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March 2025

- Island Love -

Sometimes you just get lucky! Our flight towards Cape Verde took us over the Canary Islands – and we were sitting at the window on the right side of the plane. Deep below us, Tenerife, La Gomera, El Hierro and La Palma lay scattered like pale, beige-pink-brown discs of different sizes on the deep blue sea. Each island had its own shape, each surrounded by a white ring of foaming surf.

El Hierro's highest mountains wore a hat of clouds and La Gomera's mountain ranges could be surmised from the long, anthracite-coloured shadows that fell across the island like a vertical grid. On Tenerife, the Teide stood out unmistakably and I immediately remembered my ascent from the cable car station to the crater rim of this mighty volcano - the thin air at 3,800 meters above sea, the magnificant view over Tenerife as far as La Gomera and La Palma and my little painting, which I created up here with a certain feeling of bliss. Now, from miles away, the crater shimmered in a bright white-yellow, surrounded by a reddish-brown band that faded into grey and finally almost black layers. One side was dominated by a gigantic, dark, round maw that captivated my gaze. But wait – was that still the Teide? No, from this perspective, the entire Teide National Park looked like one huge volcano. What I saw were the traces of countless eruptions: black basalt, grey-brown quartz, iron-rich red-brown, the sulphur-yellow rock of the Teide crater. A landscape marked by fire and time.

Then the moment was over. The Canary Islands slipped behind us and below us lay nothing but the deep blue Atlantic – and somewhere on the horizon, Cape Verde, our destination. Ten islands, born from volcanoes, each with its own face, its own history. The anticipation grew. What my husband and I like about islands is their proximity to the sea, but also the contrasts between coast and mountains.

As former West Berliners by choice, we have also learnt to appreciate the special nature of island life itself. Islands are worlds apart and soon we would learn not only the meaning of many different names, but also the unique character of Santiago, São Vicente and Santo Antão and the special mentality of their inhabitants. And who knows – maybe we would even fall suddenly in love with one of these island, as happens to us every now and then.

> order magnetic bookmark motif  'El Teide in springtime'

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