Hello everyone and welcome to La Palma.

My name is Johanna and I’ll be your guide during this amazing experience. The drive … and me, both
of us are very happy to have all you here today.

To enjoy the trip and to have an amazing experience, it’s necessary to have a safe trip. As you can
observe, this bus is equipided with safe belts. So, please, fasten your belts every time we get into the
bus and to all passangers next to the corridor, please, we ask you to put the seats’ armrests up
when seated. Also, if you start feeling dizzy during the bus trip, please, let’s us know to provide you
for tripbags / or to stop for a minute.

Let’s start ejoying La Palma.

This island is well-known as La Isla Bonita. “The beautiful Island” due to its varied landscapes, views
and constantly warm weather.

In general terms, La Palma has a consistent tropical hot semi-arid climate. Here winters are warm
and summers even warmer what turns this little island into an astonishing paradaise where you can
spend your summer sunbathening in the beach as well as winters.

Regarding , its varied landscapes, towards the north you can apreciate beautiful green forests like
“Los Tilos Forest” and “Cubo de La Galga Forest” Both places belong to an extence area called “
Laurisilva forest”. Due to its inique landscape La Palma was the first island in Spain to have
international recognition as a Wold Biosphere Reserve. While, towards to center of the island, you
can visit the extraordinary National Park Caldera de Taburiente which is visited by thousands visitors
from all parts of the world who come yearly to do its astonishing trials. Also in the center of the
island, connected with the highest area of Caldera de Taburiente Park, the Astrophysic Observary
Roque de Los Muchahos is located. 20th April 2007, this observatory was awarded by the Starlight
Fundation as a certificated astrophisic area. Due to this certification, the whole island is protected
form light polution with a specific ilumiation system. Along all roads, you can see that light sticks
have at thier top a metalic hat to avoid light invades the sky. With the same purpose, the street light
bulbs are in orange color. Well, towards the south of the island, the landscape is completetly
diferent since there you can visit La Palma’s volacanic area with a long extention of volcaos chain
which crosses almost half of the island with a big concentration of volcanos in the area called
Funcaliente. Lucky us, this is the landscape we are visiting during this tour today.

As I’ve already said we’re visiting Fuencaliente Area. Particulary, this tour starts with a panoramic
drive view of Funcaliente area where we can see Teneguía volcano, its typical vineyands and
thousands of bananas’ plantations. Then, we’re stopping to make some pictures of Fuencalinete’s
salt flats. Later, we’re visitng San Antonio volcano to walk along its crater and to visit its visitor
center where you can learn about La Palma volcanic history including audiovisual support. Finally,
the icing on the cake, we’re visiting Llanovid winaries well-known as Teneguia Winary.

Let me tell you some interesting details about this small marvelous island. La Palma is the most
northwesterly island which an area of approximatly 720 square kilometres, including the almost 12
square kilometers caused by Tajogaite volcanic exploxion in 19th September 2021. La Palma’s land
extension makes it the fifth largest island of the eight main Canary Islands.

Regarding La Palma’s population something really interesting happens since almost 86,000 people
live in this island, but only 16,000 are living in the capital, Santa Cruz de La Palma, while more than
21,000 inhabitant are living in Los Llanos de Aridane, the second most important city located
towards the center of the island. If you would like to make a comparison between La Palma and
Singapur, both of them have almot the same land extention, since in la Palma there are 86.000
inhabitants, in Singapur with almost the same surface, there are more than 5.5 millon people living
there.

I’ve already said La Palma is well-known due to its volcanic land. Its basis big stone which nowadays
sustains the whole island was created almost 4.750.000 years ago due to enourmous simultanous
volcanic erruptions. These volcaninc erruptions did not only cause La Palma`s anourmous center
stone, but also the accumulation of its volcaninc ash created amazing landscapes like The National
Park Caldera de Taburiente which is the result of almost 580.000 years of ash accumulation.

The local economy is primarily based on agriculture and tourism. La Palma has almost 6 millons
hectares of banana planatation. This plantations occupy almost 43% of the land surface. Bananas
are grown throughout the island with many banana farms on the western side of the island in Los
Llanos de Aridane. La Palma produces more than 20 millons kilos of banana yearly. But, not only
that, the Beuatiful island also produces almost 5 millions advocators per year. So, enjoy tasting these
delicious fruits during your stay.

[IN MAZO]

On your left you can see small houses which are proteced by Mazo’s Town Hall becuase these
houses used to be wine cells when wine production was its main economy of this area.

[IN FUENCALIENTE]

As I have already mentioned at the biginning of this tour, Fuencaliente is located at southern part
of La Palma and it’s well-known becuase of its vocalcanic landscape which is dominated by the
volcanic ridge Cumbre Vieja. The last volcanic erruption on this area was in 1971 when Teneguía
volcano exploded. Previously, San Antonio volcano had errupted in 1677. Later, we’re visiting San
Antonio volcano’s visitor center along this tip to walk along its crater.

Fuencaliente is also well-known becuase of its fertile soil which is used for growing grapes that later
become into delicious malvasia wine. In Fuencaliente, there are almost 800 hectares of wineyards
from where more than 2 millinos liters of wine are produced every year. Also here, there are also
most of the banana’s plantations of this island.

History:

Before the arrival of the Spanish in the 15th century, the territory was originally occupied by the
Guanches who were La Palma’s first inhabitants.

The origin of the name Fuencaliente comes from it’s proximity to a nearby hot spring known as
Fuente Santa (The Holly Font) located near the coastline. In the 18th century, due to a volcanic
erruption those hot springs were completely covered by lava eliminating the easy access to this font.

After Teneguia volcanic eruption ,in 1971, the Canarian Council of Public Works dicovered the
existance of the hot springs which had been completely covered by previous volcanic erruptions.
They got to know that under the solified lava the water under the ground was at 60 °C. So they
decided to build outdoor corridors which make the access to these waters easy and also to take
advantage of their natural swimming pool called San Blas and San Lorenzo. Being San Blas natural
pool much hotter than San Lorezo.
Those springs were known as The Holly Font becuase guanches, the first inhabitants in La Palma,
used to have baths there to cure skin deseases like lepra.

[FUENCALINETE SALT FLATS]

The salt flats are located very near Fuencaliente’s light house. In 1967, The Fernandez Rodriguez
family opened the salt flats’ doors. The salt flats were in the final stage of construction when the
Teneguía Volcano erupted 4 years later, in 1971. Furtunately, in the end Teneguia volcano did not
directly affect the salt flats, although they did have to keep the activity paralyzed for two years due
not only to the road being closed, but also because it was necessary to clean the flats of hundreds of
kilos of volcanic ash.

If you look at your left, you can see a road which was built into the lava wall once it was solidified
just to let the salt flats workers came back to work. Aan at the end of that road you can appreciate a
small private heminatage which was installed by the Fernandez Rodriguiez family to thank Las
nieves virgen (The patron virgin of the islans) for having protected their business during Teneguia
erruption.

Fuencalinete is an ideal area to install salt flats because of its proximity to the sea, its constant
windy weather and permanent sun exposition.

[SAN ANTONIO VOLCANO]

San Antonio’s eruption began on November 17, 1677 after several days of earthquakes. It opened 18
eruptive mouths and it remined active until January 21, 1678. It was active for almost 2 months. Its
lava created the coastal platform extended from the cliff of Punta Larga in the west part of
Fuencalinete municipality to Punta de la Tormenta in the east, part of which was later covered by
the Teneguía eruption of 1971.

The eruption destroied many farmlands, as well as the church of San Antonio Abbot which later gave
the vocano’s name. However, the most important damage was the disappearance of what was
known as Fuente Santa, Holly Font, hot spring with healing properties that used to be frequentely
visited by visitors from all over Europe.

Now, we are arriving at San Antonio’d visitor center. Those who like to walk wtih me all over its
crater just follow me. Those who would like to stay at the visitor center can do a guided tour just by
following the arrows on the floor and reading the information panels.

Please, to avoid being pushed by the wind, walk at your left very near the wall.

[BODEGAS LLANOVID]
Llanovid Winaries was created in 1945 in Fuencaliente as the largest cooperative of La Palma. Lanovid
produces more than 300,000 bottlesof wine every year.
Teneguía winery is the most famous one of this comperative. It has 208 hectares of vineyards spread
across the three regions: in the northern part, Hoyo de Mazo in the eastern part and Fuencaliente in the
western part.

Under Teneguía brand, a wide range of white, red and even rosé wines are produced based on native
varieties.

The first line is malvasía. Malvasía wines are made exclusively of grapes from Fuencaliente area. This is a
naturally sweet wine (without added alcohol), but it is sweet beacuse these grapes are harvested later, so
they keep recidual natural sugar at the moment of its production.

The second well-known line is Llanos Negros whose vineyards are located on the edge of the San Antonio
volcano in Fuencaliente. These wines are international recognized for being volcanic wines

The last line includes a single wine called theMission's Grapes which is very perculiar becuase it comes
from one of the highest vineyards on the island located at 1,400 meters above sea level just below the
Astrophysical Observatory of La Palma. Beacuase those vineyards are sittuated above the clouds, those
grapes can mature earlier than vineyards located in the lower part of the island. For this reason, Llanovid
winaries has become the first Starlight Winery in the world, being part of the La Palma Declaration in
Defense of the Night Sky and the Right to Starlight.

Bodegas Llanovid fue creada en Fuencaliente en 1945, ésta es la cooperativa más grande de la isla de La
Palma. En la actualidad, produce alrededor de 300.000 botellas cada año.

La bodega Teneguía que se abastece de 208 hectáreas de viñedo repartidos por las tres comarcas: en parte
Norte, Hoyo de Mazo en la parte oriental y Fuencaliente en la zona occidental.

Bajo la marca Teneguía se elabora una amplia gama de vinos blancos, tintos y hasta un rosado apoyados en
variedades autóctonas.

Destaca en especial la línea de malvasías elaboradas con uvas procedentes de la zona de Fuencaliente. La
linea de malvasia es una version naturalmente dulces (sin adición de alcohol) procedentes de vendimias
tardías que se elaboran en versión joven y reserva.

La segunda marca es Llanos Negros cuyos viñedos estan situados en las faldas del volcán San Antonio en
Fuencaliente. Son apenas 11 hectáreas repartidas en 74 parcelas con las que se elaboran 20.000 botellas
anualmente.

La última línea incluye un único vino, Mission’s Grapes, que procede de uno de los viñedos más altos de la
isla situado a 1.400 metros de altitud justo debajo del Observatorio Astrofísico de La Palma. A menudo se
sitúa por encima de las nubes de modo que pueda madurar antes que viñedos situados en la parte baja de la
isla. Por este motivo Bodegas Llanovid se ha convertido en la primera Bodega Starlight del mundo siendo
parte Declaración de La Palma en Defensa del Cielo Nocturno y el Derecho a la Luz de las Estrellas.