Canary Islands, some stories

We needed to repair the Pinta. I took us one whole month to finish it. During that period, the oldest sailor of the ship  and some people of the Canary Islands told me the truth: our Captain, Chistopher Colombus was mad, he wanted to lead us to the end of the world. He wanted to go to the West, because he thought that the world was round. What a stupid thing! We all know that the earth is flat and if one approaches to the West he will  fall to the… I don´t know where, but one certanly falls somewhere. On Sundays, the priest of my village explains me this with the Holy Bible.

Snakes and other sea monsters

I'm really scared about this, I prefer to ne a priest rather than die, but now it is too late to come back. Moreover, there is a very old woman, that lives in a dirty little house in front of the port and every afternoon she goes out of her house with a chair and told me stories.

'Don´t listen to them, child ' she told me, grabbing my arm 'They are just trying to scare you. All what your mad Captain wants is to find an island on the ocean, before he reaches the end'

After this, I wasn´t as scared as the beginning, I´m just nervous.

During the moth we stayed on Canary Islands, I heard many histories at night. Alberto, a novice sailor of my age, and I went to the inns, where the old sailors often met to speak. There was a man, called Juan de Granada, everyone called him the Manco, because he left one hand in the sea. He explained us his story. 

He had fallen into the sea and a very big shark, that it is a big fish with sharpen teeth that eats persons, attacked him and tore his left hand. There was also a man that said that when he was young, the ship were he travelled sank, because a very big squid, the Kraken, attacked it, and he saved his life because he knew how to swim. I also heard somebody spoken about a giant whale which attacked ships and about islands on the sea where the inhabitants were cannibals, that means that they eat people. But the best histories are the ones told  by Ursula, this old woman that lives in the port. When the sun goes down, Alberto and I run to her house, where she is waiting for us, she always gives us a cup a vine and starts to spoke. A little bit later more people start to arrive, but she never gives them vine.

She told us that his husband, Pedro Martinez, was a sailor of an expedition, but this expedition hadn't returned yet, this is why she sat in front the port all days. She was waiting for him, but I heard that his husband went around six years ago and he was probably dead. She also said that in one of his husband  travels, he went to a very far country, where there were very big animals called elephants, and some people that ride them. Moreover, there were  very big orange cats with black stripes. To prove it Ursula took a skin of this animal from her house and show it to us. There were also many smelly plants, called spices, that are used for the food. She also showed us a violet piece of cloth, that as she told us is very expensive because it was cold silk.

With all this stories, time flied away. The day we needed to go, I saw a very old ship arriving to the port. The people of this ship were thin, dirty and very tired. At that moment, Ursula, that was (as  all the days) looking at the sea waiting,, stood up, shouting

' Pedro! Pedro' –she shouted while she ran to one of the men. It was her husband.

I looked how the port of Canarias become smaller while the ship moves in to the sea. I don´t know where I go, but I don´t care.

Lauren de la Sierra