November 8 – South Lanzarote Tour

We were picked up for our all day tour of the southern portion of Lanzarote at 8:50.  Such was the pick-up process that by the time everyone was picked up and the buses rendezvoused in order to shuffle people around (according to language) it was 10:45.  Groan.

However, the tour was very good. 

The first stop was the southern shoreline which was beautiful and had some pretty serious surf. 

Then we moved on to Los Hervideros, a narrow inlet made even more constrained by a huge arch jutting into the inlet.  The waves here really built up and the crashing was stupendous.

Then it was onto a little hamlet called El Golfo.  There we saw the small harbor with small boats and more wave action…

and El Lago Verde, a lagoon that was separated from the ocean by a bar of black volcanic sand.  It was really green.

Next stop was the National Park of Timanfaya where the attraction here was camel rides.  The “saddles” on these camels consisted of two seats mounted over the hump.  So you could have two people ride at once.  And they used what looked like sand bags to balance the load.  We opted not to ride as we have ridden camels in India.

And of course, no tour would be complete without a stop at a winery.  

Since we don’t drink wine it was of no interest to us but they do have a fascinating way of planting the vines.  Because of the hot strong sirocco winds that come in from Africa they must protect most of their agricultural crops.  For the vines, they dig a depression in the black volcanic sand, plant the vine at the bottom of the depression, and then build a crescent wall at the top of the depression on the side where the winds come from.  It makes for very interesting landscaping.

We then headed into the countryside

the main part of Timanfaya National Park and parts of Volcano National Park.  We stopped at a view point for views. 

 There was also a restaurant there with an open pit over one of the volcano’s vent holes and the heat rising from the vent was used to cook skewers of meat.

We were treated to some demonstrations of the volcano’s heat and current activity.  First they scoped up a shovel of gravel from a pile and walked around scrapping a few stones into our hands.  They were very hot.

Next they took us to what looked like an open pit where, using a very long handled fork, the put a small bundle of dry brush down into the mouth of the pit.  It wasn’t very long before the brush burst into flames.

In the last demonstration they poured water into a small hole. Less than a minute later we heard a loud pop and a geyser spewed out of the hole.  A very impressive display.

We then headed out on a drive through part of the national park.  Unfortunately the bus had tinted windows most of the pictures turned our rather green.  The island only has the one volcano that is still active but at one time there were over 300…and there are craters all over the landscape to prove it. 

Along the drive we also saw some goats climbing the rocks.

Then it was back into the drop-off phase of the day; that took another hour and a half.  A very long day.

We saw some interesting coast-line on the way back to Costa Teguise, where we are staying.  We did see a desalination plant.  These plants are a major source of water for the island.  We had a drop off at the cruise terminal so got to see some of the harbor.

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More Lanzarote Photos
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When we got back to the hotel there was a bottle of Champagne and some chocolates waiting for us, courtesy of the hotel and in celebration of Paul’s birthday. 

In the evening we walked over to the shops across the street from the hotel for some dinner.  We had a lot of restaurants to choose from.