{"id":8961,"date":"2022-03-10T08:37:33","date_gmt":"2022-03-10T08:37:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/?p=8961"},"modified":"2022-03-10T10:27:58","modified_gmt":"2022-03-10T10:27:58","slug":"indiana-jones-on-his-last-crusade","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/2022\/03\/10\/indiana-jones-on-his-last-crusade\/","title":{"rendered":"INDIANA JONES ON HIS LAST CRUSADE"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Norman Warwick feel  like<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

INDIANA JONES ON HIS LAST CRUSADE<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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In the north of the island, along the narrow and winding road,  through the tunnels, that descends down to the village of Har\u00eda, a lookout point with the name Mirador Del Haria patiently waits, amid palm trees and dragon trees, to be discovered. Also known as the Mirador de Malpaso, in reference to the valley that it sits within, it gained prominence in 1966, when the Canarian artist Cesar Manrique (left)<\/em><\/strong> was commissioned to design, at the top of the mountain range, a small house to serve as a resting place for hikers. Ever since it was opened, the building has been witness to the tourism boom experienced by the island over recent times.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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However, accordingto Barcelo Experiences, on their web site, the place later fell into decline due to a lack of maintenance from island authorities. For 20 years its rundown appearance has tarnished the scenery of an area that, nonetheless, boasts incredible panoramic views of the municipality of Har\u00eda, with its palm trees, its bucolic spirit in the form of cultivated terraces and its coastline in the background. Recently, the Town Council and the Island Council of Lanzarote joined forces to restore the building and to convert it into what will be the Har\u00eda Flora and Fauna Interpretation Centre (right)<\/em><\/strong> , with a view to enhancing ecological tourism in the area.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In spite of the dilapidated condition that Manrique\u2019s house was in for 20 years, the Mirador de Har\u00edanever stopped receiving visitors. This is due to the breath-taking landscape within which it is set, considered by many to be the most diverse area on the island in geological, agricultural and scenic terms. The municipality of Har\u00eda is one of the three territories\u2014together with Villa de Teguise and Yaiza\u2014that historically divide up the island. The eruptions of Timanfaya that occurred during the eighteenth century, combined with the humid clouds swept along by the westerly winds of the Atlantic, have ended up creating a microclimate that is unique within Lanzarote. This has enabled the emergence of the only concentration of trees\u2014the Har\u00eda palm grove\u2014on the island, as well as numerous endemic plants of high ecological value.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The new lookout point (left) , having been spared from the proliferation of large-scale tourist developments in the seventies offers panoramic views of the Atlantic Ocean, the imposing Corona Volcano, and the lovely village of Har\u00eda. It is in the latter where the forge of the Perdomo family honed the tools that would later be used to construct the LZ-10 road, which passes by the lookout point and descends into the valley.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Mirador de Har\u00eda was one of the first artistic endeavours undertaken by C\u00e9sar Manrique on the island.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Much like the nearby Jameos del Agua and the Green Cave, the lookout point\u2019s design stayed true to the identifying characteristics of Lanzarote: whitewashed walls and volcanic rock flanked by lines of dragon trees and, inside, furniture made from rustic burnt wood and glass inlaid in stone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Newspaper records from the time note that the Mirador de Har\u00eda first came about in 1964 during one of the official visits of the then Minister of Information and Tourism, Manuel Fraga. <\/strong>Initially inspired by the opening of the Green Cave, the savvy mayor of Har\u00eda, Juan Pablo de Le\u00f3n, took advantage of the Minister\u2019s visit to propose financing for a lookout point with views of the Har\u00eda valley.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

No more than a sad coincidence, the death of Cesar Manrique in 1992 coincided with the onset of the lookout point\u2019s decline. Since it is located in a no-man\u2019s land, no authoritative body took responsibility for the building\u2019s maintenance for years. Theft and deterioration, as well as graffiti, gradually turned Manrique\u2019s white building into a ghost, which had one day been a dream. Several promises to restore the building were made, but these never came to fruition. \u201cSorry for the inconvenience, the Island Council of Lanzarote is working for you\u201d, said a poster that appeared on the door of the building in 2014, to which local people sarcastically responded by saying: \u201cSure, they actually went out for breakfast\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nevertheless, the poster was serious. It belonged to theTourism Infrastructure Plan of the Government of the Canary Islands, whose scope the Mirador de Har\u00eda finally falls under. As set out many years before, restoration is now halfway through to convert the building into the region\u2019s Har\u00eda Flora and Fauna Interpretation Centre, its opening coinciding with the forthcoming 100-year anniversary of C\u00e9sar Manrique\u2019s birth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Part of the project\u2019s contribution to the lookout point include two extensive viewing platforms, from which it will be possible to make out both the Har\u00eda and Temisa valleys. The building\u2019s new look will also respect the original wishes of Manrique, and it will be endowed with great environmental importance by being energetically self-sufficient.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The lookout point is just a few kilometres away from where the craft market (right) <\/em> <\/strong> is held down in the village of Har\u00eda every Saturday from 9:00 AM to 2:00 PM where you can find fresh local produce, such as fruit and vegetables and cheese, as well as a whole host of crafts typical of the region, such as baskets made from palm leaves or reed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anyone who has seen the film Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade will remember the wonderful cinematography that showed Indiana\u00b4s look of terror when urged to take a leap of faith and step out into a seemingly bottomless chasm beneath him. It is a scene that could surely have been inspired by something that can be seen in the green caves a mile or so away from the lookout point. Indie found the faith, stepped forward, and found a rocky bridge beneath his feet, rendered invisible by the shadows in the rocks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The lookout point here at Mirador De Haria forces those of little faith to gird their loins if they want to see the spectacular views it affords. That the path of the point is made of glass to offer direct line of sight to the land way, way down below is hardly reassuring, though our picture (left) shows Thelma and Louise pretending to be Margaret and Dee. Indeed, it is worth putting your best foot forward in that same emphatic way that Indie did, that took him further along the road to recovery of the Holy Grail. The reward here, though, is a view all the way down to the resort of Arrietta, although from here at this distance the town looks like a child\u00b4s Lego replica. Our cover photograph and at the top of this article, shows \u00a8junior\u00b4 Indie and his dad Indiana played by Harrison Ford and Sean Connery respectively (oh no, sorry, that is me as Indie Junior on the right as you look, and Iain, as his dad on the left!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Similarly, you will have guessed that the two women standing at the lookout post on our cover photo and at the top of this feature are Thelma and Louise pretending to be Dee and Margaret !!<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of course the place is a fantastic photo-opportunity, and because there are no properly safe places to park a car, pretty much everybody catches the shuttle bus, or walks what would be a week-long climb for me, there is plenty of time and space to take such photographs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The two girls who work in the \u00b4vistor centre\u00b4 are really happy and helpful, the shuttle bus driver was cheery and to chatty with the ten passengers that are as many as he can carry at any one time. By the time he has returned to the village to pick up the next group waiting to be taken up to the summit, and brought them to the bridge, we have enjoyed a full half hour of looking round and are now ready to return with him down the hill again to explore the vi9llage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The term \u201cPotemkin village\u201d to which I referred earlier, is used to describe an impressive facade or show designed to hide an undesirable fact or condition. The image, the illusion, the fa\u00e7ade and nothing behind it – all this has been synonymous for more than two centuries with the Potemkin village. These fake settlements were allegedly erected by the Russian Minister Grigory Potemkin to impress the Empress Catherine II during her visit to the Crimea in 1787. The truthfulness of this story has been the subject of much debate. Of course, the myth of “Potemkin villages” is a myth, and not a reliably established fact.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1786, Grigori Alexandrovich Potemkin, favorite of Catherine the Great, completed the conquest and pacification of the Crimea. In 1787 Empress Catherine II announced her intention to visit the Crimean Peninsula, which had been annexed from the Ottoman Empire four years earlier. According to \u201ceyewitnesses,\u201d this is where the events took place. Catherine\u2019s journey brought her through the vast steppes located along the Dnieper River.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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In 1787 Catherine the Great showed her new lands, Novorossiya and the Crimea, to the Austrian Emperor Joseph and some foreign ambassadors. They sailed to the Black See from Kaniv along the Dnieper, docking overnight. Considering Austria\u2019s misfortunes with Turkey and the sad state of Poland (Russia\u2019s nearest neighbor to the west), the visitors were amazed by Russia\u2019s accomplishments and the scale of construction in Ekaterinoslav (conceived as a \u201cthird capital\u201d of the Russian Empire).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Everyone knew that Novorossia had only recently been annexed to the empire of Catherine II; that it was a desolate steppe, without cities, roads, almost without a settled population. The aim of Potemkin was to demonstrate that this vast territory is already almost civilized.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Acording to the story, Potemkin, Prince of Tauris, in an effort to impress the Empress with the work he had done in the south of Russia (which for many years had been a desolate area ravaged by constant warfare), constructed fake villages along the route of the Empress and her foreign guests. He then ordered peasants to stand along the side of the road with happy smiles. To make his \u201cvillages\u201d more authentic he even had herds of cattle move along the road. Each time Catherine saw the cows she did not realize they were the same ones she had seen the day before.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In fact, the contemporaries of the 1787 travel expressed a lot of harsh judgments about the “miracles” shown to the Empress. “The monarchy saw and did not see,” wrote Prince M. M. Scherbatov, “and the testimony and praise of its essence are vain, the very action of teaching monarchs not to praise what they themselves do not know themselves”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Analysis of the sources leaves no doubt that the idea of “Potemkin villages” arose several months before Catherine II set foot on the newly acquired Russian lands. Potemkin, who took the lead in transforming Novorossiya and the Crimea, was envied and opposed by many in Petersburg. Beginning in the 1770s they spread rumors that all of Potemkin\u2019s reports on his activities in the south were a con.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another interesting part of this story can be found in the \u201crevelations\u201d of some travellers accompanying the Empress that were published 20 years after Potemkin\u2019s death. The Swedish nobleman Johan Erenstrom recalled not only the scene of the fake villages but also cited that peasants tried to sell things to the traveling party. However, Erenstrom\u2019s recollections are not proof for researchers, as this Swedish nobleman was known to switch sides between the Russian and Swedish imperial courts. So his \u201cact of unfolding the truth\u201d could have been perpetrated for political purposes. There are also memoirs of other participants of the trip that describe the legend about the villages as \u201ca fake.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Modern historians are divided on the degree of truth in the story behind Potemkin\u2019s villages. Most consider the myth about fake settlements to be an exaggeration. They claim that the allegations are based on malicious rumors spread by Potemkin’s opponents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Potemkin really decorated cities and villages, but he never concealed that it was scenery. Dozens of descriptions of the journey through Novorossia and Tauris have survived. In none of these descriptions, made hot on the heels of the events, there is not a hint of “Potemkin villages” although the decoration is mentioned repeatedly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The French delegate, Count Segur wrote : “Cities, villages, homesteads, and sometimes simple huts were so decorated with flowers, painted decorations and triumphal gates, that their appearance was deceiving the eyes, and they seemed to be some kind of marvelous cities, magical created castles, magnificent gardens”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Austrian Emperor Joseph II, incognito with the party, and the envoys of the European powers perfectly understood the purpose for which they took the journey with Catherine. Their skepticism was more of a mask, behind which was a fear that Russia would be able to implement these grandiose plans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the USSR, organizers of tours for foreign citizens carefully selected the sites to be visited. The best schools, factories and hotels were portrayed as typical and the routes were impossible to change due to strict limits for foreign travelers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In May 1944, US Vice President Henry Wallace visited Kolyma and was extremely pleased with what he had seen. In fact, he was shown Potemkin villages. The organization of the visit was a special operation of the NKVD. The question whether Wallace understood anything during the trip remains open. In 1952, after the publication of Elinor Lipper’s “Camps” book about the Kolyma camps, Wallace publicly admitted to the press that he had no idea that Magadan was actually the capital of camps that contained political and criminal prisoners.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the 1970s and 1980s – when regional Communist Party leaders hosted their \u201cbosses\u201d from Moscow \u2013 they showed them huge amounts of cattle inside modern facilities in an attempt to demonstrate rapid developments in agriculture. But in many cases pigs and cows were specially brought in for the occasion from other places in order to impress the \u201cpeople in high places.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This can still occur today in Russia when lower-ranking officials try to impress their bosses. Some far-sighted regional leaders see this as a big problem. \u201cWe don\u2019t need Potemkin villages,\u201d said the governor of one Siberian region. \u201cWe need real action to improve the infrastructure in the region.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many observers and political analysts often use the term \u201cPotemkin villages\u201d when somebody does something to try and change the mindset of the \u201cbosses\u201d at various levels \u2013 and this holds true in Russia as well as many other countries around the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The concept of the fake villages is widely used in many other circumstances – especially when someone tries to surprise people with things that do not really exist. As modern history shows \u201cPotemkin villages\u201d have become an international phenomenon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u00b4m not suggesting there is any kind of conspiracy going on in Haria but one wonders why the artisans are working there: For whom are they making their wares? Who buys the pots and pans, the straw hats, and who smokes the cigars, and if the purchasers are simply tourists passing through, to where are they passing through? Haria is way up North in the island: in many ways there is nowhere left to go.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Of course, the town\u00b4s cemetaria contains the grave of the island\u00b4s favourite son (right)<\/em><\/strong>, Cesar Manrique, and although it is well kept and attracts a few tourists, it is still heart-rending to see Margaret place a single rose at the headstone. My wife and I and Iain and Margaret are enthralled still by Manrique as an indigenous islander and I think we all find it somewhat reassuring that his grave has not been made to stand out among others and that he has been allowed to rest in peace on the island he loved, and shaped.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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There is a street along to the church in the town centre that is in December a little piece of heaven in a world that feels like we are going to hell in a hand-cart. The trees are tastefully draped in single colour lighting (left) and the church is floodlit. Either side of dusk there are two or three welcoming restaurants, street markets stalls serving mulled wine and such, and couple and families, tourists and locals taking a gentle evening stroll.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hikers and ramblers love the countryside and hills around Haria, carpeted at a certain tiome of year, in the most glorious wildflowers, but today we eschewed all that for a peaceful stroll around town. We looked at some of the craft stall in the artisan centre such as the one where sewing, embroidery and the creating of rosettes is practiced. We saw, too, where the cohineal-dyed handkerchiefs and scarves are made, and of course we looked at the last home of Cesar Manrique, and dropped in on the basket maker round the corner,                 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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It was a clear blue sky, warm February day so Margaret and Iain took us down to look at the barber shop (right)<\/strong>, (aka The Rum Barber) but Friday must be closing day because it was all locked up. Nevertheless there was an open panel in the wooden door that allowed us to gaze in on the old-fashioned, bulky barber\u00b4s chair, the leather strops on the wall and the white tablecloths ready to be tightened round a neck !<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We moved on to the cigar-maker and questioned him in English and he relied in Spanish and we didn\u00b4t understand a word of each other, but I think we ascertained he was working with three different kinds of leaves; dry, wet and medium, and they were all delivered to him in big sacks. I mimed to him that my wife won\u00b4t allow me to smoke cigars and he nodded back and tapped the side of his nose, knowingly. We swapped business cards and agreed to arrange a short interview, so watch this space, if you can see it through all the cigar smoke i will be blowing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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We couldn\u00b4 t leave without having one last look at Haria Town Hall, (left)<\/em><\/strong> celebrating its centenary year. It is, in fact, the oldest of the island\u00b4s seven town halls. Constructed in neoclassical style, as evidenced by the symmetry of the graceful, decoratives frames and balconies, the hall was built in 1922, under the then mayor Antonio Ramirez de Castilla The orginal building that served the same purpose is now houses Tegas La Sopcial Culktural Civic Centre. Celebrations will be announced as soon as the pandemic has eased a little further and our movements might be less restricted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We\u00b4ll certainly be back to report on those celebrations<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For today, though, we spent around four hours in Haria, not doing much, saying very little and, while nothing and everything happened as one, it was a good day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of the best.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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There is a street along to the church in Haria town centre that is, in December, a little piece of heaven in a world that feels at the moment like it is taking us to hell in a hand-cart. The trees are tastefully draped in single colour lighting (left) and the church is floodlit. Either side of dusk there are two or three welcoming restaurants, street markets stalls serving mulled wine and such, and couple and families, tourists and locals taking a gentle evening stroll.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8966,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[79],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8961","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sidetracks-and-detours"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8961","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8961"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8961\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8977,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8961\/revisions\/8977"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8966"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8961"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8961"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8961"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}