Rural House 4

Because of their formation and location, La Palma presents unique landscapes. La Palma is also known by the nickname La Isla Bonita and La Isla Verde, because of the vegetation that covers it. The island not only receive water through precipitation, but also does so through the horizontal rain. The trade winds bring clouds laden with water up to the summits of the island, forming mists that vegetation, especially laurisilva, condenses, producing the phenomenon known as horizontal rain. An example of use of this in the plant, in the case of Canary Island pine, that have their needle-shaped leaves act as a filter capacitor and allow the precipitate haze on the foot of the tree.

The island is divided into different vegetation zones, from the lava fields to the laurel forests, passing through areas of pine forests, thermophilous vegetation, and coastal vegetation summit. Among the plants that grow on the island, 170 are endemic to the Canary Islands, the most features, the Drago, the Pine Islands and the Canary Palm. The vegetation can be divided into a series of more or less distinct floors, around both sides of the island, being generally drier in the east than the west, and likewise, also drier in the southern the north.

Each municipality of La Palma has its patron saint, having even independent parties in some neighborhoods, as is the case Argual in the municipality of Los Llanos. In addition, every five years takes place Bajada de la Virgen de Las Nieves from her sanctuary to the capital of the island. During these celebrations, part of the festivities that accompany the patron to Santa Cruz and vice versa, are representations of the conquest of the island, Guanche rituals simulations and the Dance of the Dwarfs, the best-known festival of the island, dwarfs which nineteenth-century costumes parade through the streets of the capital practicing a dance feature. The other important representation is the dance the minuet, which mimics a nineteenth-century dance. Folklore of La Palma is similar to the rest of the Canaries, with the exception of dance sirinoque who hails from the island.

Carnival is one of the most celebrated festivals. Despite having all the characteristic features of the Canarian carnival (carnival queen, parades, street bands and so on.) Carnival of La Palma holding out for the Indians. The festival, which takes place on Carnival Monday is a mockery of the Indians, that is, returned to La Palma in the Americas. For the occasion, everyone dresses in costumes, lace and pure white guayabera in the same way the wealthy returning emigrants. After a performance in which time a ship arrives at port full of Indians, with their parrots, maids (known as the black Tomasa) and other characteristic elements, begins a battle with powder by the capital's streets to the rhythm of Cuba.

It also has a long tradition of celebration of the Cross on May 3 in the villages of the region east of the island, which commemorates the founding of the double city of Santa Cruz de la Palma, which occurred on May 3 1492 and the Feast of the Cross, for which branching and wear jewels scattered throughout numerous crosses every town and neighborhood, and it is customary to visit the different crosses in the night before.