Banknotes in Cleavage and Baby Powder in the Ear
    Sometime long ago, many, many years ago, the inhabitants of the island of La Palma were very poor. Tourism did not exist and there wasn't anything to do. No one could stand the repulsive boiled bananas anymore and in addition to that, here and there one of those volcanoes erupted smelling up the place for miles around. The natives in desperation boarded boats and headed for the Promised Land, for America. And they way it always is, many of them died in poverty there and some got very rich. Years later they returned to Santa Cruz, disembarking from boats in the port of Santa Cruz dressed all in white, with straw hats on their heads and distributed handfuls of banknotes to the local residents, and black slaves followed along after them with lots of baggage. To this day the locals remember this and as with everything in their own way. The whole island empties of people, the village streets are closed and villages are orphaned. Except for one port, Santa Cruz. The residents of all the villages dressed in white and wearing straw hats crowd themselves into the narrow little streets and fill all the squares. Different music sounds from every corner, and so that they can be whiter than white, they douse themselves in baby powder, of which they use tons that night. Some even make themselves up and dress as black women, surprisingly it's mostly the men, and at five o'clock the biggest Bengal and theater I've ever seen kicks off.




    Even though we donned white shirts and white hats for this occasion, it evidently wasn't enough. Our first confrontation with the white powder lied in wait for us around the corner of the second street. A local girl tried to generously douse me in powder, but first she kindly pointed to the camera around my neck and motioned that I should put it under my shirt for this ritual. I resolutely refused and tried to push my way through the milling crowd, away from there. Very well did I understand the expression in her face. It was a combination of not understanding, disappointment and maybe a little feeling of insult. I remembered our Easter celebration with pouring water on the girls so that they don't dry up, the "pomlazka", a traditional braid of willow branches, and like a "gringo" put two and two together and because I was still sober, understood instantly.




    The mutual dumping of white powder on each other's heads is actually a demonstration of great honor to each other. It is a wish to everyone to be white, rich, happy and successful, to those returning this day from America. I began to understand why no one protested the powdering and didn't run away from it. One usually laughs like a fool during this act, and looks that way as well. But he's satisfied, and as a reward powders someone else and so beautifully foolish everyone looks all night. A happy land...




    So we dropped our unnecessary guard and gave ourselves up to the whirlpool of engrossing events. My, fortunately closed up, camera case took the first hit, and it looked quite poor. It was black as a boot. A sudden white cloud burst until I choked a little and in an instant it was white. I took the second hit several minutes later right into my left ear. To this day I don't understand why, but it doesn't matter. Suddenly I was a happy, rich returnee from America, that majestically walked through the streets of the port of Santa Cruz, grandly stuffing banknotes into girls cleavages and black women following him with lots of luggage filled with gifts for relatives and friends.




    Crazy Spanish rhythms sounded from all the streets and you couldn't get through the crowd any other way than by swaying to its rhythm. And to make the carnival more colorful and happier, a different type of music played on each corner, each in a totally different, even wilder rhythm as the more and more homogenous crowd danced flowingly and poured from one street to the next, from one wild rhythm to the next.

    A little open space could be found only around the wildly whirling dancers in native costume and I soon realized why. These girls dance in a sort of ecstasy, not conscious of the world or people around them and a blow to the head with a rumba ball means a huge lump over your whole head.





    The unfeigned joy and unleashed happiness glowed in the eyes of those Canary Island residents all night. Nowhere did we see even one argument or fight. All the while they must've drunk hectoliters of alcohol. I even got a free drink from a huge moving barrel on wheels, just like everyone else around, while it still contained something. The suspicious red liquid from the barrel wasn't wine, but some kind of thicker and without a doubt, stronger alcohol, which I don't know how to drink, and don't anything about. Following my experiences with locals, however, I couldn't refuse the quarter-liter cup I was given, and so thanked them politely, drank deeply until my pupils spun around and attempted a smile of satisfaction, so as to blend in with the surroundings.




    These happy and carefree people are easy to photograph. Not once did I experience that which I know from our own lands, where the subject turns shyly away with his back to the camera. It was the opposite. The local residents bubble with joy in front of my pointed lens, twisting, unrestricted and unforced into positions exactly that they want to have, without caring about the intentions of some photographer. In their satisfied, easy going and happy mentality they are absolutely wonderful.




    The music obviously played until morning, as is the custom at local carnivals and celebrations. And at dawn after the danced-away night some of the carnival goers felt a little heavy ...




Someone's Knocking on the Door
    So the symptoms of abstinence from flying over the winter satisfied for a time, the twitch in my left eye when looking at the clouds on the horizon has passed and even in my hands I don't feel the twitching I felt when looking from the balcony at Lysa hill on a clear, frosty day. At least for now. But Spring is knocking at the door, my burnt nose isn't peeling yet and small black grains of sand from the beaches on the shore of the Atlantic keep falling out of my tennis shoes.




    The island of La Palma is a relaxing corner of the world, to which I will always return happily and often. Even if the price of the ticket together with the other expenses isn't that expensive, maybe after all it won't be quite as often as I would wish. So I don't exactly know how I'll pull it off. Most likely I'll start taking from the rich and the poor as well ...