La Palma

I stepped off the plane Thursday wearing thermal boots and a backpack full of wool socks and three different types of jackets. While the weather in Ireland was looking up, the cold, damp and grey climate could chill you to shivers easily. A sea of green palm and banana trees waved to me as I made my way from the plane to the terminal. My first item of business in Spain was to buy a pair of flip flops. 

The language is coming back more each day. But, it's going to take some dedication and practice if I'm going to improve significantly, which is the goal. 

I had forgotten how pleasant this country really is. The people, language, the energy in the air. Everything seems to radiate, and maybe especially on this island. I'm living about 700 meters on the side of the mountain, which is the island. From the edge of the beach or even straight into the Atlantic, volcanic rock shoots straight up to an eventual height of 2,400 meters. A German tourist who picked me up yesterday said that the island, according to height and surface area, is the steepest island in the world. The only really flat space here is the beach, which is slightly rough, and black, coming from volcanic rock. Other spaces have been plowed flat and terraced off and are reserved for rows upon rows of banana orchards. 

The west half of the island seems less touristy than the east. What there are a lot of here is Germans. They seem to flock and relocate to this place as an escape from whatever there seems to be a need to escape from. They, and many other people, buy or rent space along the jagged mountainside, live off the land, which produces an abundance of produce, and trade or sell items at a farmers market in Los Llanos on Sundays. Afterwards you see many of the same faces enjoying the sun and a beer, maybe playing guitar along the beach boardwalk. The below snap I took while walking along that boardwalk in Tazacorte.