Petroglyphs at El Paso and La Bombilla: 24th October 2020
Alison invited me to join the others staying at the centre as today they were attending ‘Clowning Existence’ seminar in the nearby town of El Paso. It was led by the Galician Ivan Prado who takes a group of volunteers into major conflict zones to perform a ‘solidarity circus’ to bring hope and joy to children. It was a very interesting seminar and it was impressive to see the risks the group take to bring a smile to the face to children who are surrounded conflict. The workshop was originally going to be ‘hands-on’ demonstration of the techniques they use but due to covid it was changed into a seminar.
After the seminar Alison took us all to visit El Cemetrerio just outside of El Paso where there are the remains of petroglyphs created by the island’s indigenous people who lived on the island until the 15th century. We walked along an old water channel to find the petroglyphs.
It is thought that the images served a religious purpose worshiping the sun, moon and water.
We found a goat skull nearby the rock carvings.
We had a picnic next to the caves and spotted a number of ‘Tenerife’ geckos hiding in the rock crevices.
Alison discovered that they have a sweet tooth and enjoyed some left over mango from our picnic.
After lunch we visited another near by site of La Fajana where another set of rock art was discovered in 1982. The drawings are created by chipping away a thin layer of light coloured rock from the surface to reveal a darker layer below.
After the visit to El Paso I drove Robin and Brandon to a beach on the west coast for a swim. We drove to the small town La Bombilla. Robin has been living on the island for 4 years and so was able to guided us on a short walk along the coast to the Charco Lighthouse and three small coves where we stopped to have a swim. We watched the sun set before heading back to Rivendell.
