Tags: Gran Canaria, Tenerife, Canary Islands, Fires, Incendio, Fire Extinction, Flickr, Pictures, Photos, Photography, WhatItOnceWas, Palmitos Park, Flora, Fauna, Zoo, Theme Park, Reconstruction

As the fires from Gran Canaria and Tenerife continue towards making really good progress and be completely extinguished, still with some minor, completely isolated and under control patches here and there, I thought I would go ahead over here and start something that I have been thinking quite a lot about during the course of the weekend and most of last week as well. During the last few days, there have been a number of folks sharing their thoughts and opinions on the outcome of the fires. And a lot has been said about it whether the catastrophe could have been avoided or not, but instead of just following that thread I am going to take another approach to it all. At least, for the time being. Perhaps at a later time I would share as well my two cents and what I have learned myself from this tragic experience.

However, this new approach is going to be a lot closer to me than whatever I could have ever anticipated. While doing a recap of the recent events, over the course of the weekend, talking to some friends on the outcome of the fires, I realised that quite a few of the emblematic places from the South of the island of Gran Canaria have suffered tremendously from the fires. I get to visit those different places quite often and have got tons of pictures from what they used to look like, but not what they look like today with the devastation.

So what a better way to pay tribute to those special places from Gran Canaria that got burnt than to create a weblog post every now and then over here, and share a bunch of pictures that I have been taking before last week’s disastrous set of events and which I will be uploading into my Flickr account as well as time goes by. I think it would be really nice to share with you why those different places are special, at least, to me, and why I am really looking forward to when things would go back to normal, like a whole bunch of us have been sharing thus far, and see those stunning places come back to an re-energising life, the same one they have always had.

So to get things started here is the first of a serious of weblog posts that I am going to tag as "What It Once Was …", where I will be sharing with you a couple of comments about the particular space and then share some pictures of what they used to look like and, I am hoping, that when the right time comes, I will be able to share with you all the dramatic change, for the better, I am sure, that they would go through over the next few weeks, months, years, etc.

Without much further ado, the first place I will be talking to you about is one of the most emblematic tourist attractions from the island: Palmitos Park. Half zoo, half theme park that used to host an incredible amount of flora and fauna and which, unfortunately, has been so severely affected that it would be about a year before it would open up to the public again. Most of the animals survived the fires, but the different buildings and the flora have been very badly damaged. So this is one of the wonderful places I will be looking forward to when they re-open again. I am sure it would be much better, much bigger, much more impressive and just basically focusing on what matters, the flora and the fauna of not only the island of Gran Canaria, but from all over the world!

Here are the promised pictures…

You can find more pictures from the series related to Palmitos Park and What It Once Was… at the following URL, or look also at a previous weblog post that I have shared some time ago.

So, will you join me when they re-open the place to check out most of the beauty that has been left behind? … And so much more? I surely hope so…

One year goes by lightning fast. I just can’t wait for it!

Tags: Gran Canaria, Tenerife, Canary Islands, Canary Isles, Fires, Incendios, Spain, Twitter, New Beginning, Hope, Life, Mother Nature, Nature, Onwards

This is probably one of the very last weblog posts that I would be creating where I would be massively linking to a number of different stories that keep popping up both from within the traditional media as well as within the Spanish Gofiosfera on the recent tragic events where one third of the entire wooded area from the island of Gran Canaria is now gone after the fires have all been under control. And a similar situation, thank goodness, is starting to emerge in Tenerife.

There was a reason why I was linking to a number of different resources, more than anything else, it was all due to the fact that I wanted to share some of the grief that most of us is going through at the moment. That painful experience of seeing how one good chunk of you is taken away just like that in a matter of hours and without any further questions.

Back at the beginning, when I was first writing the initial blog post from this series I mentioned how it hurt, how painful it surely was to witness that tragedy taking place and myself not been able to do much on the subject. Now a few days have passed by and still feel the same, like something that I was part of was taken away from me very abruptly. For good.

In one of my twitterings earlier on today, I realised that most of the pictures from the collage that I have for my Twitter background are actually from several of the different places that are now completely devastated by the fires. Yet, there they are, as impressive and stunning as ever and with a strong message that at one point in time they will be back! Just like in the good old times, but better. Way better! I am not sure if I would be here still that long, but if I am, you bet that I am going to enjoy the time quite a bit where I will be capturing those precious little moments that will remind me of what it all once was and where we have moved on to: onwards!

Because there is no other way to go. Now more than ever we need to move on, we need to learn from our past mistakes, we need to ensure that events like this one would never happen, at least, at a similar scale, of what we have witnessed since Friday last week. I, for one, would be incredibly excited about when that time would come, because I know it will be coming back again, and at that point I would be as much proud as I used to be (Still am very much so, in case you are wondering!) of one of the places that accepted me back three years ago, with no questions asked, like if it was the prodigal son coming back home. Finally! I never left home. I know now. Perhaps too late. The beginning of a new dawn starts now! Want to join me?…

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Oh, and before I let you go, I can certainly recommend checking out the index of YouTube videos that various different people have put together that CanariasBruta has been able to collect thus far. And also watch the following one as reported by mainstream media (In Spanish):

And here you have got a couple of pictures that different folks have been taking thus far:

Courtesy of Canarias7:

Courtesy of tonyatlantico:

Tags: Gran Canaria, Canarias, Canary Islands, Fires, Spain, Tragedy, Drama, Paradise, Incendio, Arde Canarias, Ayagaures, Planeta Canarias

And while the reactions and different news items keep showing up all over the place with folks sharing their thoughts on this tragic set of events, it looks like things are starting to become normalised, to a certain degree, that is, because we cannot say just yet that everything is under control. Not yet. The struggle continues. The fight is there, active, more than ever, to try to put an end to it all. And we are getting there, for sure. Slowly, but steadily. Hopefully, one more day. Just one more day. Tomorrow. Fingers crossed. Best of luck to us all.

Weather conditions have improved quite a bit with temperatures around the 30 degrees Celcius and with hardly any wind, at least, from this side of the island. Definitely, not as windy as in the last couple of days. So there is plenty of hope that everything would be back to normal soon, if we could say that because I doubt things would ever be the same again. Not after watching this catastrophe for over 5 days now.

The first evaluations, editorials, extensive opinions and reviews, reservations, etc. etc. are starting to flourish now, and perhaps I will talk about them some more later on, but I just thought I would leave you for the day with something that I have found incredibly amazing and a life-changing experience, for sure.

Check out the impressive Flickr set of pictures that tonyatlantico has been putting together, where he has been covering what Ayagaures looks like after the fire. A place which is just about 20 minutes by car from where I live. Then also take a look at a couple of pictures I took from the same place some time ago in all its splendour.

All I can say at this moment is that it still hurts… and quite a lot!

(Oh, and don’t forget you can keep up with what the Spanish Gofiosfera is thinking about over at Planeta Canarias)

Tags: Gran Canaria, Canarias, Canary Islands, Fires, Spain, Tragedy, Drama, Paradise, Incendio, Tenerife, Mixed Feelings, Arde Canarias

While the news items keep popping up on what has been named as Gran Canaria’s worst ecological disaster in recent history, we can already start seeing some folks coming out of the places where they have been hiding for a while, looking for those who should be responsible for such tragic set of events. Yes, that is right, while we are starting to witness some of the political games coming from various fronts, all of them blaming someone else, probably like it usually happens in these cases (Blame your neighbour, it’s easier), the fires are still blazing away while we all hope that the high temperatures and the strong winds would give everyone a break to finish off the job.

Over the course of the last few hours, there have been a number of different webloggers commenting further on what is actually happening out there and I just thought I would share a few links in here to give you a sense of some of the mixed feelings that we are all going through these tough times:

— Canarias está ardiendo
— Arde Gran Canaria (5)
— Hace fuego
— El incendio de Canarias en la red
— Incendio en Canarias: el fuego arrasa reservas de la biosfera
— Arde Canarias
— Fuego arrasa 65 por ciento superficie “Palmitos Park” y afecta a 60 por ciente animales y plantas
— Special Canariasbruta coverage
— Mi isla se quema

I have been sharing a few pictures already over here on what is going on at the moment, but I would strongly encourage you to have a look and check this weblog post, Pictures, from Isle of Gran Canaria, to see the kind of impact that this disaster is having.

And, like you would not have expected otherwise, the first video clips from YouTube are starting to emerge. So instead of sharing some more additional pictures I am just going to embed some of the dramatic clips put together thus far:

Finally, here is a detailed description of the events as they are happening and courtesy from Canarias7. And thank goodness, it looks like things are starting to improve a bit as mentioned in Gran Canaria tiene “estabilizados” todos los focos tras 100 horas de incendio, pero desconfía de las cambios de viento. Although, still on guard, of course.

Tags: Gran Canaria, Canarias, Canary Islands, Fires, Spain, Tragedy, Drama, Paradise, Incendio, Tenerife

And while several different fires continue to spread around the South-West of the island of Gran Canaria (With one soldier injured at the moment) and while there are more and more news items coming through just as horrifying as the previous ones, things are getting a whole lot worse now with another massive fire spreading around like mad in Tenerife, the other major island from the Canary Islands.

So far here in Gran Canaria 10,000 hectares have burned with 5,200 people evacuated, whereas in Tenerife it is already going for 13,695 hectares and 4,200 people on the move. An unprecedented catastrophe for all of the Canary Islands and Spain, no doubt! From here onwards, here is a positive message going out to everyone affected to let you all know: we will get things back again in shape soon, we have to, we don’t have a choice, we will:

“[...] sólo os puedo decir que no olvidéis ni permitáis que os hagan olvidar.” (Comment in Spanish from a weblog post shared in Mangas Verdes by Dani)

Here are some more pictures from the catastrophe thus far:

Courtesy from Pablo César, a.k.a. pcesarperez / AdAstra

Courtesy from artevirgo (Impressive set of pictures):

Courtesy from Víctor, a.k.a. rvr:

And perhaps one of the most impressive, courtesy from GrJMontero (For a more recent one from both Gran Canaria and Tenerife click here):

PS. There is also a Flickr group: Incendio Gran Canaria - Julio 2007, where we can share the pictures we have taken about the fires. Feel free to add yours as time goes by.

Tags: Gran Canaria, Canarias, Canary Islands, Fires, Spain, Tragedy, Drama, Paradise

I know that this weblog post is very much off topic, and you would have to excuse me for it, but if there are ever pictures out there that would be worth while 1,000 words, the following set would be those that would provide you with a intensive sense of drama, if not tragedy. For all of us:

My dearest paradise is burning and it hurts. It truly hurts…

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(Pictures courtesy from JrGMontero, rvr, elesar1)