Report Stephen Hawking Eva Rancho La Provincia 9 October 2014
Physicist Stephen Hawking returns to England after his stay in Las Canteras, Veguera, Agaete y Santa Catalina / He drinks lots of coffee and eats mangos at Finca La Laja
Eva Rancho / A. Ojeda
LA PROVINCIA / LAS PALMAS DE GRAN CANARIA, 9 October 2014
Eminent British physicist Stephen Hawking, 72 years old, will return to Canary Islands next year, as he confirmed yesterday, after his visit around Gran Canaria, that took him to playa de Las Canteras, Vegueta, Agaete and Parque Santa Catalina.
“He said we are gonna come back here next year”, one of his personal assistants affirmed on his behalf. After he attended Starmus International Astronomy Festival in Tenerife and stayed there nearly for a month, the worldwide known scientist arrived at Gran Canaria yesterday morning on board the transatlantic liner Independence of the Seas, consigned by Incargo, and he went sightseeing in the island, through Intercruises company (Tui España). Hawking is very happy with the performance of Londoner actor Eddie Redmayne in the film The Theory of Everything. “He thinks he is very good, he caught him quite well in the acting, very much like Stephen, he said he is very pleased!”, one of his personal assistants assured on his behalf to Canarian local newspaper LA PROVINCIA yesterday, after his fleeting visit to restaurant Casa Fataga, located in Parque Santa Catalina, before his departure to Southampton (England), calling at Lisbon (Portugal) and Vigo (Spain).
Historical heart
The agenda of this astrophysicist, cosmologist and scientific disseminator was pretty booked since early morning. Roughly 10 am and escorted by a group of six personal assistants, Hawking visited playa de Las Canteras, passed through Tenerife Street, nearby La Puntilla area. After that, they moved to Vegueta, the historical heart of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, where they enjoyed visiting the Cathedral and Plaza de Santa Ana. Moreover, they passed through Guiniguada Theatre and contemplated the modernist beauty of Gabinete Literario building, Plaza de Las Ranas and Insular Library.
There they caught an adapted bus to Agaete, where they were flabbergasted with la Finca La Laja, which is located in Los Berrazales. They had mango, papas arrugadas (Canarian boiled and wrinkled potatoes) with mojo picón (a spicy sauce made from garlic, paprika, cumin, breadcrumbs and wine vinegar), pella de gofio (lump of oily dough with a sweet and salty flavor), ropa vieja (literally translated ‘old clothes’, it is a stew that contains chick peas with shredded beef and chicken with vegetables, tomato sauce and boiled potatoes), gofio ice-cream with coffee flan for lunch. “Hawking wanted to taste everything. He loved mango, actually he took away quite a few, he drank Agaete-made coffee with no milk or sugar, as I suggested to him”, María Lázaro commented on. She was the tour guide of Intercruises that kept Hawking company along the way.
“He did not want to leave and we loved that”, they said at Finca La Laja of Los Berrazales, despite the hot weather during his visit to Agaete, where he saw the unique coffee plantations left in all Europe that he admired. “You should have seen him drink it”, business owner Víctor Lugo Jorge affirmed.
The menu
In Hawking’s menu there was room for salad with tomatoes, avocado, and a proper selection of local cheeses, along with mango jam. The British physicist took the best pieces of mango to Southampton port, where his cruise on board the majestic Independence of the Seas comes to an end. The liner of Royal Caribbean Company is one of the biggest leisure ships that travels in the market nowadays, with capacity for 3.600 passengers and 1.300 crew members.
The British researcher actually did the same as cruisers that arrive at Gran Canaria: to require a guided tour to the northern fields of the island, where they can taste the local wines and check the quality of the coffee made in Canarias. In order to do so, he hired an adapted microbus to travel with his assistants. Hawking does not like crowds surrounding him, but his manners are exquisite and he ended up mesmerising his hosts in Agaete.
“He was very friendly indeed”, Lugo pinpointed. He was helped by his parents Inocencio and María del Carmen to receive Stephen Hawking. “He wanted to taste everything and to know about everything”, they asserted. Hawking’s attitude amazed them. When he had to leave, his tour guide called he famous visitor. “No”, Hawking replied, as a sign of devotion for the north of Gran Canaria.
“At la Finca La Laja we tried a lot of coffee, fruit, wine, … delicious wine”, confirmed one of his personal assistants. “The island is a beautiful place, there is beautiful people, ‘muy bien’!”, one of his nurses commented on. These are some testimonies at the end of this visit that has made history in Gran Canaria. Just on few occasions the island has had such a worldwide known, but down-to-Earth and kind visitor. On the way back to the city, before he got on board the liner to the Portuguese lands at 5 pm, he stopped in Parque Santa Catalina. Initially the visit was private, but it ended up being public. Hawking turned out to be the media limelight in the island and he raised so much expectation among citizens that walked by.
Lugo: “He did not want to leave and we loved that, he wanted to taste everything and to know about everything”
Councilman of Tourism in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Pablo Barbero, President of Cabildo de Gran Canaria, José Miguel Bravo de Laguna, and insular Minister for Tourism, Melchor Camón, hosted the scientist at the main entrance of Casa Fataga and gave him a gift: a book with photos of the island captured by Ángel Luis Aldai and a paper sheet of Poem of the Atlantic, from Néstor Martín Fernández de la Torre.
“It has been a short meeting at Parque Santa Catalina, in this remarkable location of the city and the island of Gran Canaria. We were thankful for Hawking’s visit. It is a great honor and pleasure, as he is a worldwide scientist”, Bravo de Laguna pointed out.
Moreover, Gloria de la Vega, Casa Fataga manager, also showed her joy for having met Hawking in person. “I am so pleased with his visit, unfortunately he could not taste our food, but we have had the honor of meeting him and he has smiled at us”, she told the media gathered at the front entrance.
An example of overcoming
To those who have not heard of Stephen William Hawking yet, there is a phrase that defines him: an example of overcoming. The motor neurons disease known as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) that has been suffering since he was 21 years old has not stopped him from having a scientific career from other galaxy. His birthplace was Oxford 72 years ago, but his knowledge and gravitational singularity theorems of the origin and structure of the Universe, that of Bing Bang, and the theoretical prediction that black holes emit radiation, have no boundaries. From 1979 to 2009, when he got retired, he was the Lucasian Professor of Maths at Cambridge University, a position that was also held by Isaac Newton in 1669. Among his endless list of awards, there are 12 PhD Honoris Causa, the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 1982, Premio Príncipe de Asturias de la Concordia in 1989, and the Presidential Medal of Freedom (2009), the highest civilian honor in the United States. Hawking made science popular through several books such as A Brief Story of Time (Una breve historia del tiempo) (1988), a worldwide best seller. E.R.