La Palma and its treasures
The patience-teaching silent-retreat ferry
Why book an expensive room when you have a good sleeping bag and mattress? Just bring your sleeping mask; it was a bit bright. Also, bring some patience; the journey from Cadiz to La Palma takes a while. I ran out of food and didn’t want to eat at the ferry’s canteen, so I decided to fast. Plus, there was no internet. All in all, I would frame the ferry ride as character-building. Some people pay a lot for a silent retreat, but I had it at the cost of a ferry ticket bringing me to paradise.
Woofing in the mango paradise
The WWOOFing was great, mango heaven. The little farm is truly a diversity sanctuary and apart from different mango species also has plenty of other fruit trees and plants growing in between. My tasks in the mango fields was mostly to prune the trees and to thin out additional fruits before the upcoming harvest season. Life on the farm was far less Spanish than expected I realized when Brez’n were served in the first work break (thank you Lidl, what would the Germans on La Palma would just do without). I learned that finding a non-German Finca in La Palma is quite challenging with 10% of the population being German.
(Did you spot the black lezard on the right? <3)
I came across some beautiful mango diversity while cutting mangos off the branches that were too close to each other and thus a potential risk for damaged mangos and pests settling down.
This is why a lot of green mangos were accumulating below the trees. Before I arrived on the farm, they were not utilized at all, which was very shocking for me. From lacto-fermenting mangos in brine to Indian chutneys and Persian Amba sauce, green mangos are the real treasures, full of vitamin C! How can you not eat those beauties? Since the farm hosts a little market, bringing farmers and interested consumers together, I started to showcase my productions to the people and received great feedback.
The fire island once more on fire
In 2021, the island’s South experienced an eruption of its volcano. The eruption was still very present in people’s memories, with ash falling every day, even months after the eruption. There was also great insecurity about whether the ash was harmful or not. For a time, masks were advised to prevent health issues, but after a certain time, they were declared unnecessary.
While I was there in summer 2023, it was the north that was on fire. The island is covered by beautiful old pines, and I wondered how many of those pines survived. Even in the south of the island, the sky was lit up at night by the fire. The farm owner’s friends in the North refused to leave their farm. Due to having no insurance, they chose to defend their house from the fire instead. They used hoses to prevent the fire from taking over.
(maybe I was driving while taking the 3 fotos on the right)
This was my little colleague visiting me with my volcano view while finishing my PhD thesis. I appreciated the mental support, although the volcano kind of stressed me out, imagining and expecting a spontaneous eruption every second. It’s weird to live on an active volcanic island where only 2 years ago a huge volcano erupted. The farmer told me that life is risky. Not sure if living on a volcano island isn’t adding considerable risk… Maybe this is why farms and houses are not insured there. Seems like the price for living in the moment. All in, now.
More risk: islanded worldviews
Not only did the volcano and some wildfires add to the risk on the island, but also some worldviews I came across seemed a bit little challenged and very risky.
Not everything can be a paradise. On the farm, I struggled with the conspiracy theories floating around. Doubting Covid’s existence? Not this would be bad enough. Doubting human-made climate change was next level though. There are limits to doubts. Science has proof. Sending pseudo-scientific justifications for sun storms, etc., is of no help.
It’s crazy how an island seems to shelter particular radical ideas. It appeared that people prone to one conspiracy were also prone to believing in a package of conspiracies. According to some, I should accept that my life is over since I got vaccinated, supposedly with an AIDS-containing, DNA-changing concoction that allows a secret cabal of rulers to control me. But hey, at least they don’t think climate change is human-made, so we don’t need to worry about changing the way the world is run.
What else happened on the island
Hiking from sea level up to 1000 something meters throughout all those vegetation zones. Soo incredible!
Beautiful walks along the island’s biggest waterfall behind Santa Cruz.
Cycling to the island’s south for a diving session (with a city bike, up and down on mostly broken roads still as aftermaths of the volcano eruption). All worth it for that beautiful ride and dive!
I was fascinated by the island’s colorful geology, assessing the rock formations from afar and exploring some more stable ones up close. I’m very grateful for the local climbing crew that showed me their crags. Tinder was surprisingly helpful here (although I must admit that dating on an island is quite complicated, and matches often headed off to the next island, or even worse, the limit of possible matches was reached… I never thought that was possible. The limited choice became evident while exchanging with my dear friend Kathy, whom I met on the farm, and realizing that we had several overlapping matches despite our differences in the red-flag list).
