Continuing the volcano theme of this journey, the harbor at our next stop, Santa Cruz de la Palma, is built on the outfall of an old caldera.

Not far from Tenerife, the island of La Palma is currently the more active of the Canary Islands, geologically speaking. Our sunrise arrival gave us enough time to take in a full day of volcanos and a little more.

The island is about 28 by 16 miles, and has a population of approximately 84,000. The economy is mostly irrigation based farming, producing bananas, tomatoes and tobacco, but tourism is on a rapid rise. The Spanish first arrived on the island in 1405, but it wasn’t until 1493 that they managed to subdue local resistance. A local chieftain named Tanausu, who harassed the Spanish from the hills around the center of the island, was deceived into attending truce talks and ambushed enroute, thus ending the fight. The island subsequently developed into a key stop-over for New World travel and commerce.

Our first first stop was Parque Nacional de la Caldera de Taburiente. Roughly in the center of the island, it is the remnant of a large volcano, reaching 7,900 feet above sea level. It is this specific geographical feature that gave the technical term caldera to geologist. In 1815 a German named Leopold von Buch came and studied the volcanos on La Palma and named the type of feature after the cauldron cooking pot.

Similar to our trip on Tenerife, reaching the park required a long ride up narrow, twisty roads through the various climate zones. At the bottom were palm trees, in the middle Canary pine trees, and finally at the top, no trees at all. The peaks were enshrouded with clouds, making a damp, windy atmosphere.

From the south side of the caldera, it is 6 miles across to the north rim, and the bottom is 4,000 feet down. The Barranco de las Angustias (Ravine of Anxiety) runs southwest from the bottom of the caldera to the the sea.

La Palma mountain tops wrapped in clouds

After hiking in the clouds, we made our way back down through the crossroads town of El Paso, where were turned west and the south to visit the site of the 2021 Cumbre Vieja eruption. (Depicted by the black and red scribbling on the guide’s map.) It lasted 85 days and wiped out a large swath of agricultural land and doing an estimated 800,000,000 euros worth of damage.

Prior to September 19, 2021, the mountain in the background didn’t exist, and the road went on to the next village. Our guide reminded us to never take anything for granted. You never know when it will be your turn.

When we’d had enough of the ouchy volcanic rocks, we made our way back across the island for a little more culture oriented exploration. Descending down the east face of the mountain, we stopped in at the village of Brena Alta to wander through some local establishments. The village’s most noteworthy feature is the multi-generation Puro Palmero cigar shop. They family has been making fine hand rolled cigars for hundred of years using plants originally imported from Cuba.

Further down the road, between the levels of the palm and pine trees, we stopped in at Santuario de Nuestra Senora de las Nieves. Translated to Royal Sacntuary of Our Lady of the Snows, the church is considered the religious and cultural heart of the island. Despite asking questions and interweb searches, (it might be my 10 word spanish vocabulary) I can’t find an original build date. Everything back to 1424 says “there was already a church there.” The structure was definitely rebuilt several times between 1525 and today. In 1646, the San Martin volcano eruption caused wide spread fires, and the faithful of the island attribute the miraculous fire quenching snows to the presentation of Our Lady.

The church is built of native volcanic stone and timber.

Visiting La Palma was about as educational as a cruise ship port call can be. Probably our second favorite of the Canary Islands. Because our next stop was quite some distance away, and there was a low pressure system with sketchy weather drifting in from the Azores, the ship got underway a couple hours before sunset. Safely aboard before the gangway was closed, The Captain and I cleaned up from the alternate dry-dusty/damp-windy conditions ashore, and found our way to dinner. We were seated next to a window, and watched the island shrink from sight. As the dinner progressed, we also got to see the onset of the night’s sporty weather. Light rain showers blew across the seas, followed by increasing waves, and then a proper squall line, complete with a water spout and rainbow. A fitting end to a good day.

Wind, Waves, and New Pages- Part 3 of 7

Wind, Waves, and New Pages- Part 4 of 7

Wind, Waves, and New Pages- Part 2 of 7