SMOG OR CALIMA?

This is a satellite picture of a storm of sand blowing from the Sahara Desert and heading for the Canary Islands.
When it arrives it thickens the air with orangey-brown dust, raises the temperature by several degrees, and covers cars, terraces and plants with a thick layer that infiltrates the house and makes dusting a daily chore.
It clogs your nose and throat, restricts your breathing, and puts hundreds of vulnerable people in hospital.

Sounds familiar? In the UK you call it smog and it's a matter for headlines in the national papers.
Here we call it a calima and we get at least one a month.
And you think you've got it bad?

GUA-GUA

 The bus drivers on Tenerife and the other Canary Islands have to be skillful, intrepid and well-trained. The passengers of the local bus company Titsa must also be fearless, or at least prepared to shut their eyes and pray. Round here we call a bus a 'gua-gua', pronounced 'wa-wa', and until last month I didn't know why.

In a wonderful old restaurant in the back streets of Santa Cruz, on one wall of the central open air courtyard, there was a framed explanation. Roughly translated it tells us that an English firm - Washington, Walton and Company Incorporated - exported the first buses to Cuba, and the nickname 'Wa-wa' was born.
The Canary Islands have strong connections with countries on the other side of the Atlantic thanks to economic migration - and the name has been in common use in Cuba and over here ever since.

Or so they say - whether it's true or an urban legend is anyone's guess!

RUSSIANS IN TENERIFE

 THE SHTANDART

This is a Russian replica of a ship first launched in 1703, and which is touring the Canary Islands this month.
I went to see it this morning in San Miguel harbour, where it looks enormous beside the usual yachts, but tiny compared with the Queen Mary ll which we saw in Santa Cruz de Tenerife last month!
There's a fierce lion on the prow rather than the buxom beauty you might see on an English ship, and the ferocious theme continues with eagles and talons everywhere.

For the knowledgeable friend who was with me, every rope meant something, but to me the miles of rope would be bewildering. You can book passage on it, when presumably you would learn what they all do. Although there were a few modern touches, such as a wide-screen TV among the hammocks, I think a sea voyage aboard this lovely wooden boat is for people younger and fitter than me.

The chart room aft had a door either side,

 each of which led to a room totally filled by a bunk, presumably for the captain and mate, but everyone else sleeps in hammocks.

The workshop was a shambles but as they'd sailed from St Petersburg I assume the crew knew where everything was! We wandered at will except for the lower deck and discovered a strange troll tucked away in a corner.

The only part of the original boat is the bell, because when the Russians tried to lift the wreck from the sea they used ropes rather than a cradle, and the wreck was so fragile that the ropes cut it into several sections.

We did wonder if whoever did that is now toiling away in a salt mine!

CALIMA

You see that island shaped like a leg of lamb, just to the left of the roundish one in the middle of this picture?
That is Tenerife, almost hidden under the cloud of sand that is sweeping in from Africa. Another calima. The temperature has shot up to 40C, everyone is coughing and sweating, and it's impossible to sleep without a fan going full-blast.
The Canary islands used to get two or three calimas a year - now we get about twenty. Why?
Because the fragile surface of the Sahara Desert is being destroyed. Camels' feet don't break through the crust but the heavy-duty tyres of lorries do. Tourists in 4x4 vehicles add to the damage, as do cross-desert races in off-road vehicles and on powerful motorbikes. Then there is over-cultivation and unauthorized open-cast mining, all of wich are doing irreparable harm.
Does anyone care? I doubt it - profit always comes well before the environment, doesn't it?

CALIMAS, COLUMBUS, CAVES & CARNAVAL

CALIMAS blow in from Africa and can be as insubstantial as mist or thick as a CLOTH. CLOUDS can flow down the mountain like treacle over a pudding, or CLIMB as the sun heats the ground. It can be difficult sometimes to tell the difference between cloud and calima until the sinuses fill up with CATARRH. Then it’s a calima. The last one must have had a nasty African virus stuck to its sand-grains because I've had a CATASTROPHIC CHEST infection and hacking COUGH for two weeks. Yet still I managed to keep up the blogs – I hope you’re impressed.

CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS CALLED in at the CANARIES on his way to America, and the history books tell us that he picked up supplies. What most of them fail to mention is that he also COMMANDEERED some slaves, so when Spain CELEBRATES Columbus Day, we have Dia de Canarias. To the English it is ironic that the Spanish port named after him is Puerto COLON.

The CONQUISTADORES didn’t get everything their own way, though. There are CUEVAS (CAVES) all over the island, many of them almost inaccessible, and the locals who lived in them waged guerrilla warfare against the invaders for years.

Many caves are still used for storage, primarily of wine and CAVA, the local CHAMPAGNE. Some are still inhabited, with walls at the front, extra rooms CARVED out at the back, electricity and water installed.

I heard of one family who lived for years in a cave with a ladder as the only access - imagine CARRYING the shopping home!

.

And of course, no C would be COMPLETE without mentioning CARNAVAL – that month of madness that CULMINATES in a parade of COSTUMES so vast that only the strongest can wear them. The buses fill up with transvestites as the macho males reveal their feminine side, the CRUZ ROJA sets up a tent hospital in Santa Cruz, and every COLEGIO has its own COLOURFUL parade.