10
trodden that landscape thousands of times at all hours of the day and night,
and in all seasons of the year.
We left the Cañadas caldera late in the afternoon, the low sun throwing
into sharp relief the outline of the crests that make up the old volcano. Izaña
Observatory welcomed us enveloped in a dense fog that almost totally extinguished the dusk, the outlines of the buildings becoming visible only when we
came right up to them. A fierce, icy wind almost prevented us from opening
the car doors. Two friendly-looking ruffians (so they appeared to my wife)
presented themselves. they had black beards and were covered up to the eyebrows with military capes. They collected our things with friendly grunts and
took us to one of the buildings, the ‘Kaiser’s Lodge’, which was to be our
dwelling at the Observatory. This was no ironic nickname, but referred to an
old and dilapidated hunting lodge that the German Emperor had used in
Africa and later donated to a group of German scientists at the turn of the
century. As we entered that dried, half rotted wooden cabin it groaned under
the buffeting it was receiving from the gale. The cold was glacial. It was already
night and small lightbulbs with reddish filaments that gave out a dim light
flickered to the throbbing of a single-cylinder motor that could be heard
nearby. Everything was in half shadow with dark mysterious corners. The
Fig. 1.3 The road to Izaña Meteorological Observatory. From left to right: Mary
Almeida, Francisco Sánchez, Miguel Zalote leaning on Chancellor Navarro’s car, with
Ignacio Izeta in crouching in the foreground. (Credit: F. Sánchez)
F. Sánchez
trodden that landscape thousands of times at all hours of the day and night,
and in all seasons of the year.
We left the Cañadas caldera late in the afternoon, the low sun throwing
into sharp relief the outline of the crests that make up the old volcano. Izaña
Observatory welcomed us enveloped in a dense fog that almost totally extinguished the dusk, the outlines of the buildings becoming visible only when we
came right up to them. A fierce, icy wind almost prevented us from opening
the car doors. Two friendly-looking ruffians (so they appeared to my wife)
presented themselves. they had black beards and were covered up to the eyebrows with military capes. They collected our things with friendly grunts and
took us to one of the buildings, the ‘Kaiser’s Lodge’, which was to be our
dwelling at the Observatory. This was no ironic nickname, but referred to an
old and dilapidated hunting lodge that the German Emperor had used in
Africa and later donated to a group of German scientists at the turn of the
century. As we entered that dried, half rotted wooden cabin it groaned under
the buffeting it was receiving from the gale. The cold was glacial. It was already
night and small lightbulbs with reddish filaments that gave out a dim light
flickered to the throbbing of a single-cylinder motor that could be heard
nearby. Everything was in half shadow with dark mysterious corners. The
Fig. 1.3 The road to Izaña Meteorological Observatory. From left to right: Mary
Almeida, Francisco Sánchez, Miguel Zalote leaning on Chancellor Navarro’s car, with
Ignacio Izeta in crouching in the foreground. (Credit: F. Sánchez)
F. Sánchez