If you were to sail in to the
city port of Santa Cruz, in Spain's Canary Island of Tenerife today, you would
undoubtedly find a place packed with cruise ships, tour buses, eager taxis cabs awaiting on
the quay, and inter-island ferries speeding in and out of the harbour. You might also
be lucky enough to spot the La Palma, a floating museum. The beautiful old boat was
built by W. Harkness and Son, Ltd. in Middlesbrough in 1912. It had been ordered by the British firm, Elder Dempster and Co., Ltd., who intended to improve transport between the Canary Islands.
If you had sailed into the same
port in 1926, you might be joined on the south mole by one of the Blue Funnel
or Union Castle Line ships from London. You might also have spotted a Norwegian
Navy training ship parked against the south mole.
Tenerife was perhaps the furthest
south the Norwegian Navy had ventured since Viking explorers had braved the
waves. Apart from enjoying an interesting training adventure in warmer climes,
the idea was for a group of young cadets to investigate if there was any
connection between the pre-Hispanic Guanche people on the islands and ancient
navigators from Norway. Today historians believe most of the Guanche people may
have been brought to the island from North Africa by Phoenicians or Romans,
perhaps in search of different dyes. Others suggest there were earlier nomadic
people who drifted to the Canary Islands much earlier, possibly on rafts built
with reeds from the Nile.
The Norwegian training ship was to remain in Santa Cruz for at least ten days before calling in at Casablanca in Morocco. A young Lieutenant, known for his keen interest in ancient Viking exploration, six cadets and two ordinary seamen were issued with three tents, backpacks and rations for five days. Their mission was to look for a cave, which was supposed to be located in the volcanic landscapes at the base of Mount Teide, and where local anthropologists had discovered a Guanche burial chamber.
It was a beautiful early morning
when they set off on the winding, dusty road towards the colourful town of La
Orotava. From there they took one of the mule tracks which were so often
used by European geologists, astronomers and anthropologists to explore the
great Las Cañadas calderas. They spent their first night under a spring in the
Aguamansa pine forest.
After finding their way through the forests and then through a desolate landscape of volcanic rocks and shrubs, they climbed up towards Mount Teide from the base of one of the
sedimentary plains at the edge of the eastern caldera. The young officer and
his companions then set up their camp inside a sunken dip on the pumice plains which
were overlooked by an ugly and dramatic example of eruptive force known as Ripped Mountain, Montaña Rajada.
The heat of the midday
sun and the dryness in the air hit them hard to begin with. However, the climate can
be deceptive at the base of Mount Teide. In fact, it wasn’t long before fierce gusts of wind had them scrambling to collect loose volcanic stones to build a barrier around their camp. Sudden chills in the air made them feel quite
unsure of themselves. They had not been warned that weather conditions in the bleak, high altitude, Martian landscapes on the island of
Tenerife, can become treacherous very quickly in winter. Nevertheless, those same gusts
of wind calmed as suddenly as they had appeared and the young men went to sleep
early. They were exhausted after the day’s trek, and looked forward to hunting
for Guanche remains on the following day.
Then, at the crack of dawn, they
were all shaken awake by a strong gust of wind. Within minutes the young men
were wrapping up in as many layers of clothes as they could find. It was
now icy cold. In fact, it had begun to snow. More than snow, they were in
the midst of a blizzard as blinding as those on Gaustadtoppen, Norway’s highest
mountain. The fierce storm, with the wind making the volcanic rocks produce
anguishing screams, had them huddled in their tents for most of the morning.
When it ceased, allowing them to peep out, timidly pushing drifts of snow away
from their tents, they were engulfed by a dense fog.
In spite of being hardy Norwegians, accustomed to Arctic conditions, nobody had prepared them for this
kind of weather on an island so close to the western extremes of the Sahara
Desert. The Lieutenant, anxious as he was to pursue their amateur
anthropological investigations, told his companions they would probably abandon
their expedition. He would not have known that, if they could only keep
themselves warm for a day or two, the weather front would pass. Brilliant
sunshine and the warm volcanic soil beneath them would soon melt the snow away.
For the time being,
however, fearing they would never find their way in the fog, the officer
sensibly decided that they would stick it out for one more night. They would
use their small paraffin lamps to heat up their rations, as well as their tents
if necessary. That decision could have been fatal.
The inhalation of
paraffin fumes began to sting their eyes and make them nauseous. One of the
seamen began to feel so unwell and drowsy that he rolled over and knocked a
lamp over with his elbow. Paraffin spilled all over his legs and caught fire.
He was screaming in agony and terror as is companions dragged him out of the tent
and into the fog. They managed to put out the flames by rolling him in the
snow, but he was badly burned. Meanwhile, the tent became a roaring bonfire.
Nothing could be saved. It was a disaster.
If only they had hired a
local guide, José Bethencourt, the guide from La Orotava. Without him, unfamiliar to the terrain and the surroundings,
especially at night, the Lieutenant had to make a decision. Should he send two
of his team off into the night in search of help, with only a compass to
guide them?
He probably made the
correct choice. He was not going to risk losing two men in this strange,
inhospitable landscape in freezing conditions. No, they would all huddle up in
the two remaining tents until daybreak. The injured cadette was not in grave
danger, in spite of the pain. He had nasty burns on his legs, but he would
survive. Evidently they would need to get the young fellow back to their ship
and their expedition would have to be abandoned, but that was just too bad.
Except for the one with the horribly burned legs, the young seamen slept on and off. When they opened the tents to stretch and make coffee in the morning, the fog had cleared. There was not a breath of wind. It was quite extraordinary.
Not a
cloud in the sky. In fact, the snow and ice very soon began to glisten with the
rising sun which began to toast their faces. It was going to be
a magnificent Tenerife day. How they wished they could continue with their
adventure. After a good breakfast, more coffee and a short stroll to inspect
their snow-covered goat track, they packed their tents away, ensured there was
no rubbish left in their enclosure, and made their way down to the sedimentary
plain again before heading back towards the Orotava Valley.
It was slow-going. They took it in turns to help the injured cadette down the rocky
tracks. The path was covered with snow to start with, but soon turned muddy as
they descended from their campsite at nearly 7,000ft above sea level into the
dense Canary pine forests. They reached the first stone and thatched cottages
in Aguamansa by late afternoon.
A group of women filling
brown sacks with pine needles greeted them with waves and amused cackles
before running towards them when they realised the young men needed assistance. The same
women invited the Norwegians to follow them down between neat agricultural
terraces, and then under majestic chestnut trees to what appeared to be a small
hamlet. Plumes of scented smoke filtered through thatches and the aroma of
delicious goatmeat stew made the young seamen’s stomachs ache with hunger.
The young adventurers
were never going to make it to the comforts of La Orotava before dark so these
village people offered them all they had in the way of shelter, food, water and
wine. It was the year 1926, and most islanders lived from the land. There was
no such thing as money in these upper hillside regions, which are known locally as las
medianías. However, the inhabitants were blessed with happiness, with the routine of
existing, and with the kindest hearts and warmest humour to be found anywhere
on Earth. And, for just one night, these country folk belonged to the young,
intrepid foreigners, especially to the one with the nasty burns on his legs.
A rather plump lady with
glorious, reddened cheeks and hands like a man's was summoned to take a look at
the burned legs. Her name was Feliciana. She was the curandera, a
kind of herbal doctor so often used by mountain folk. She was not a trained
doctor, of course, but her cheery attitude and beaming smiles persuaded the
young Lieutenant to allow her to help the unfortunate cadette. Once again, he
was correct in his decision.
Nobody had any black
olives, whose juice she swore would soothe the burns. But there were plenty of
recently dug-up potatoes which Feliciana proceeded to peel with a gigantic
knife, dropping the peel in a heap onto the hard-trodden earth floor of the
cottage they were sheltering in. She then used the same knife to cut the
potatoes into fine slices. These she placed, very gently and neatly, onto the
cadette’s burns, attaching them to his legs with slithers of green plant
shoots. Feliciana then covered these with a warm, moistened cloth. The
seventeen year old lad had already felt some relief by just watching the woman
and by listening to her humming, but he felt the throbbing pain of his burns
ease away when the potato dressing on his legs began to take effect. Apparently, the juice from potatoes had been used for generations as a natural
reliever of pain and healer of certain kinds of wounds.
On the following
morning, just before the expedition retreated from the hills, with help from the
Civil Guard in La Orotava, Feliciana came to bid them farewell. She also
brought a small earthenware vessel containing an oily ointment which she
had prepared. It was a mix of what looked and smelled like lard, crushed thyme and rosemary. After carefully removing the potato
slices, which were now dry, she very gently used two large fingers
to spread the home-made cream over the burned legs. She also gave
instructions to the Lieutenant to make sure the cadette used the ointment every
day until the sores were better. And so he did. In fact, the Norwegian ship's
Medical Officer was so impressed by the effect of Feliciana's ointment on the
cadette's skin that he tried, in vain, to produce a similar kind of paste before opting for the more conventional methods of modern medicine.
BY JOHN REID YOUNG
Author of:
The Journalist (a novel)
The Skipping Verger and Other Tales ( a collecgion of short stories)
A Shark in the Bath and other Stories (a collecgion of short stories)
El hombre de La Guancha y otras historias (a collection of short stories in Spanish)
(For more information, please click on the images to the right of this page).
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