Lanzarote (Canary Islands - Spain)

December 2005

Lanzarote is one of the smaller Canary Islands off Africa’s northwest coast. It is a Spanish island and attracts a lot of Europeans on package holidays. My girlfriend Lori had booked a Xmas holiday while I was in Eastern Europe last summer. The flight was from our local airport in Norwich (2 miles from Lori’s house) and an apartment in Costa Tequise. The only downside was that we had her two children and parents in tow! It wasn’t exactly going to be backpacking across South East Asia. And it didn’t even count as a country.

It was pouring with rain and the roads were backed up when we left Norwich and after a -squeeze the punters in, offer them nothing unless they pay for it, mind numbingly boring four hour flight, we arrived at Arrecife airport where it was pouring with rain and the roads were backed up. The only difference was that it was dark.

A transfer bus took a bunch of us along the coast to Costa Tequise, a new purpose built, package holiday area. We dropped off tourists at all the best hotels and remained on the bus until last before being dumped outside the Tabaiba Center Apartments. You know you are in the low rent area when your hotel does not appear on any of the town maps!

Actually, our self contained apartment was ok. Living room/kitchen/bathroom with hot shower/bedroom and balcony. You paid a Euro to watch an hour of TV so that was never on much. There was also a freezing small swimming pool. Colin, Lori’s 8 year old son shared with us and Kate, the 12 year old daughter shared with Lori’s parents below. I think the highlight of their trip was playing pool in the bar and watching the Simpsons on the TV.

On the first night, after the rain had stopped, we took a stroll into downtown Costa Tequise and it seemed that the streets were lined with cactuses and sharp palm plants. I encouraged Colin to touch a sharp point and as he did, the whole area fell into darkness. He was convinced he had created a powercut (caused by localised flooding due to the recent heavy rain) for hours afterwards. Which he had of course.

The first activity was to get Lori certified at scuba diving. She had already completed her confined water training in Norwich. I just had to take her out on four dives and get her to repeat all her skills in the sea. We signed up with the friendly Calypso Diving, who took us to Playa Chica. The sea was quite rough and we had to make shore entries. Most diving is shut down in the winter. Visibility is poor and to be honest, there isn’t much to see. Despite the rough seas, Lori did really well. On Xmas Eve, the following day, the seas were even rougher and the diving was cancelled. We returned on Boxing Day to do her final two dives and that was it. When we had to step off the harbour wall and drop about 10 feet into the water to start the first dive, she looked at me as if to say ‘This wasn’t in the manual’. She is now an Open Water Diver.

It rained quite a bit during the week and it wasn’t warm enough to just sunbathe so other than diving, we explored the island by walking, bus or rented car.

Lori, Colin and I set off from the hotel on Xmas morning to climb a volcano which we could see in the distance. We crossed the rocky weathered lava fields as lizards scuttled about. It was hot today (just for a change). There was a decent climb up a stony track and from the summit we could look across the whole area. Then we walked the horseshoe around the old crater and down again. By the time we staggered into town 5 hours after starting, I could have murdered a beer. I was very surprised to find a shop open on Xmas Day afternoon and it had ice cold beer. Thank you God.

That evening, Lori’s parents had booked us in for a Medieval Night. A Xmas supper in-between lots of Butlins type Redcoats in ye olde medieval gear getting ye olde tourists to do ye olde stupid things. The only way I got through that evening was to take advantage of the all-you-can-drink-lager for 10 Euros and I had to, to survive. I think the general consensus was that it all a terrible mistake. I was too pissed to care either way. Some would say that the Medieval Night is where package holidays come to die.

The southern section of the island is really just a series of smallish purpose built holiday towns on either side of Arrecife. Apart from the fact that the mostly white buildings are only 2 or 3 stories tall, it could be anywhere where package tourists congregate.

Arrecife was the non descript capital with quite an attractive waterfront and the small but perfectly formed 1590 Castillo De San Gabriel fortress built to defend the island against marauding pirates. Its honeycomb coloured stonework looked splendid in the sunshine, even if was only the size of a decent five bed roomed house in England. To reach it, you could cross the Puente de las Bolas – the Bridge of Balls (don’t ask). Apart from a decent supermarket, there wasn’t much else to recommend this place unless you wanted to see a normal working town as opposed to a purely tourist town.

Puerto Del Carmen seemed to be the major tourist town – Irish pubs, English newspapers, full English breakfasts and crappy fake designer clothes shops along with the biggest collection of tourist tat I had seen in a long time. I was bored there within 30 minutes and that was without getting off the public bus.

Our lease of life was to do what every other tourist is forced to eventually do after they have drunk their Guinness, read the Daily Wail, eaten their bacon and egg and filled their suitcases with tat. They either go on a packaged bus tour of the island or they rent a car. I’d rather eat my hand than take a guided tour of a place which takes less than a day to drive around. Two days rental gave us ample time to explore.

Tequise was the capital until 1852 and it is now a small, charming, quaint old town dominated by its handsome square and church which is surrounded by a grid of narrow cobbled streets. Every building is white with painted green wooden shutters (an enforced requirement throughout inland Lanzarote. Houses by the sea can paint their shutters blue). Since it was Xmas, there was the traditional Spanish nativity scene with a model of whatever place it was supposed to be. I liked Tequise. Arriving at 9am before the tour buses, we had the place to ourselves. Nothing special to see, but it had retained a sleepy ambience of former glory. Every Sunday, there is apparently a big tourist market so I was relieved to miss that.

It was originally made the capital so far inland to give it a fighting chance of keeping the pirates at bay. Overlooking the town and defending it, was the Castillo de Santa Barbara Rio, an old fort perched on an extinct volcano. You can drive up to it and walk around the volcanic rim for a view across the island in every direction. Well worth the detour.

The Jardin de Cactus (Cactus Garden) is touted by all the promotional material as a place to visit. 1,420 species of cactus, 10,000 plants. We cheated and tried to peer over the cactus covered walls for a peek. Who wants to pay 6 Euros to see a bunch of pricks? You will see enough cactuses around the island without paying for the privilege.

Lanzarote’s most famous resident was some artist called Cesar Manrique. In the 1970s, he was the most important influence in the ‘landscape and conservation work’ that the tourist board undertook. This is why there are green and blue shutters. It also gave him an excuse to dump his crappy work around the island. Outside the Cactus Garden was a 14m metal cactus painted green. I guess he never heard of the saying “If it looks like shit, and it smells like shit, then its shit”. As we drove around the island looking out for his work, I despaired at what we found. He wasn’t exactly Salvador Dali. Maybe Lanzarote was the only place desperate enough to allow his work to make it look more ‘interesting’.

On the north eastern coast, we came across our first lava fields of crinkly, rust coloured clumps of rock, which had swept across the island in the 1730’s all the way to the sea. We drove up to Mirador del Rio on the northern coast. Cesar Manrique had had a lookout built to take in the stunning views. There was an entry charge, so most people just walked down the road and climbed over a wall to take in the same view for free. The cliffs towered about 500m over the sister island of Isla Graciosa split from the main island by the narrow El Rio strait. Down below, there was a fabulous beach ‘Playa de Risco’ which attracted many surfers and tourists trying to learn to surf.

There was a fabulous twisty road past the 670m Las Penas del Chache extinct volcano, complete with skinny stray dog – unfortunately not road kill - yet. The fertile dark grey land around the volcano was used to grow vines (cut back in the winter) which were protected by small stone walls built in half moon shapes. There were miles and miles of these walls and they were very distinctive. It looked like trainee archaeologists had started to uncover endless ruins and given up 3 feet down.

Our final site of the day was the Ermita de Los Dolores (Hermitage of the Sorrows) in Mancha Blanca. It is a gracious building which stands out and was built in honour of the Virgin of the Volcanoes, patron saint of Lanzarote after she saved the village from destruction during the most recent volcanic eruptions in 1824. Lava poured down from the Tinguaton volcano heading for the town. There was much frantic praying by the locals to the virgin and the lava stopped just outside town. It took us three attempts to leave Mancha Blancha and I renamed it Déjà vu because we kept coming back to it. The town that wouldn’t let us leave. What happened to the Virgin of the Decent Road Signs?

The following day we headed back up to Mancha Blanca because we hadn’t seen enough of it the day before (Déjà vu?) and crossed a wonderful vista of lava fields (ironically on the wrong road, but what the hell, this was the best road for volcanic lava I saw on the island) before entering the Timanfaya National Park with its symbol of a friendly fire devil. You can only drive along the roads and not walk around the lava, though the Visitors Centre has a couple of walkways out across the lava. There are 36 volcanic cones within the park’s 8 sq km. It was strange to find a National Park with no obvious wildlife or vegetation.

“Lanzarote is the Canary Island that is the most physically and culturally dominated by its still smoldering volcanic power. The eruption of Timanfaya and the other Mountains of Fire between 1730 and 1736 constituted one of the longest and most powerful periods of volcanic activity ever known. It totally devastated the southern third of the island, creating a blackened, lifeless malpais of cinders, ash and lava. This was enlarged by another lengthy eruption from 1812 to 1824.” (AA Guide)

Timanfaya volcano and its devastation dominate the central section on the western coast of Lanzarote. To try and keep it as ‘natural’ as possible, they have introduced a strange system, whereby you pay 8 Euros a person, drive your car up to the crater and park. The admission includes a guided bus ride around the volcanic area while taped narrations in Spanish, English, German and French give you some brief details (usually you have passed the sight by the time your language turns up) of what you are looking at. But you are stuck behind a bus window and it is a bit like looking at an extinct volcano on TV. There is no interaction. No smell. No dust.

You get that when you finish. There is a hole with very hot air coming out. Some lackey throws in a clump of bush every so often and it bursts into flames. Another highly trained monkey, pours buckets of water down small holes which erupt into geysers of stream seconds later. All good family fun. But I can see a decent version at Yellowstone Park without someone filling it with water. The circular restaurant nearby also cooked all its food over a natural hot air vent. I’d never seen a volcanic BBQ before.

The only problem with the system is that on crowded days like today, there are too many cars for the small car park on the summit. We timed it just right and got in. By the time we left an hour later, there was probably nearly a mile of waiting traffic. None of them could get in until somebody left. It wasn’t the worst volcano I’d seen, but nothing beats seeing a real one in action. This one came across as a Disneyfied version which was ok if that was what you wanted and package tourists obviously do.

We holed up in nearby El Golfo (the Gulf) on the coast for lunch. It was very windy and the rough Atlantic seas crashed into the knotted coastline of volcanic rock. The town is famous for a half submerged cone of a volcano which has been eroded and transformed into a ‘bizarre natural attraction. Over time, the ocean has eaten into the volcanic crater, leaving a lagoon surrounded by an amphitheatre of lava cliff, the rock streaked and stained with a multitude of strange reds and russets’ (AA Guide). Whatever. It was worth 5 minutes and a photo and an excuse for tour buses to stop and let people go shopping. I liked the crashing waves and the town did have a great setting. It also had blue shutters.

A little further south at Los Hervideros, there were a series of eroded caves in the lava and blow holes. You could walk around and on a windy day like this, watch the waves and surf crash into the holes and up and over you. If you timed it well, you could escape a drenching but not many did. It was very satisfying to see a large German lady get absolutely soaked. She looked like someone had turned a fire hose on her. How I laughed.

The Salinas de Janubio was a shallow seawater lagoon which had been transformed into salt pans. There were neat squares, which, as the water evaporated changed colours so that it looked like a multicoloured patchwork. Worth 2 minutes and a photo. Apart from more purpose built tourist areas like Playa Blanca in the South west, more tourist tat and that was about it.

Lanzarote wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. You could avoid the package tourists if you stayed clear of the tourist areas. But maybe, because it was Xmas, there weren’t many around. The weather had been pretty bad at Xmas two years running and people were starting to stay away. Having self catering was a bonus. You could cook your own meals even if the small supermarkets were more expensive than home – except the wine and beer of course. Even the petrol was cheaper than in the UK. Bonus.

The sights for me, having done far too much travelling and seen too much were nothing special but enough to occupy me and my camera for a couple of days. Other less travelled people would probably find more than enough to see on Lanzarote. Car hire is easy and the roads were mostly empty. Most of the towns were sleepy too. The kids got to go down in a tourist submarine and we got to go diving – even if it was pretty poor. I didn’t have to do karaoke and even survived Medieval Night. After that, I think I’m ready for Ibiza on an 18-30s holiday, lying extensively about my age.