La Palma (Benahoare)

Again the first known inhabitants were the Guanches, although the ones that lived on this Island were called Auaritas who are believed to have shared an ancestry with the Berbers of North Africa.  Their name for the Island was Benahoare.  La Palma is the most North Westerly of the Canary Islands.  The most famous feature of this Island is the “minas galerias” (water tunnels) which carry the water from sources in the mountains to cities, villages and farms.  La Palma receives almost all of its water supply due to the “mar de nubes” (sea of clouds), stratocumulus cloud at 1200m carried by the trade winds.  The water condenses on the long needles of the trees and other vegetation which eventually collects inside the rock strata.  This is drained by the galerias into aqueducts and pipes for distribution.

This is also the Island that Horizon did a program about because it is likely, at some point in the future, that a large part of the Island might slip into the Atlantic Ocean causing a mega tsunami that would flood the East coast of America, amongst others.

We had a big change of plan again last night.  We were supposed to be sailing up to Madeira but as the weather had changed the captain decided to go to La Palma instead.  Of course, we have a trip booked on Madeira so we had to use the room phone to rearrange for the next day.  Anyway, what didn’t change was the Gala dinner where we all had to put on our DJ’s and have a special meal.  At the front we have Gina and Jim from Scotland and the two ladies are Elizabeth and Helga from Germany.  They both travelled independently.

The meal was good, i started with Veal and then had beef followed by panacotta.

I was saying the other day that the entertainment crew are good on this ship; well they are not as good as Claire.  She is the first up and forces others to join her; anyway she met her match last night; the big lady went wild shaking it about all over the stage.  The crowd were laughing so much, I nearly peed myself.  Then she started stripping off because everyone was cheering her; she got on the floor with her legs in the air.  Time for the night club.

Elizabeth came up to the night club with Claire and I while Sue and Ian had an early night.  It wasn’t long before Claire met the Bursar.  She likes a man with plenty of money.

Anyway in the morning after breakfast we headed into town and its quite a pretty place with cobbled streets.

This was when I realized that I hadn’t brought any money or my wallet.  You get so used to being able to pay for everything with your card you forget.  Well, we don’t even have to pay for anything as we are all in.  Anyway, we had intended to find an internet cafe and I could write the blog and catch up with emails etc but we couldn’t even afford a cup of tea.  What was I saying earlier about Claire liking a man with plenty of money?

We found a lovely old fashioned building with lots of painting so we went in as it was free.

This church is also famous, I think its called the Church of Las Nieves.  We didn't hang around too long and came back to the ship early.  In fact we were coming back just as most people were getting off.