Sunday 7 January 2001
The sun came out early and with that came the prospect of checking out the beach properly today. After a swift breakfast we duly ambled down to the beach and found a quiet spot in between the rocks. There weren't many people around but some of the hardier souls on the beach were making their way into the water. I thought I'd join them as well and surprisingly the water wasn't too cold, at least after I'd had the opportunity to get used to it for a while. Like most of the other people in the sea, I thought I'd take the opportunity to check out the nautical life that existed around the rocks so armed with my mask and snorkel, I set about exploring the briny depths. 'The Caribbean this ain't' I thought as I watched the sombre looking fish swim past. Due to the black sand and rocks, the light underneath the water wasn't ideal but a longer look revealed a curious aquatic environment. The rugged volcanic landscape continued beneath the waves and tall pinnacles of rock protruded from the seafloor. I didn't notice them at first but some exotic looking black fish with brilliant almost fluorescent violet markings on their bodies emerged from the murk. Further down I noticed what looked like a plaice, its body blending in perfectly with the sand until it fluttered gently an inch or two above the sea-bed.

Feeling suitably relaxed from watching the fish and chilled from being in the cold water for so long, I attempted to sunbathe for a while but the wind was by now rolling in off the sea and the clouds over the hills surrounding us began to block out the sun. I remembered that it was still January so like most of the other people on the beach we decided to retire to one of the local bars. We came across a tiny little place called the Bar Lambada where we sat at the bar drinking tall glasses of Warsteiner beer. Actually this brew was going down so nicely that we weren't too bothered about its teutonic origins but the salsa type music that was playing in the background provided a touch of latin colour to the proceedings. After that there wasn't much else to do but once again head back to the hotel and indulge in another evening long session of eating and drinking and that's exactly what we did.

Monday 8 January 2001
We still wanted to see a bit more of Santa Cruz so after a quick early morning dip in the sea, we caught the bus into town. This time our ramblings took us a little further afield although once again we started off along the Avenida Maritíma. At the bottom end of the avenue were some more traditional houses painted in a variety of bright colours and adorned with elegant wooden balconies. A wander around the stone walls of the city castle brought us to the shady Plaza de la Alameda with its tiled floor and statue of a strange looking dwarf in a sailor's costume who bore a passing resemblence to Captain Pugwush. From the literature I had picked up at the tourist office, I read that la Danza de los Enanos (the Dance of the Dwarves) was an integral part of the island's major fiesta, La Bajada de la Virgen, which only took place once every five years. It all looked quite surreal to me but moving on we came across the tranquil Plaza de San Francisco with its white-walled 16th century Franciscan convent (now a museum). There weren't many people around but the sound of students practising their scales at the adjacent music school provided a pleasant diversion in this most peaceful of surroundings. After wandering around the shops for a while as they sprung back to life in the post-siesta early evening, we walked back to Cancajos and watched the moon rise over the distant Atlantic horizon.

Tuesday 9 January 2001
We got up especially early as today was the first of our long-awaited day trips. Some of our compatriots from the reps meeting were waiting outside sporting what could only be described as expressions of weary resignation across their none too radiant mugs. The weather prospects didn't look too good but that didn't stop some of the party from sporting shorts, tee-shirts and flip-flops. After all we were in Spain and it's always hot here!

The coach eventually arrived and Lorraine and myself grabbed the back seats so that we could stretch out a bit more which seemed to piss off some of the more overweight passengers who were wedged into their seats nearer to the front. Luckily they'd brought plenty of food with them and they started off their early morning picnic by tearing through a couple of tubes of pizza-flavoured Pringles in quick succession. After a quick stop in Santa Cruz, the trip proper started and we made our way up a steep hill behind the town. At one point the coach had to do a hairy three-point turn to get around a sloping hairpin bend and as we were in the back seats we had a great view of the 1000 feet drop that lay just inches away.

"Don't worry" said Diego, our genial tour guide. "We only lose one coach per week on the island!" That made me feel a lot better as visions of the closing sequence from the 'The Italian Job' flashed in front of me. Luckily the driver managed to negotiate the bend without any problem and a short way up the hill we stopped at the Santuario de la Virgen de las Nieves. This small church was where the island's most sacred icon, the Virgin Mary of the Snows, is kept except for once very five years when the statue is carried down to Santa Cruz for the fiesta of La Bajada de la Virgen where as noted previously those weird looking sailor dwarves do their crazy dance. The church itself was a typically elegant whitewashed building which happened to have a handy looking bar situated just across the road.

After spending a short while at the church we continued further upwards towards the low-lying cloud that shrouded the hillside. On the way up we passed what used to be the island's airport, situated about 1500 feet above sea-level. Seeing that the cloud constantly seemed to hover over the island at about this level, it seemed like a crazy idea to fly into here and apparently it took a couple of accidents before the authorities agreed with this view. It was strange seeing the remnants of the control tower and the terminal building here though.

Soon afterwards we were heading through thick pine forests on our way to the Caldera de Taburiente National Park. We stopped for a while at the visitor's centre near the entrance to the Park and watched a video which described the natural wonders that we were about to encounter. The film showed us how the huge crater of the Caldera which is up to 10 kilometres in diameter was formed. It was pretty impressive stuff and we learnt that if a volcano was to properly erupt here, it would create such a huge tidal wave (a tsunami) that it would take out the eastern seaboard of the United States. For some reason I heard muted grunts of approval from around me when this particular fact was stated! After all that we couldn't help but be impressed by seeing the Caldera for real. Unfortunately as we ascended the slopes, we couldn't see much apart from more pine trees. When we finally got to the viewpoint there was no majestic view across the huge crater, just thick cloud and the fresh, clean scent of pine to stimulate our senses.

Back on the coach, Diego said we were a bit unlucky with the cloud but at least we still had the walk around the rim of the Volcán San Antonio to look forward to. That however was at the south of the island so we still had a bit of travelling to do before we got there. As Diego didn't have much scenery to describe, he instead gave us a commentary on the how the Spaniards brutally wiped out the Guanches, the original inhabitants of the Canaries. He then went on to say how tourism was ruining the islands especially as the German government were paying old people to retire here which was supposedly causing social malcontent. After that he told us that EU regulations were ruining the banana industry as the fruit had to be a certain size and shape before it could be sold and here was I thinking that we were on a fun day out! I'm not sure that some of our fellow passengers were listening too closely to his lecture as all I could hear from their vicinity was the sound of even more Pringles being munched with serious abandon.

They needn't have bothered with their snacks though as we soon stopped at the small town of Los Canarios de Fuencaliente for lunch. Diego decided that he would leave all the passengers to sort out their own lunch in this sleepy place. He said he was going to a tapas bar but he didn't recommend that anyone follow him there as dishes were heated up one-by-one in microwaves and took ages to be served. In other words he didn't want anyone else disturbing his lunch. He did however recommend that we try a little bar further down the road which specialised in serving Venezuelan snacks. Apparently there was close links between La Palma and Venezuela and in recent decades there had been some reverse migration.

We wandered down the misty hill to the Venezuelan bar which had a fair smattering of locals as well as a few German tourists enjoying a coffee and a snack in there. We sat at a table just under a poster for the Angel Falls in Venezuela and ordered a couple of arrepas filled with melted smoked cheese. These sweet cornmeal pasty type snacks were absolutely delicious and went perfectly with the two freshly brewed café solos that I downed in quick succession.

Whilst we were enjoying our lunch some of the other Brits walked into the bar. They'd obviously been wandering around for a while not knowing what to do with themselves so they came in here as there wasn't much else in the town for them to see or do. The group which consisted of twelve people sat down around two tables and proceeded to pore over the menus in what appeared to be minute detail although not a single one of them could understand a single word that was printed in front of them. I thought about offering to translate for them but they seemed determined to tough out their predicament. It must have been obvious that I could have helped as I ordered coffees and the bill in Spanish but they ignored me and debated amongst themselves the true meaning of the menu. After about ten minutes though they gave up with the menu but they came to the collective decision that someone should go over to the other bar to fetch Diego so that he could translate it for them. After a while one of the group managed to locate him and hauled him back for translation duties.

Diego certainly looked a bit pissed off when he came in but he explained everything to them and even ordered on their behalf. Diego did try and recommend the wonderful arrepas to them but they weren't having it.

"I'm not eatin' nuffin' I don't know!" one of the more miserable looking female members of the party articulated in her finest estuary drawl. She instead opted for the hamburger but was then shocked to discover that they didn't serve chips with it.

"How can you not have chips with yer burger?" she sighed aloud before being served her order but she then refused to eat it because it wasn't cooked 'well-done' (i.e. burnt to a dry, tasteless frazzle). Oh well, at least skipping this meal might have done her some much needed some good on the dietary front. Put it this way, I'd seen her shovel down so many chips at the hotel buffet, it was amazing there were any potatoes left on the island. One of her friends ordered a tea but that wasn't much good either because it was served with a separate jug of hot milk.

"Oh no, I can't drink this. The milk must be cold!" she explained to the hapless waitress who shrugged her shoulders and duly went back to fetch some cold milk. What I couldn't figure out was if you poured a little cold milk into a full cup of hot water, the milk would then warm up as if it was hot in the first place. Oh well all this was really beyond me but the first woman's husband looked on with an expression of unflinching granite. He'd obviously seen it all before!

We decided to depart from the bar before things got out of hand when it came to them settling the bill so we made our way back to the coach and waited until everyone else returned. We then set off for the short drive to the volcano but when we got there, there really wasn't much to see because of the fog. This particular volcano wasn't particular high but it was cold and windswept and the shorts 'n' tee-shirt brigade were really struggling as we walked along the rim of the crater. The 'Royle Family' were there and Diego asked Mr Sky Sports whether he wasn't too cold.

"I'm alright!" he said, "Don't you know it's minus 15 in Scotland at the moment?" I wasn't quite sure what that had to do with anything but maybe he was showing the first signs of hypothermia induced delirium. Despite the fog, the walk around the crater was quite good fun and it was easy to imagine how all the lava could bubble up again. After all it was only about thirty years earlier that a nearby volcano erupted leaving a river of liquorice-like solidified lava stretching across the landscape. We continued back towards the resort but there was one more stop at a ceramics workshop where we saw old Guanche designed pots being hand-made.

On the way back to the hotel, Diego happened to mention that there was going to be a lunar eclipse tonight so once we arrived back in our room, we cracked open a bottle of wine and took our seats on the balcony waiting to see what would happen. As the evening drifted on, the moon started to rise over the horizon lighting up the sea right in front of us. We then watched the earth slowly cast its shadow over the moon, the trail of silvery light that glistened over the water gradually subsiding as the moon started to exude a mystical orange glow. The sound of the waves crashing on the rocks below was a great soundtrack to this free show. This was the perfect end to a long day and soon after dinner we hit the sack as there was plenty more sightseeing around the island to look forward to tomorrow.

Wednesday 10 January 2001
Once again we got up early for today's excursion and once again the same old miserable faces were waiting outside the hotel for the coach to once again whisk them around the island. I don't know what had happened to the 'Royles' though who were conspicious by their absence. Either they were shivering away in hospital following their exposure to the island's elements yesterday or they'd buggered off to Tenerife like they'd been threatening to so that they could enjoy a few pints with their Mother's Pride, egg and chips.

The coach eventually arrived and the couple who we beat to the back seats yesterday shouted out their intention to grab them this time but unfortunately for them we once again beat them to it which pissed them off big time. This time they really attacked their Pringles (Sour Cream and Chive flavour today) with a passion and intensity that barely disguised their seething anger at our cheeky little manoeuvre into the seats they desired. What made things even worse for them though was the fact that half the passengers today were German, not a group of people I assumed they felt a huge sense of kinship with!

As the coach set off, our guide for the day Juan introduced himself and proceeded to describe what was in store for us in both English and German. Juan lacked the radical zeal of Diego but he was efficient enough in setting the scene for our trip which today was to the very highest point of the island, the Roque de los Muchachos. It took quite a while to get there though as we first had to head right across the island to pick up some more guests who were staying at the resort of Puerto de Naos. Along the way we got a nice view of the island of El Hierro in the distance, the place that was generally considered to be the end of the world before Columbus made his way across the pond. We then stopped for a little while at the village of Tijarafe where we went into a little café which turned out to be real hive of activity. As we sat at the bar sipping our delicious coffees, I noticed how the bar staff served all the customers almost instantaneously, whether they were ordering a coffee, a brandy or an octopus baguette. There were a few tasty looking salami and chorizo sausages hanging up behind the bar but sadly I didn't have enough time to sample them. I did however manage to sink a couple of café solos whilst Lorraine had a café con leche and I was pleasantly surprised when the bill for the three coffees came to 350 pesetas, only £1.50. In London that would have been just enough to pay for the froth on a single Starbucks crap-puccino. After all the stopping and starting it was good to be finally heading uphill, winding our way through the pine trees towards the summit of Roque de los Muchachos, some 8500 feet above sea level. As we approached the top of the mountain, the forests gave way to a more barren landscape and in the distance the towering outline of Mount Teide was visible above the clouds and across the sea.

We got out of the coach and sat outside in the thin, clear air for a while. Dotted across the landscape were white-domed observatories belonging to various Governments and Universities from across the European Union. La Palma is one of the best places in the world to gaze at the stars because of the high altitude, clear skies and lack of light pollution and a small community had established itself at this remote site for that very purpose. The living quarters of the astronomers were ranged across the slopes beneath the observatories and when darkness fell it must have been quite amazing being up here under a clear night sky.

We clambered out of the coach and once the tour party had grouped, Juan lead us across a thin ridge towards the mountain summit. It was quite a precarious walk and with the clouds continuously swirling around the peak at a fair speed it was difficult to judge how far the drop was but I made sure I didn't fall off the ridge by slowly placing one foot in front of the other and looking straight ahead. It really was quite a feeling being so high up. The air was pure but some of the more unfit members of the party were wheezing a bit due to the lack of oxygen, a situation that was exacerbated by the ciggies they were continuously puffing on. The other thing I noticed was the silence. Watching the cloud revealing and then hiding the rocky terrain and looking at the pure blue sky up above was mesmerising and the lack of artificial noise added to the other-worldliness of the place. I felt comfortable here but it was soon time to make our back to the coach for the long descent to sea-level.

Before we arrived back in Santa Cruz for what turned out to be a very late lunch in a local restaurant, we stopped off at a view point overlooking the island's capital. We were still quite high up and we could watch the planes circling the bay before landing on the airport's shore-side runway. After lunch some of the party, obviously weary of the non-stop excursions of the past two days decided to 'jump ship' at this point and try and work their way back to the hotel. Unfortunately this didn't include our favourite Pringles-munching couple who having weighed up the options couldn't be bothered to try to work out how to use the local buses to get back. In fact after our lunch break there was only one more stop which was at another viewpoint called appropriately enough Buenavista but this one really was worth seeing for the beautiful little church that was situated nearby. Another example of the simple, white chapels that we had already seen dotted across the island, this one was particularly attractive with its finely-carved balcony and ornately decorated altar on the inside. After that we finally headed back to the hotel where we flopped out for a while. It had been a long two days but it was worth it to see the sights of this strange and beautiful island.

Thursday 11 January 2001
The sun was shining early so after the exertions of the last two days, we felt it was time we just chilled-out on the beach. The water was calmer today which made the snorkelling conditions better. The tide was out so I felt closer to the fish who I saw swimming around the rocky nautical terrain. After spending most of the morning lying in the sun, we decided to have lunch at the Bar-Restaurante El Pulpo (The Octopus) which was a totally unpretentious little beach-side joint serving fresh fish and a variety of tapas. I noticed that during the previous Sunday, lots of Spanish families had gone for lunch there so it must have been a pretty good place. We had to wait a little while for a table but it was worth it. We ordered a spread of tapas including the obligatory papas arrugadas con mojo whilst I also had a portion of gambas al ajillo (garlic fried prawns) which went very well with the red wine we ordered. The afternoon drifted lazily on and we didn't do much else during the rest of the day except enjoy the evening buffet and some wine back at the hotel which provided a very pleasant conclusion to our last full day on the island.

Friday 12 January 2001
We had to leave the hotel at about midday today to catch our flight back to London but that still gave us time for one more early morning dip in the sea. We even took the opportunity to have a quick game of bat 'n' ball with our Canary Islands bats which provided a helpful reminder of where we were in relation to the rest of the islands. Back at the hotel we packed up our stuff and caught the coach the short distance to the airport. All the familiar faces from the excursions were there waiting to go on the plane but thankfully we weren't seated near any of them on the flight back. The drunken lads from the flight out were also on the plane but they weren't as boisterous as they were on the way out. In fact the flight home was fairly uneventful but at least that gave me time to mull over the events of the past week. Despite the fact that I knew nothing about La Palma just a few weeks ago, this was a destination which offered more than we could have possibly imagined. As our plane descended through the dark, gloomy skies of England towards Gatwick I just felt glad that we had taken a chance on La Palma. This island really proved to be something special in the end.

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