We awoke to another glorious sunrise,
one of many we will experience until we go around Africa.
Not knowing when we would get back for
lunch or tea, we ate a “good English”, well almost English,
breakfast. I had a sausage and scrambled eggs with half of a bagel.
Not being English, I skipped the kippers, fried tomatoes, fried
mushrooms, beans and cold toast.
The ship was anchored at the pier so we
walked off and were immediately in Las Palmas, with palms everywhere.
A frond can be most effective when sweeping the street.
A walk further into town brought us to
El Corte Inglés, a large chain of department stores in Spain, with
some of the most disinterested and disaffected young women I have met
in a long time. We could have skipped that and instead gone straight
to the market.
Many NGO's claim that the Spanish
fishing fleet is responsible for much of the West African migration –
the sea/ocean along the coast is over-fished by Spanish trawlers with
almost nothing left for the local fishermen. And, yesterday, we saw
10 or so non-African trawlers along the coast of Mauritania.
From there we took a much-too-expensive
but lots-of-fun hop-on/hop-off bus. Las Palmas, like Madeira, is
situated up steep slopes around the harbour. You get a great view
from the open-air top of the bus. Only once did I slide to the seat
away from the rail – when the bus tilted over to the right to allow
a wheel chair to get on.
There was a nursery school below the
street the bus was on and the children were out at recess. How they
giggled and waved when we stopped above them.
Views from the upper level of the bus.
As usual I visited the local cathedral,
catedral de Santa Ana. The main section was quite austere, unlike
most still-catholic cathedrals I have seen, until we looked at the
various chapels dedicated to individual saints. The riches were
displayed there.
And the battery died!!!!!
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