The Bajada

The biggest fiesta on El Hierro is La Bajada, literally, the "bringing down", and it only happens every four years. Other islands have bajadas - for example La Palma has one every 5 years, and the next one is July -August 2010.

A Bajada is when they move the statue of the island's patron saint to the island's capital. In La Palma, they move the statue of La Virgen de Las Nieves about 3-4 km. Although El Hierro is only about 19 km across, they take the statue of La Virgen de los Reyes all around the island - a total of 44 km. And they dance all the way!

Well, I don't think it's the same dancers the whole time. But I'm looking forward to seeing it. Because the next bajada is July 4th.

Our Lady of the Kings

Right at the western end of El Hierro there's a lovely little hermitage at El Dehesa, where they keep the Virgin of the Kings. This is the patron saint of El Hierro.

In the 16th century, El Hierro was very poor. There wasn't enough water for agriculture, and almost everyone lived by herding goats.

So how come a very poor island got such a beautiful statue?

Well, in 1546 on the night of January 5th there was a tremendous storm, and all the shepherd at that end of the island took refuge in a cave. In the morning of the 6th, they saw a ship anchored at the nearby port of Orchilla. This astonished them, because normally only small boats anchored there. Obviously they must be pirates.

This was a very worrying conclusion, because pirates were known to kidnap islanders to sell as slaves, and the shepherds had nothing to defend themselves with.

They hid, and watched.

But there were only three men on the ship and they looked harmless, even honourable. So when they landed, the shepherds showed themselves, and asked if they needed help.

Oh they needed help! They were on their way to Cuba, and the ship had been badly damaged by the storm. They'd lost most of their provisions, too. In fact, they would certainly have sunk if it weren't for the statue of the Virgin.

The statue was brought out and admired.



At the time, the Flemish workshops weren't quite as good as Michelangelo. Not quite. These poverty-stricken goatherds can't possibly have seen a statue by a professional artist before, and this was a particularly beautiful one. They must have been totally blown away.

The ship stayed for eight days, while it was repaired and re-provisioned. The crew must have needed a break, too.

There are two different versions of what happened next.

The more prosaic one is that the ship's captain gave the shepherds the statue in payment for provisions and help repairing the ship.

The poetic version is that the captain paid with boring old cash, but when he set sail, the wind was resolutely against him. Of course if the wind is absolutely dead against a sailing ship, it can't make any progress, so they had to return to Orchilla.

According to some versions, this happened several times, which was very odd indeed - the trade winds go the other way, especially in winter. Eventually the ship's crew concluded that the statue was meant to stay on El Hierro, so they gave her to the shepherds. And when they set sail that had a strong, steady wind, blowing straight for Cuba.

Either way, the shepherds decided they couldn't keep the statue of Our Lady in a cave, so they took her to the tiny hermitage at La Dehesa, where she's been ever since.

Since she arrive on January 6th, Epiphany, when the Kings come to visit Baby Jesus, she's called the Virgin of the Kings.

Aeoniums (bejeques)

Lots of Canarian plants look seriously exotic to visitors from northern Europe. Some of my favourites are the Aeonium genus (which now includes what used to be the separate genus of Greenovia). They like dry places: cliff walls, lava flows and old roofs. This one was growing in a lava flow near Tiñor, with several hundred friends and relatives. I think it's Greenovia aurea, but I'm no expert and my book lists 35 different species, some of them very similar.

A Pretty Photo

I'm extremely busy this week, so here's a pretty photo of backlighting on the road from Valverde to Isora.

Homage to the Bajada

The artist Rubén Armiche is creating a huge statue called "Homage to the Bajada", just outside Valverde. It's something he calls "re-use art", because it's made of things like old washing machines covered by chicken wire, sacks, and finally cement. He plans to finish it in time for the big festival in July (the bajada, hence the statue's name), so I hope to see it then.

The bit in the photo is only one end. It will eventually form a giant arc, with an entrance archway which frames Mt. Teide on Tenerife. Actually, there's two archways, side by side, one adult size and one for kids, with a peep-hole between the two. I think the kids are going to love that!

Rubén was born on Gran Canaria in 1973, but his parents were from El Hierro, and he loves the island. Apart from this statue and similar, smaller ones elsewhere on El Hierro, he's painted several murals and written and illustrated two comic books, one about the bajada, and one about the Garoé.

He's also very friendly to wannabe journalists who interrupt his work.

The Yorkshire Dales

There's an area of El Hierro, which looks uncannily like the Yorkshire dales. I do a double take every time I see it. Short grass, pale, drystone walls. Definitely Yorkshire.

Except that the plants hanging over the walls aren't hawthorn trees, they're prickly pears.

And unlike the prickly pears on La Palma, they don't have cochineal beetles on them, so they look much nicer.

La Peña Viewpoint

There's a fantastic lookout at La Peña, with a breathtaking view over the whole of El Golfo.

The restaurant and garden were designed by the artist, Cesar Manrique. I've only had one meal there. It was a little pricy, but the food was delicious, and I definitely felt I got my money's worth.

This splendid dragon, also by Manrique, decorates the wall inside.