year especially as the recession grinds unceasingly on, so traffic is light. I pull into the Vehicle Inspection Center, my van is due for its biannual check over. There is no queue (things are improving!), and the paperwork is quick, drive to lane indicated and honk the horn, brake when instructed and wiggle the wheel a lot. It passes. Phew! I find this on a par with going to the dentist, always afraid it will result in them finding something wrong which will result in a big bill.

Stop by the supermarket. Drive into Los Cristianos. The fountain at the town’s entrance looks bright and inviting against the sky’s intense blue. It’s hot and sticky in the car, and I have to seriously resist the impulse to stop & climb into it! Post office, book store, bank, office supplies, record store to sell some unwanted cds. I walk slowly back to the car park, enjoying the warmth and the fresh air, envious of the folk on the beach – but then, they’re probably envious of me, living here. Backpackers scurry past, bent under the weight of their packs, heading for the ferry to another island. The sight of it makes my feet itch.

Back to El Médano. I park the car in the garage, unload the shopping, whizz Trixy to the end of the road, and then toss her another biscuit as I close the door again. I meet a friend for lunch in Cafe M on the boardwalk. We order loops, a kind of bagel which they overfill with salad stuff and meat or fish as you choose, and large intense fresh fruit juices. Nothing stops the chatter, though. We laugh and we people watch, and we lay plans for a future hike, talk of future journeys, and I idly wonder why we are sitting next to the beach and not on it.

It doesn’t take long to answer that question. I have a class at 5, and haven’t finished preparing it yet, so I make a move. I walk slowly again, because, well, I’m just that way out today. Sort of “Stop the World, I Want to Get Off!”  I stop to smile at the latest sand sculpture on the beach, reluctant to leave.

I’d rather stop in this bar by the harbor and have a mojito or two.

I’m not in a working mood at all today, but I turn the key, clear the table and settle down to finish what I should have done yesterday.

5pm my students arrive. Lethargy is out the window. It’s a good lesson. Sometimes I enjoy teaching ESL so  much that I feel guilty being paid to do this, but I love the feeling when I know that students have grasped something, are improving, more confident. We also laugh quite a lot.

6.30 It’s too hot for June. I skip across the plaza for an ice cream. I don’t even want my favorite Chocolate Brownie, I choose refreshing passion fruit, and sit on a bench overlooking the harbor to enjoy it before it melts. I stop, as I almost always do when passing through Plaza Roja to gaze at my favorite piece of Médano sculpture, entitled Homage to Magellan. Its original and bold, and he looks out to sea, dreaming of places over the ocean, planing voyages and biding his time.

Time for another walk. I don’t enjoy evening walks nearly as much as morning ones,when we are almost alone, when I feel as if the world is ours. In summer we don’t see much of the sunset. Children squeal in the playground. Skateboarder dudes scud past. Trixy sniffs other dogs. Other dogs sniff Trixy. The waves cream onto the pebbles, and a few hopeful windsurfers coax some mileage out of the light breeze.

Soup, salad. Resist the strong desire for a cold beer (tomorrow is a run day). Check emails, and Facebook and Twitter and stats. I sit here and write this. Amazingly I have three early starts lined up over the next three days, so at just after 10 it’s time for bed.

This in response to a question my friend and I asked ourselves yesterday, “What do we do all day?” This wasn’t a creative nor an adventurous day, it wasn’t especially happy nor sad. I didn’t angst because I couldn’t find the right word, or curse the inefficiency in some office or other. I didn’t walk or run or climb or swim, though I do all of those things from time to time, some more than others.  It was ordinary. Too many of these and I would get bored! This was a slow, leisurely day, if it hadn’t been I couldn’t have written this. It’s a snapshot of an average, slow, leisurely day. It’s doing the sorts of things women the world over do, the difference is that my backdrop is kind of nice, isn’t it? And because this place, much as I love it, isn’t my home I still have that tingly feeling that I’m just passing through. OK, OK it’s been a long sojourn, and the island’s tentacles have proved to have a long reach whenever I’ve been away for too long, but, still it will “do” for now. That said, it’s been interesting to note how many times in a day I reference travel, even on a day when I don’t read about it or watch tv………..