On March 5th, Dorothy and I got up at 2:30 am to drive to Manchester Airport. We parked our car and flew to La Palma in the Canary Islands for a holiday and two weeks of me leading walks for HF Holidays. It seems like a very long time ago now and yet it is only 2 weeks. Of course we wondered if we might get stuck there due to Coronavirus or that the whole trip might get cancelled but we didn't really think that either would happen.
In the first week, the weather was fantastic - hot, sunny and so different from the seemingly endless rain we have had in Hebden Bridge. La Palma is so varied with volcanic ash and lava in the south and lush laurel forests in the north. We walked past papaya, avocados, lemons, oranges and lots of bananas. We gazed down into a volcanic crater from a 1971 eruption and we went up to 8000 feet above sea level to where some of the best observatories in the world are located.
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| Banana near San Andres |
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| Roque de los Muchachos |
Unfortunately Dorothy slipped 50 yards from the end of the penultimate walk and seemed to have sprained her ankle. The coach driver dropped us off at Santa Cruz General Hospital and they x-rayed it. There was no break on the x-ray so they strapped it up and we got a taxi back to the hotel. The hotel happened to have a wheelchair that she could use for a couple of days.
On Thursday, one group of guests went home and the next group arrived. Mike, the other leader and I met them at the airport which is only 10 mins drive from the Parador Hotel where we were staying. Dorothy abandoned the wheelchair and managed to come out and do some painting with the walking groups on the first two days by using the service bus and, the next day, by being dropped off by our coach at one of the lunch spots.
The weather was a little cooler than it had been the week before - quite nice for walking. Meanwhile, far away from our little island, a lot more people in Spain and elsewhere were becoming infected by Coronavirus. On Friday 13th (I am not superstitious - I gave it up in case it brought me bad luck), two Italians who lived on the other side of the island were tested positive following a trip home to Italy. Sheila, our evening speaker was advised by the local government not to attend a 'public gathering'. So felt unable to give the excellent presentation about La Palma that I had listened to the week before. Also the film at the Volcan San Antonio Visitor Centre that we visited was no longer being shown for similar reasons.
We enjoyed our walks through the laurel forest and the banana plantations on Saturday and in the evening we had a trip to the capital of La Palma. As he dropped us off in Santa Cruz, our coach driver told us that the only other excursion he was going to be allowed to take us on was back to the airport. Spain, including the Canary and Balearic Islands was going into a kind of lockdown. We thought we might at least be able to go for a walk from the hotel the next day but while we were eating breakfast on Sunday morning, we were informed that the hotel would be closing at 12 noon on Monday and that until then we would be confined to our rooms. Dinner would be room service only!
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| Parador Hotel and Gardens |
Other Brits were moved to another hotel by Tui, who they had booked their holiday with, and were expecting to return on the original flight the following Thursday. Some people had booked independently and were left scrabbling around trying to find alternative accomodation. So we were very pleased to be with HF who even paid for a minibus to take some of us back to Manchester Airport and others back to Gatwick.
The next day Dorothy and I went to Calderdale Hospital and they x-rayed further up her leg. She had a broken fibula! She is now in a very nice Fracture Boot. If it had been correctly diagnosed in La Palma, we might not have been able to fly back for quite a while! I can't help feeling that we left one of the safest places in the world but it is good to be home.
