Echium callithyrsum, blue candles of Gran Canaria, second go

Tajinaste azul

Last year I found these beautiful blue flowers for the first time, but I set out to look for them a bit too late. This year I wanted to make sure I catch them at the peak of flowering.

So as soon as I spotted some photos of them on facebook, I started to plan my next visit. The biggest colony of them is (still) at Tenteniguada, so I went there. It was cloudy in Las Palmas but as the bus approached the village, the sun came out. It was playing hide-and-seek all the time I was there. It seemed that donkey's belly, the cloud cover of the north, ended just about above Valsequillo.

Tajinaste azul de Gran Canaria o de Tenteniguada, blue candles of Gran Canaria

This post is mostly a reminder to myself to repeat (and improve on) the experience next year. Read on if you are interested in flowers though.

Some while back, when the spring was only just starting, I noticed that some of the companies that advertize for guided tours were offering "Ruta de Tajinaste azul" (Route of Blue *Something*, where "something" was a word I'd never seen before.)

A little while later, I went for a walk around Teror and noticed some tall blue flowers on the slopes - not many, and a little bit too far off the path to go and investigate. I got interested and then connected those two things together - people going to look at something blue, and these tall blue flowers, very visible amongst the vegetation that tends to yellow.