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.

Pineapples

They certainly aren't a crop I associated with the Canary Islands, but El Hierro exports pineapples.

Most of the fields are in El Golfo, at low altitudes. This is the warmest and sunniest part of the island, but originally the ground was very stony. Most of the soil was brought in from the woods on the central ridge, and irrigation added.

The spectacular cliff in the background is the Tibataje nature reserve.

Giant Lizards

El Hierro has a unique species of giant lizard, Gallotia simonyi. They're about 60 cm long, although most of that is tail. That makes them about the size of an iguana.

La Gomera also has its own species of giant lizard, (Gallotia bravoana) as does Tenerife (Gallotia galloti) and Gran Canaria (Gallotia stehlini). They're 60 cm - 40 cm long, and they're all in the Lacertidae family. A different species was recently discovered on La Palma, but the location's a secret (which is probably wise) and they're only 30 cm long.

On the other hand, you can go and see the ones on El Hierro. There's a breeding station and museum open at Guinea. It's on the main road from La Peña to La Frontera, signposted "El Lagartario"

The Sacred Garoe

As the trade winds hit the island, they're forced upwards, and the water vapour, picked up from the sea, forms clouds. This means that El Hierro often has a cloud pouring over the top, much like the cloud waterfall on La Palma. Unlike La Palma, there aren't nearly as many trees to trap the fog in their leaves so that it drips onto the ground, which makes El Hierro much drier.

This makes any tree that does so, very important. At the time of the Spanish invasion, the Garoé was a large tree (a or Ocotea foetens or Til) which grew near the summit of the ridge at the north of the island. It was so important that the Bimbaches (the pre-hispanic inhabitants) considered it sacred, and the water it provided helped them to resist the invasion for a while. Legend says that the secret of the tree's location was betrayed by a local girl who fell in love with a Spanish soldier. Once the Spanish controlled the drinking water supply, the Bimbaches had to surrender, but the girl was condemned to death.

Sadly, the original tree was destroyed by a storm in 1610. Rather surprisingly, a replacement wasn't planted until 1957.

Today it's a beautiful place. You can drive along the track with care, or you can walk about 3 km from the tarmaced road. I saw it in the mist, whch was wonderfully atmospheric, but I'm told when it's sunny, it's lovely in a completely different way.

The last little bit of the path is downhill. You pass a tiny souvenir shop, tucked away around the corner so that you can't see it from the tree. Then you find a series of natural (or perhaps just very, very old pools) near the tree, which is tucked in a hollow in the hill. (I took this photo from the back of the hollow.) I suspect that the original tree was big enough to have its crown well above the sides, so that it would have collected much more water. Nonetheless, it's a special place, and I'm very glad to have seen it.

The Edge of the World

The western edge of El Hierro used to be the edge of the world. In the second century AD, Ptolemy made it the zero meridian, marking all longitudes east from there. In 1634, France decided it was exactly 20º west of the Paris meridian, and some old French maps mark longitude in both degrees from Paris and degrees from El Hierro.

When they found that El Hierro is 20° 23' 9" west of Paris, they kept the Paris meridian. And an international conference moved it to Greenwich in 1884.

Today there's a monument on the old zero meridian. It really does feel like the end of the world. The whole island's rather dry, and this is the drier end of it, so there's no trees or grass, just scrubby little bushes which look very odd to English eyes. The minor road turns into an unclassified road and then a dirt track. Then we had to park and walk a mile. No houses in sight. The mobile phone had no signal. As we arrived, a couple of people were just leaving in a 4x4, and that was the only other car we saw the whole time.

The monument itself is modest – just a block of concrete with half an iron globe poking out of it. But it was amazing to think that we were the most westerly of the 497,000,000 people in the EU.