I have taken the exclamation mark out from after the word crikey on this post's title. I'll tell you why later. Many thanks for starting to read the last of the crikey trilogy.
I arrived on the island of El Hierro on Thursday 10th October. I left Plymouth, UK on Sunday 29th September, so eleven days all told. I had 5 rest days, two days on ferries, and four days driving. My route was Plymouth to Dover, Dover/Calais ferry then drove to Lourdes in the South West of France. I then drove to Girona, visited my brother, and then took the superb no toll highways from there to Cadiz. A two day wait for the ferry in a very pleasant and inexpensive air bn'b and then a seeming monster forty six hour journey to Tenerife and then another three hour ferry to El Hierro. El Hierro is the furthest South and West Canary Island. It is the second smallest after Graciosa, which lies North of Lanzarote.
I am now in the campsite I was aiming for, and have been to before. I am surrounded by gently swaying pine trees, some as tall as forty metres. The North Easterley trade winds howl through them at times, stay still at times, but more often than not give a gently sway and a gentle swooshing noise that seems to try and calm any nervous nerves that remain from arriving at a destination I feel good about and have been to many times before, maybe seven times, maybe eight, I forget.
I have lived here, worked here, been penniless here and to me it seems a magical place to be. The nature is raw, the views are dramatic, the walking is great. It just seems to excude peace.
I am going to keep this post short, a) because I have just arrived yet I wanted to write at least something, b) because I haven't quite mastered the electric charge up and the wifi and mobile signals yet, and c) because I realise that having arrived at the place where I wanted to write from, I can finally slow down, question my inner self, or God, or nature, or whatever, and really focus on what I want to say.
The buymeacoffee website supports over a million creative people, many who are now able to dedicate their time to what they really want to do in life. There are musicians, podcasters, youtubers, programmers, you name it, they are here. For me, there is no obligation for you to donate money. If you like my writing and content and I can find a way to be able to do more, then great. You can read, listen or watch whatever I produce for free. Any donations are obviously greatly received and go directly to my donation pot minus a 5% fee that goes to buymeacoffee.
I have got loads of things to write. At least I think I have. Some of it might be interesting to others, some of it might not. I guess none of it might be interesting to others, but it's a way in. It's a way in, for me, to find a late in life career that I have believed for over thirty years I could make a living from, and make a contribution to.
And why I took the exclamation mark off the crikey part of this post's title? I went to get on the last ferry to El Hierro Thursday night, and the passengers from El Hierro got off before we embarked, obviously!
I saw a couple of very dark guys in neat tracksuits get off first. I thought maybe they were part of a sports team or something. That couple turned into ten, then twenty, then fifty. I reckon near on a hundred guys got off the ferry, in an orderley line, and holding see through plastic washbags in their hands. The Red Cross greated them, put them gently on buses, and off they went.
Last week, on El Hierro, at the harbour of La Restinga, the harbour I was actually aiming for in El Hierro, over 500 Migrants from Sub Sarahan Africa had arrived on rickety colourful boats. Many had died on route, lost at sea, but one boat holding two hundred and eighty people actually arrived intact. I have pictures of the boat. It is both ridiculous, and absurd. At this moment in time I cannot quite take in the overall vision of what I saw in those boats. There were no bodies, it was just the leftovers of a very desperate journey by 280 individual souls clambering for a better life; clothes, fuel tanks, outboard engines, bags, bottles of water, snack bars.......
I have alot to write about, (as I keep saying) but I can only imagine that having seem the inside of this boat, and these are boats without decks, and having seen the dignity of that line of Senegalese gentleman stepping into a new country, with different laws, a different language, and away from their families and friends, that my focus of writing might find an energy of its own, and just maybe I will find it easy to write, in the place that I knew I would be able to. So that's why I took the exclamation mark out. Yes, we must be allowed to live in a world with fun and smiles and laughter. But that sight was not funny.
Thank you for reading this far. I hope to do another post mid week. Any feedback welcome. Thank you.