What’s brown and sticky?

In which Sid and Doris find out what you can achieve with plasticine poo.

In the overview of the trip we described El Hierro as the “most volcanically active”.  As you have seen, this is not the case, a more accurate description is that in volcanic terms it is the youngest.  It has had a history of bits falling into the sea – on the northeast side about a third of the island as well as on the southern side a chunk out of the Parador’s swimming pool.  The first photo is the dawn view from the bedroom, we have slept to the sound of rattling basalt boulders in the waves.

To help us understand the story of the bigger landslide we went to a couple of viewing points over the area that they now call “El Golfo”. An information board gives useful diagrams of the before and after shape of the island and explains that “This landslide not only modified the shape of the island but also the climate and the magma feeding system. Once the gravitational weight of the landslide disappeared, the resulting decompression increased the production of magma in the inner depths, giving rise to intense volcanic eruptions in the peaks of the amphitheatre which filled the hollow and ran down into the sea.”

I have just spotted that the Parador is at the bottom of the smaller “bite” out of the island on the SE side, creating that bay that you saw in the picture above.

Here is the view from the top of the middle of the big bite:

 

 

And on the right hand side is a Mirador, architected once again by our friend Cesar M, with fabulous views all the way down to what looks like bit of sea with very nasty undertows (note the scale of the buildings near the shore):

The rest of the island actually looks surprising non-Canarian, and we hop out of the MX-5 for a charming forest walk dismissed rather sniffily in the guidebook as “catering for the needs of the young and elderly” who may not be up to the rigours of a proper walk. Suited us just fine.

We will press on with the story because the real purpose of today’s visit is to go to a strangely combined site of ecomuseum, lava tube and lizard sanctuary.  The ecomuseum has a set of possibly original or perhaps recreated houses showing how people used to live in the island in various centuries, with the rooms gradually changing in their choice of furniture but little else.

And about the lava tube we will say little because it is a lava tube.  The guide looks extremely crestfallen as we zip through it going ALT.  Because the high point of this visit is going to be the LIZARDS.

A project started in 1974 to discover if there were actually any lizards left unexterminated by imported cats, dogs, rats etc. The leader took with him plasticine models of what he thought their poo would look like, which was immediately recognised by local shepherds, and the lizards were rounded up and put into a lizard breeding facility.  Exhibit A is the plasticine poo:

The lizards turn out to be very easy to photograph because they are extremely stationary, although irritatingly distant from the camera, hence the slightly grainy photo.  Doris got a bit suspicious and did watch one until it eventually blinked, so they are alive, if not exactly living life in the fast lane.

Mummy lizards bury their eggs and leave them to hatch on their own, rather like turtles.  Fascinatingly, we are told that they can store unused sperm within their bodies and use them to fertilise later batches of eggs over several years.  Sid is spotted looking thoughtful.

Here are two final pictures that we thought might amuse.  The first is from Google StreetMap – it’s a tree we drove past before Doris could deploy the camera. In nautical terms it should have a green red green channel marker painted onto it. And the second is a very cute but alas virtual souvenir that we have got for Betka.  To be honest, if it had been for sale we might have succumbed but it was an ornament in the Parador.

PPS The answer to the question in the title of this post is, of course, a stick. Ha ha ha!!!