Hobbies and other interests
en español
The papa negra (solanum chaucha)
The papa negra (solanum chaucha) is a variety of potato originary from Peru, which has a very marked presence in the couisine of the Canary Islands, in particular Tenerife, where it has been grown for centuries in the high lands on the north slopes of the island. This variety presents a dark purple or gray skin and a yellow interior, and is very apreciated because of its soft texture and sweet flavour. It is consumed mostly in the form of "papas arrugadas": boiled papas with a salty skin. We have initiated a pilot project to grow papas negras in Valencia. In 2011 we obtained our first succesful harvest of papa negra outside of the Canary Islands, and in the 2012 campaign we aim to plant for the first time papas from our previous harvest.
Vías Verdes
The vías verdes (greenways) are old obsolete railways, which have been aconditioned for trekking and bicicle riding. The longest of all vias verdes, with a total length of 160 km, and to my opinion one of the most beautyful, is the via verde of Ojos Negros, which connects Teruel and Sagunto, in the center-east of Spain.
3D Modelling with Pov-Ray
PoV-Ray is a programming language useful to create photo-realistic scenes and 3D animations using the
technique called ray-tracing. The scenes are built by specifying in the source code the position, size and shape
of elementary geometrical shapes (spheres, prisms, planes...) in addition to colors, textures, and positions of
light sources and cameras. There are free compilers and integrated development environmets for Linux, Windows and Mac.
Click here to see some of my scenes and animations.