The Virgin of the Snows

Saturday 20 March 2005. We left El Caldera del Taburiente and set off on the last leg of our afternoon's excursion on the island of La Palma

First we stop at the Mirador de La Concepcion. This overlooks Santa Cruz to reveal that part of the town is built within the crater of a (hopefully) extinct volcano.

If it was once a perfectly round crater then it would appear that the sea has eroded one side of it considerably. The inland side is still steep and towering.

The scar that I took to be the point from which the lava and ash cloud emerged makes you wonder why people would build so close, but then I also scratch my head at the size of Naples around the base of Mount Vesuvius - a volcano still far from extinct.

From the mirador we set off for our last point of call: Santuario Virgen de Las Nieves - The Church of the Virgin of the Snows.

The church contains this statue of the patron saint of La Palma. Every five years the statue is taken down to Santa Cruz and paraded through the port in a celebration lasting two weeks. The locals in the parade wear costumes with eye holes near the top of the characters' hats, so it looks like they are dancing midgets, or enanos.

Someone has a job description that includes dressing and looking after the statue.

The village shop looked like (and may have been for all I know, though I doubt it, especially given the cross on the roof) a bawdy house from a western movie with its veranda. Anyway there were no beguiling maidens or otherwise showing off any shockingly exposed ankle.

A last look at the surrounding countryside and then it's back to the coach to be returned to the ship.

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Jameos del Agua, Lanzarote

Wednesday 16 March 2005. Our ship has docked in Arrecife, Lanzarote and we are in the middle of a coach excursion. Having left the Mirador del Rio, we arrive at Jameos del Agua.

The first thing we see is a stonking great hole in the top of a nearby mountain. When the volcano Monte Corona erupted several millions of years ago, a searing stream of molten lava burst out from its interior.

It carved a tunnel for over seven kilometres underground until it reached the nearby Atlantic Ocean then... it kept going. It is the longest volcanic tunnel in the world and extends out under the floor of the Atlantic.

Here you can climb down into the tunnel and explore it for a short distance. There is a handy bar at one end should you feel in need of refreshment, or just a bit of dutch courage in case the mountain tries its hand again whilst you are there.

Our walk through the tunnel is only a short one because a few yards further on the pressure of the lava trying to bore through solid rock and backing up caused a huge explosion and created a hole in the roof of the tunnel. Little blind white crabs live in the water here. No one is sure why. Presumably they got in through another such explosive hole but this one must have been under the ocean. However, normally these little blind crabs live at immense depths (where eyes would not be of much use so far from penetrating sunlight) and here the water is only a few feet deep.

And out into the roofless bit. The artists César Manrique has turned the place into a tourist attraction, sculpting the (now thankfully cool and solid) lava into terraces, spiral staircases, and a landscaped pool without crabs.

Here I've climbed one of the said spiral staircases for a higher viewpoint and a troubled look at the dark sky. Is that pesky mountain going to blow again...?

Lanzarote can be justly proud of César Manrique (that's the artist, César Manrique) but our guide mentioned César Manrique so much we were sick of his name (César Manrique) by the time we finished the tour!

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Lanzarote Excursion

Wednesday 16 March 2005. We arrive in Lanzarote to a beautiful day.

Arrecife is an industrial port, but we haven't really come to see the factories and containers stacked up so it's onto a coach and we go exploring.

Before too long we are up in the hillsides and stop at a mirador, or viewing point, to take in the scenery.

There are plenty of cone-shaped hills with holes in the top to remind us that we are on volcanic land. In fact the car and coach park is delimited by large chunks of volcanic rock. Light though pumice stone may be, you wouldn't want to crash your car into a large chunk!

Looking towards the deep blue of the Atlantic, we can look down a steep valley. There are patches of grey exposed lava amongst the green. Nervously we keep an eye out for any tell-tale wisps of smoke but today at least will be eruption free.

The hillsides have been terraced to allow crops to be planted. They are steep enough to call for the he road below to twist in a series of hairpin bends as it descends from the hills.

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Fire and Ice: Iceland's Golden Circle, Part Two

Saturday 5 August 2017. After leaving the Gullfoss waterfall we re-traced our steps a bit - or perhaps the coach re-traced it's tyre tracks might be more accurate.

We stopped at the geothermal area at Haukadalur, which was described on the tour as a Geyser park. It contains several geysers and hot springs including Strokkur (shown here) which erupts roughly every seven minutes, sending boiling water shooting up to 20 metres (65 feet) in height. This eruption was just after we entered the park - you can enter at either end of a set path.

The paths that you can walk are marked out by rope and iron posts and there are warning signs not to touch any water whether standing or flowing in small small streams from the pools.

It may have flowed over the ground quite a way but that water is still 80° centigrade or higher! Just looking at flowing water your mind plays tricks, telling you that of course it will be safe to touch. I didn't test my theory and suspect that I would have regretted it if I had!

We reach the first of the pools. There's a spot towards the right where the water is boiling. This must be directly above the vent or tunnel through which the water rises to the surface.

In the second pool it is very obvious where the vent is! It is a strange feeling to know you must be standing over a large lake of magma. Though, on saying that, I've climbed up Vesuvius and didn't give it a second thought! But here the ever-present steam and whiff of sulfur act as strong reminders. Incidentally for anyone screaming at the screen that I spelt sulphur wrong, I refer you to the decision of the Nomenclature Committee of the Royal Society of Chemistry in 1992...

We reach the erupting Strokkur geyser just after its seven minutes start again! Phew! It does smell of sulfur and as we walk through the end of the mist of steam it gets very hot.

We walk round the ring of spectators until we are out of the path of the steam and I set the camera on video to capture the next eruption. Sadly, it is a smaller one than some we have seen, but still impressive.

As we move towards the far end of the path we presume that this area must have vents from closer to the reservoir of magma far below as there are several pools which are boiling away merrily.

Whilst not erupting on the same scale as the one just seen, this one does spurt out every now and then as the water gets super-heated. It is called Litli Geysir - "Little Geyser"! There are several people watching it and Fran overhears someone from another of the ship's coaches complaining, "Well I've been standing here longer than seven minutes and it's not done anything other than boil!"
"That's because you're standing at the wrong one," said Fran, pointing over her shoulder just as Strokkur shoots high into the air again.

We are close to the far end of the path now and lunch awaits us in a hotel at the far end. This part of the park is wreathed in steam from numerous ponds or craters in the ground.

The lunch is included with the tour and is delicious. A cream vegetable soup is followed by poached salmon as a main course. It is faultless. Water and tea or coffee are provided though when we were offered a beer or soft drink we both thought "Why not?" and I had a lager beer - Gull lager - and Fran had a bottle of Pepsi. We worked out the exchange rate later and found we had paid around 14 pounds for this. Hey - it was worth it and you have to remember that prices in such a remote place are going to be higher than your local supermarket!

Alongside the car park was a large souvenir shop and we had a look round and bought important things like fridge magnets...

There's one more site to visit on the Golden Circle tour and that will feature in the next article. It consists of the rift valley between two tectonic plates and the site of Iceland's first parliament around 800 AD.

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A Day on La Palma

7 March 2004. Santa Cruz de la Palma is the capital city and port of La Palma, one of the westernmost of the Canary Islands. It is to this teardrop shaped island that we have sailed overnight.

Fran woke first and said "Have we docked yet?" I admitted I didn't know and she whisked back the curtains on the cabin porthole then shrieked at the sight of a much taken aback harbour pilot who was standing on the deck of his pilot boat about three feet away from her naked self... He could probably only see her face and shoulders but since that day Fran has been careful how she looks out of a ship window first thing of a morning...

By the time we were dressed and up on deck, the sun was out and blazing merrily down at the cruisers onboard, who by now are various shades of pink to bright-red-with-blisters... The bodies beautiful are still hard to find amongst the bodies crinkly.

We are booked on a half day afternoon excursion, so it is a lazy morning sunning ourselves and reading. Here Fran has gone for a couple of glasses of iced water - hopefully a bit fresher than the harbour water below which has a trail of rather disgusting looking stuff which has floated our way from a cargo ship moored at the other end of the dock...

The crew are playing on the lifeboats. This is described as a drill and is no doubt serious stuff, but it still looks good fun! Ok! The morning has gone and we must stir ourselves for the afternoon coach trip.

Our first stop is at a ceramics studio, where this chap is taking a break from making hundreds of little pirates - and one big one, obviously, to make a bowl in the manner of the ancient indiginous inhabitants of La Palma. As it's a volcanic island, I'm not sure how it could have indiginous anything except lava flows, but perhaps they mean the first ones to land after the fire went out...

Our next stop is at a local vineyard where the courier helpfully described the paint thinners posing as red wine as "not quite full bodied..." I should say not and to avoid litigation have avoided posting any photographs of the location or the grapes which the local goblins fill with vinegar every night.

Moving swiftly on, we arrive at one of the island's volcanic craters. The volcano, San Antonio last erupted in 1677 and was peaceful as far as any fire and brimstone was concerned.

The wind though was unbelievably fierce, threatening either to blow us into the crater or down the side of the volcano into the sea far below.

This was the view looking away from the bowl of the crater and either side, it was a heck of a long way to be rolling down razor sharp volcanic rock! Not a bad place though to tip any wine you may have bought without tasting it...

Final stop was at a small village with a small park laid out with mosaics and stone patterns. La Glorieta was the name of the park and admission was free and (Oh no!!!) there was a wine museum just 100 meters away.

It was extremely hot. Hot enough that you'd think the volcano could have rekindled itself, but we got back to the Carousel without any mishap or seismic phenomena. Tonight will be special and not just for the harbour pilot... Apart from breakfast, elevenses, lunch, afternoon tea, and main dinner, there is a midnight feast! Not to be missed!

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Palaces And Pyramids

We're now back in the UK after another fearless - well.. almost fearless trip abroad. I dropped my iPod off the balcony from Deck 11 and couldn't believe my luck when the headphone cable, which I managed to grab, didn't unplug itself!

Anyway, despite best efforts, my laptop refused to connect to the Internet via the ship's satellite so without further ado, here is the entry you should have been able to read last weekend...

* * * * * *

Like thousands of others we've been watching the antics of the Icelandic volcano over the past week or so with some trepidation. We were due to go off globe trotting last Thursday ourselves on a cruise on the Ocean Village. Anyway, although Miss Franny was convinced we were not going to get out to Crete to pick the boat up and despite all my attempts to cheer her up saying things like "Well... we can go somewhere like Great Yarmouth..." we did actually manage to get out and onto the ship.

As I write this I'm sitting on a tiny balcony off our cabin with a gorgeous view of cranes, containers and lengths of railway line stacked into bundles on the quayside below me. We're in Limassol in Cyprus today and we haven't arranged any trips as yesterday was a long day. The description of the day in Limassol will come tomorrow!

We docked in Port Said yesterday at the mouth - or one of the mouths, as it's a delta - of the River Nile. We did a trip to see a few pyramids and such. The first surprise was the number of gents in suits and dark glasses with guns very obviously sticking out of holsters under suit jackets. Our coach had one such, an affable chap who swapped smiles readily enough and who sat in the front seat, just in front of ours before going to sleep in a position that meant I could have drawn the gun much quicker between the seats than he could have hoped to...

The poverty here is obvious. The occupation of many old men and young boys seems to be collecting alfafa grass which is piled high on carts pulled by donkeys or oxen. I suspect they have to sell an awful lot to make a living.

Our first stop was to be at the stepped pyramid at Sakkara, built by King Zoser a long time before Cheops got cracking with his effort which we would see later. The time scales dwarf our own history in Britain. We were still happily building houses by digging pits and roofing them with grass whilst the Egyptians were building these impressive stone structures.

In fact we would still be doing so for a few thousand years to come... Although here's a quick aside for you! How many of you know how to count to four in (one of) the language(s) that the people who built Stonehenge used? Shall I count to two and see if you can carry on to four? Ok? Eeny, meeny..... Here in Egypt there are soo many tombs and buried structures that they can be spotted with just a few top stones sticking out of the sand, waiting for someone to dig them out.

We got out of the coach to visit one that had been uncovered. It was the tomb of an Egyptian princess, just one of the many mastaba, or tombs of the King's followers and family.

Again there are more of them still hidden. Unfortunately we could not take photos inside the princess' tomb but the hieroglyphics inside were amazing. Very impressive. The ones on this doorway are carved into the rock - in the tomb they were bas-relief. The pictograms stood out from the wall meaning they had been carved around. Hippos and crocodiles were happily sharing the Nile whilst men were fishing or being fished - "Watch out for that croc Achmed... Ooh... that's got to hurt..."

Bas relief carvings stick out of the wall rather than being carved into it - it takes far more effort and skill - try drawing a black sky but leave white space for the moon and stars and see how long it takes before you get fed up... and - oops - you drew over that space where the moon should be... The guide, Manal, was strict about not letting us touch the wall carvings. "Mind your backs, don't let your bags scrape the wall!" she said. "Right, now this scene..." she emphasised her area of attention by banging the carvings vigorously with the plastic handle of her guide's flag...

On the horizon are more pyramids. One with a curved profile at the top. It took the Egyptians a while to perfect a technique of building that would support the weight of a large regular pyramid. The stepped pyramid we have come to see was an early version. The curved top a later one and the perfect pyramid the final triumph.

The stepped pyramid of King Zoser (or Dsoser), built for him by his priest (gulp) Imhotep...! (Ring any bells? No? Watch more films...)

King Zoser got on with the task of building his tomb, studiously ignoring all the tradesmen who were trying to get him to buy plastic models of his growing pyramid. "One euros, souvenir, you take home, stick on mantlepiece, yes?"

The complex was once ringed by walls. This portion has been recreated by archaeologists using as much original material as possible.

We passed through. You can't help looking upwards wondering whether it's going to fall on your head, but of course this is a reconstruction not the original thousands of years old structure. You can't help looking upwards wondering whether it's going to fall on your... oh sorry! I've said that already! I'd better take another look though, just in case...

We came to find several affable guys in full desert gear, robes and heads covered etc., offering to pose with tourists for photos. It was only afterwards they remembered to mention they charge for this service...

We got back in the bus - a relief as I had left my camera bag in it. That wasn't a problem but my glasses case was in the bag with my normal glasses in it, so I'd had to stumble round the dark tomb in sunglasses - a choice of dark or very blurred... Ok, we're off for lunch somewhere and then into Cairo to look at the famous pyramids and the sphinx.

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