The Second Trip (February 1998)


I arranged my second trip from a Finnish travel agency Hasse. After all it would be much nicer to fly directly to La Palma from Finland (even though from Helsinki) than to hop from one European air port to another. A lot of time would be saved as well. Ha, here is a story of how much wrong a man can be with his preconceptions. Partly I chose Hasse because of a cheaper price: a regular flight and needed hotel charges would have cost over two thousand FMK (about 370 USD) more than the "holiday trip" of Hasse. Of course I did not have to pay the expences myself but I thought I might save the university's and EU's money just as well.

On Thursday (26 FEB 1998) I left to the Turku bus station feeling a little tired. Because of travel arrangements and other hurries during the previous week I had underslept for several hours... a night. The chartered bus of Hasse came from Pori at 2:20 am. During the trip to Helsinki air port I managed to sleep only little and at the air port there was no chance for that. And for some unintelligible rule we had to be at the air port 90 minutes before the plane actually left.

The boarding went along the normal routines: First people with seats 26-35 were asked to board the plane, and then everybody had to be remainded at the gate that only people with seats 26-35 are allowed to board at this time (as most people obviously thought that after the first dozen or so people in the plane the pilot would decide to leave all the others behind and close the doors). The plane got quite full and was another example of the usual Finnair flights. We arrived to La Palma fifteen minutes late, set down the landing gear, approached the runway ... and rose up again as the pilot did not get a permission to land due to heavy winds. Instead, we continued to the next destination, the island of Fuerteventura, where we were ordered out of the plane to wait for a flight to La Palma. In the transit/departure hall we were told (through the speakers, in Finnish) that in an hour we would get into a plane to La Palma. I had emailed Paco Armas to get me a rented car to my hotel at 2:00 pm., so I had to call the NOT office from the air port and tell them to postpone the car reservation until later. Fortunately I had some Spanish coins left from January since the phone VISA system did not get through to Finland. Two hours (!!!) after we arrived to Fuerteventura a clerk came to the gate of the flight to Helsinki and a corresponding message appeared on the only monitor of the hall. People started to flow through the gate and I joined them. It was the only choice for the plane to take us to La Palma as it should have taken the people from La Palma during that landing that hadn't happened. This was confirmed by a stewardess at the plane. We arrived to La Palma at 2:30 pm. (some 4 hours 15 minutes late).

I got to the hotel at 3:00 pm. and told the receptionist (with the aid of our guide) that I was going to spend the next two nights at the observatory and would be back to the hotel on Saturday. There was a message for me at the Reception from the car rental agency telling that they were going to deliver the car to me at 15:45. I just had time to unpack and repack the stuff to be taken to the observatory, when I received a phone call from the Reception telling that the car had arrived. The Scottish owner(?)/manager of the car rental agency brought a newish Seat Malaga to me and told me that NOT office had requested a better car for me. I was surprised but accepted the car for three days (two days for the observation trip and an another one for touring the island). The third day I had to pay for myself as it was not work related use of the car. The amount to pay was a little higher than I had anticipated because the car was better, but when I started to drive it I was not unhappy at all about the cost. The car was so comfortable and powerful that it was a pleasure to drive around the island in it.

I went to a closeby supermarket to buy some food and left to the observatory. I arrived there in two hours (which would never have been possible with the Seat Marbella I drove in January). A got my room in the Residencia, dined, and met a colleague from Finland, Jari Kotilainen, with whom I played some pool and then left to NOT. He was then a visiting researcher in an Italian observatory and had come here to observe with NOT a few nights before mine. I followed him to NOT to remind me of how the telescope was operated and if there was anything new up there. Unfortunately Jari could not get any observations done as the weather got too windy and dusty. I was too tired to be around just for fun so I left to the Residencia to get some sleep.



Roque de los Muchachos
The highest peak of La Palma is Roque de los Muchachos (2426 metres, or 7959 ft.). It is part of the mountain range encircling la Caldera de Taburiente (see the next photo).

After the breakfast on Friday (27 FEB) I went to the Residencia reception to buy some stamps and a map of La Palma. There was a young local man working there and he got enthusiastic in telling me about the sights and car routes of La Palma. While we were examining the map a German holiday apartments' owner came there and tried to convince me in coming to the island again and renting a holiday apartment from him. His apartments seemed to be very nice but I doubt I'll return to La Palma for anything else than observations. I was only pleased to notice he thought I was British.

After a brief attempt to sleep a little I went to have some dinner. While I was there Ingvar and my new support astronomer, Hugo Schwartz, came to my table. Hugo had some bad news - my most important instrument this time, TurPol, did not work at all. After we finished the dinner, we went up to NOT and Hugo was able to repair TurPol with the advice of the NOT electronics technician Carlos Perez on the phone.

When I had driven to the NOT I had noticed a bunch of people on the slope of Caldera de Taburiente and an ORM ambulance next to the road. A medic was trying to revive someone who had obviously fallen from the cliff above. Seemed futile. At NOT Hugo complained about all the tourists who come up there just to drop off the mountain sides - there had been other incidents before.



Caldera de Taburiente
One of the largest volcanic craters of the world is la Caldera de Taburiente in the centre of La Palma. The diameter of the crater is about ten kilometres (six miles) and it is almost two kilometres deep (6500 ft.).

We started with my observations and soon after getting all the instruments going phoned Ingvar to come in to help us. He had been doing some alterations and there were two incompatible commands left in the telescope operation computer. He reprogrammed the commands and rebooted the system - a half an hour was wasted. Later TurPol tilted again and had to be adjusted and restarted. We had some problems with the weather as well. Although there were no clouds on the sky, the air was very dusty and wind was blowing at high speed. At NOT the dome must be closed if the wind blows too hard; when there is dust in the air the maximum allowed wind speed is lower than normally and this time the wind speed was exactly at that limit. Nevertheless, Hugo let me make my observations and with time the wind calmed down a little bit. When I was doing my observations routinely Hugo left me and went to sleep. I didn't manage to break the telescope, worth millions of USD, so I just continued until the Sun started to lighten the sky, and switched off the building after I had finished.

On Saturday (28 FEB) I slept for about four hours until the noon. I ate some lunch, got my observations on a CR-ROM from Ingvar, and drove down the mountain. I chose a new route, north-west to the opposite direction of Santa Cruz de la Palma and Los Cancajos where my hotel was. Los Cancajos is a little tourist village half way between the air port and Santa Cruz. The mountain and especially its slopes were covered with clouds, so I drove through ghostly sceneries where menacing trees stretched their limbs toward the unfortunate souls travelling on the road. Finally I passed the cloud layer and reached a beautiful pine forest (see the photo). Although it was cloudy the view was spectacular. Before too long I found the highway that goes around the island and turned east. On the road between Garafia and Barloviento there were two goat herds with their shepherds. The closer to the beach I drove the more barren the landscape turned into - until large areas were of bare volcanic rock. I stopped every now and then to view the scenery and to take some photos until after Barloviento the road turned south and it was getting rather late. I continued directly through Santa Cruz de la Palma into Los Cancajos.

I rested a while at the hotel and returned to Santa Cruz to see the ongoing carneval. I don't know the reason for that carneval but what it really was about was a large stage on the promenade, a huge number of beer and spirit selling stands all over, and an amusement park put up for the children on the parking place on the beach. The music from the amusement park was so loud that even at a distance of 200 metres (600 ft) I had to hold my ears to avoid physical pain. Huge masses of locals and tourists inhabited the promenade (Avenida Maritima) and large section of the Avenida was closed for traffic. People, mostly children, were dressed in all kinds of fancy dresses, some of which looked very fine and expensive.



Pines of La Palma
There grows a dense pine forest in the northern part of La Palma. The island is one of the most verdant of the Canary Islands which is easily noticeable when traveling on La Palma. There are pines in the southern part of the island as well but not is such forests as in north. The serpentine road up the mountain side is also clearly visible in this photo.

On Sunday (01 MAR) I took the car and drove south right after my breakfast. I drove by the air port to Fuencaliente stopping here and there to wonder the scenery. An especial sight was the Montes de Luna, where streams of lava had made their way toward the sea. It must have been a long time ago but the tracks were still clearly visible. The area was large and full of black volcanic rocks and lava formations. In the midst of all this there grew cacti and colourful flowers. At the edges of the area there were great pine trees.

The southernmost town of the island is Fuencaliente, which I perhaps prefer over all the other towns in La Palma. It was very tidy and on a perfect location on the mountain side overlooking the southern tip of La Palma. The view from some of the houses there must be spectacular. I also visited the volcano of Volcan San Antonio below Fuencaliente. The volcano was not too high, or too steep, or too deep in the middle, but having a mildish acrophobia I wouldn't want to hike too much in there.

I continued my trip north on the western side of the island. The south-western part of La Palma is the most barren I have found so far. I stopped at a restaurant everybody had been recommending near the village of Jedey. Unfortunately Bodegon Tamanca was closed for two weeks exactly when I was visiting La Palma. Instead I drove across Los Llanes de Aridane, the second largest city in La Palma, to the bar/restaurant Mirador de Time on a cliff overlooking the planes of Aridane to the south. When I left there I visited first the port city of west coast, El Puerto, and continued to the Santa Cruz road that goes through a long tunnel under the mountain range to the east coast.

I ate a dinner in Restaurant Canarias in Santa Cruz but the meal was not quite as good as in January. In the evening I drove once again to Santa Cruz to see the last day of the carneval. There was a little more program than on the previous night and they had installed huge speakers to the stage - perhaps to let the people on neighbouring islands to hear the program as well (people on La Palma must be deaf to be able to listen such a loud noise). Returning to the hotel I filled the tank with petrol which cost about 55 cents per litre (2.10 USD per gallon; about half of what the cost is in Finland).

I rested on Monday (02 MAR). In the evening I ate dinner in restaurant El Pulpo by the beach of Los Cancajos. The atmosphere was nice and food good and cheap - a recommendable restaurant.



Santa Cruz de la Palma
Santa Cruz de la Palma.

On Tuesday (03 MAR) I walked to Santa Cruz (I had returned my car by then). Our guide had said the distance was about three kilometres (2 miles) but the map showed almost five kilometres (3 miles) - that's how it felt, too. In between Los Cancajos and Santa Cruz there is a military barracks: towers with men with assault rifles, men marching in the central square, and shooting range by the beach. There were a couple of sailing-ships in the harbour which delighted me much as I am very interested in the era of the sail. When I got to the city centre I tried to get into the NOT offices but there was nobody there. I checked the sights of the city and returned to Los Cancajos. Later on in the afternoon I walked back to Santa Cruz and this time got into the NOT offices. I met my support astronomer from January, Colin Aspin, who let me use one of the computers. I didn't have any email but the weather in Finland was awful: raining sleet with temperature at zero (32 F). I pondered on staying in La Palma for another four weeks but decided to return after all.

On Wednesday (04 MAR) I bought some souvenirs and packed everything ready for the return flight. I also read some of the astronomical articles I had taken with me. The military had practice shooting at their shooting range lasting almost the whole day. I also visited the office of Hasse and talked a while with resort manager Sanna Norokorpi who told me that the dust bothering the people on Canary Islands originated from the Sahara, had lasted for three weeks, and was already making not only tourists but also locals sick (with respiratory and digestive problems). I ate the dinner in restaurant La Fontana which was somewhat expensive (compared with other restaurants in La Palma, but cheap compared with restaurants in Finland). The food there was good and they served excellent bienmesabe (a local dessert).



Harbour of Santa Cruz
A part of the harbour of Santa Cruz de la Palma. I was delighted to see a couple of sailing-ships at the harbour. There is regular passenger and cargo traffic between La Palma and the other Canary Islands and most of the cargo from elsewhere as well is shipped to the island.

Early on Thursday morning (05 MAR) I woke up to thunder. There were lots of lightnings flashing accompanied with a distant thunder. I love thunderstorms so I enjoyed this one for some time - counting 22 lightnings in ten minutes. Then I went out to the balcony and saw that the real audiovisual show was going on in front of Santa Cruz on the sea. In one (!) minute I counted more than twenty lightnings. Unfortunately this was the best moment of the day. We left the hotel early at 9:00 am. - just to wait for the plane that was thirty minutes late. Finally at 11:40 am. we left toward Fuerteventura to load in more passengers. There we stayed in the plane, which was quite abnormal, while it was refueled and cleaned in a hurry. All this because the pilot had gotten an early flight path clearance through Europe from Brussels central air control. We were going to be able to catch in the time we were late and even arrive to Finland ahead of schedule. We waited... and waited... and then our pilot told us that there were six passengers missing and we would have to wait for them. At last the missing six were found from the air port and rushed in. But, naturally, it was too late for us to catch the early flight path and we would have to wait for another two hours. The missing passengers complained that they had not heard any announcements about our flight - well, I believe that, but why on Earth were they not at the gate at the time of boarding??? Anyway, we were able to leave at 2:00 pm. - two and half hours late from schedule (the two hours from here and the old half an hour from La Palma). While waiting I talked with the air hostesses who told me that something like this happens every now and then - even in Finland - because the European sky is too full of air traffic. The flight itself was uneventful and finally we arrived to Helsinki. When all the passengers with reservations to Hasse's chartered bus were collected to the bus and we were ready to leave towards Turku we were three hours late. I was quite happy to have this trip behind me when I was at home again.


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