Be Prepared!

Last night I went to La Punta in Tijarafe, to get some photos of the fiesta. It's not a big fiesta but I've been going cross-eyed with the current translation, and I really, really needed a break in my routine. Besides, in 18 years of living on La Palma, I'd never been to La Punta.

Since the procession was going to be quite late, I made sure I had the big flash gun (affectionately known as "The Tactical Nuke") with its external battery nicely charged up. It will take standard AA batteries, but it draws a lot of power. That soon drains the batteries, so that it can take 10 seconds to recharge, which means you miss shots.

So off I went, straight after yoga. When I got there, I phoned my husband, and the mobile's battery went flat, mid-conversation. Silly me, I should have charged it. Not so hot for an ex-girl guide. I'm supposed to Be Prepared, you know?

La Punta's a pretty little place. I found the church, no bother. The mass was still going on, and the crowd spilling out onto the patio. This meant I had plenty of time to assemble camera, Tactical Nuke, and softener attachment. I tested it out on a nearby tree - all fine and dandy.

Then I turned the flash off while I took a couple photos of the mass, because that flash is very intrusive. These photos were also fine and dandy.

Then the procession started, and I took two photos with the flash.

And the camera battery died.

Well the Nuke will run off AA batteries in a pinch, but the camera won't. So I found a handy wall to stand the camera bag on, and I hunted inside it for the spare battery. And hunted. And hunted. And swore.

My mobile has a camera, but that had a flat battery too, remember?

But all was not lost. By sheer dumb luck, I still had my son's compact camera in my handbag. Just 6 Mpixels instead of 10, far less control of the tricky lighting, and an annoying lag between pressing the shutter and taking the photo, but enormously better than nothing.

I got it out, took two photos, and its batteries died too.

At which point I thanked my lucky stars that I had spare batteries in the camera bag. By then, someone was making speech, so I didn't even miss anything more while I changed the batteries over.

Then they had fireworks, and I sighed for the big camera, but I got something.

And then I got hungry, and the smell of fried pork was delicious. And I realised that I had about 27 cents on me.

Of course a hamlet that size didn't have a money machine. I had to go into Tijarafe village, ten minutes drive each way. Still, it made the sandwich all the tastier when I finally got it.

By then it was 11pm, and I had an hour's drive to get home. So I missed most of the fiesta, because they were barely warming up. But yes, it broke the routine rather nicely.

OK, for next time I will need: spare charged camera battery, flash and charged flash battery, AA batteries, spare SD card, money, charged up mobile.

And brain.

Fiesta de la Cruz

I love Fiesta de la Cruz, when they decorate the roadside crosses. Even though I really had no time for anything except translating and housework, I went out on Sunday night to see at least a few crosses, and this morning I took my son to Santa Cruz to see more. To my delight, there were lots of mayos again.

More photos and details on the blog about La Palma.

Barbecued Writer

I came back from the barbecue looking rather pink in places. Obviously I should have used suncream. And then, like a twit, I sat on the balcony for about twenty minutes next morning, enjoying the view and a cup of tea, without cream again. It didn't look bad.

At least I had the sense to wear suncream when I went out to photograph the crosses. (See the blog about La Palma) But it was too little, too late, and by the time I went to see my friend Farida, I was a glorious shade of tomato.

Poor Farida was busy talking to a builder about finishing the job another builder had started and then abandoned halfway through, leaving a right bl**** mess in the house. By the time we'd actually had a chat, it was time to meet Norma in Los Cancajos for a drink and a walk.

The idea was to lose weight, but the Swiss cake shop was open, so I wound up sabotaging our efforts at a healthy lifestyle, in the nicest possible way. We did have a walk as well, but I'm sure we ate a lot more calories than we burned.

Fiesta de la Cruz

Today is Fiesta de la Cruz in Spain. La Palma was finally conquered on May 3rd, 1493, and the town of Santa Cruz de la Palma was officially founded the same day. Now I'm not sure it's in good taste to celebrate treachery and slaughter, but of course people are celebrating because they've always celebrated. And the celebration itself is beautiful - they decorate the roadside crosses in Santa Cruz, Breña Alta and Brena Baja.


Actually people start decorating the crosses the evening before, and most of the locals go to see them late at night. That way the whole thing is much more atmospheric, and then you've got the public holiday to recover. MEanwhile, the group of people who've decorated each cross take it in turns to stand guard, partly because each cross is hung with jewelry. The people watching make a party of it, and send up some rockets (not very pretty, but lots of BANG!) every now and then, which I suppose helps them to stay awake.

Since most of the crosses are quite old, they tend to be on the old roads. One of the favourite itineries is to take the new, twisty road up to San Isidro, and then come down the steep old road past the crosses. The police set up one-way traffic flow for the event. The catch is that it's too far for me to walk (although groups of teenagers do) and it's very hard to drive and take photos, because there's nowhere to park at half the crosses.

So I persuaded my friends from Franceses to come. They haven't seen the fiesta before, and it meant one driver and two photographers. As we approached each cross, me and Helen jumped out while Theresa nobly drove through the queue (stop - start - stop - start). That gave us about five minutes at each cross before it was time to jump back in and drive to the next. Fortunately there were some places where Theresa could park and get a proper look.

I'll be putting up a page on my website with more photos of crosses soon. MEanwhile today is the public holiday, and those little rockets arte still banging away.