Lanzarote, Canary Islands

Did you know there are no canaries in the canary islands? Same with the Virgin Islands......there are no canaries there either.

Old joke but I love it.

As many fellow cruisers have said, Lanzarote was not what we expected, but in a good way, as it turns out. I expected lush, tropical scenery, a beach vibe, Caribbean with a hint of west indies. It was none of the above....not even close... except for the beach.

Per Google, Lanzarote, one of the Canary islands off the coast of West Africa administered by Spain, is known for its year-round warm weather, beaches and volcanic landscape. Timanfaya National Park’s rocky landscape was created by volcanic eruptions in the 1730s. Cueva de los Verdes has caverns formed by an underground river of lava.

It's the volcanic landscape that completely surprised us. I did a ton of research prior to the cruise but candidly, it was 6 months ago and we've been....well....busy, so I didn't review my notes. That's OK. It was a nice surprise.

Let's start at the beginning. We (Scott, Anita, my wife and I) took the free shuttle to town with no plan whatsoever. As I mentioned, we're "toured" out and coasting into Ft Lauderdale. It was early so not much open. And the shuttle didn't exactly drop us off IN TOWN, so we had to figure out where to go. After a 15 min walk, we were in the main shopping district for this part of the island. Here are some pictures from along the way. It was low tide so notice how low the water line is.

Now to figure out the day. We knew the state park was a UNESCO site so that was really all I wanted to see. But it was 35 min away and .... that adds complexity and cost. But we hailed a taxi and asked a few questions and after some hemming and hawing, we hopped in the taxi. For 120 euro, we'd got 3 hrs of sight seeing including the state park and a winery.

We took the scenic route and he explained in Spanish (we translated for Scott and Anita) how the island had 6 years of massive volcanic activity in the 1730s. The landscape looked moon-like with red, brown and black lava rock everywhere. So much so that a lunar robot was tested there AND some of The Planet of the Apes was filmed there.

The soil now supports vineyards and sweet potatoes mostly for export. Here's what we saw on the way. Due to high winds, they use the lava rock to build short walls to protect the low-growing vines from strong winds (and they needed to move them anyway ......did I mention they're EVERYWHERE?). The old method was to build the walls in circles, but now they do them in straight rows. Miles and miles of these lava rock circles and grids. Both types are pictured below. We also stopped at a scenic lookout near one of the 120 volcanos on the island. It was clear where the crater partially imploded on itself.

We arrived at the park early, 12 euro each included a tour by bus, a demonstration of how hot the subsurface still is and a cooking demonstration. That last one will make more sense in a minute. The best part was taxis and busses have priority over cars and so we flew to the front of the line and parked. The wait would have been about 45 min at that time. By the time we left, the wait was 2 hrs.

In the park, we saw endless lava formations and I thought after the 10th or 20th, I'd be satiated with the lava pics but it was really quite interesting. My apologies if the montage below looks a bit redundant, but if you look closely, there's quite a bit of variation. The bottom middle shows how vast the lava spread.

After seeing the pics, it's hard to believe no lives were lost. That tour lasted about 30 min on winding (right left and up down) roads barely wide enough for the busses. It was oddly similar to a roller coaster, just slower. We got back to the visitor center for a demonstration of the intense heat still present just below the surface. Two shows. In the first, they poured water down a pipe into the earth. Within a second, it turned to steam and spewed back out like a whale's blowhole but with even more force . In the second, they threw tree branches into a slightly-more-than-shallow pit and they immediately incinerated. The gravel on the ground was too hot to hold for more than a nanosecond. The rightmost pic was painful....I hope you appreciate it 😉

Afterwards they showed where they were cooking chicken over heat from another shallow pit in the ground.

Here's a few other misc pics. They also had camel rides we opted not to do. The devil is their "mascot" because it is hotter than H-E-double hockey sticks.

Next we headed to a winery. It was interesting but not a highlight to be candid. They used the older method of protecting the vines.

We asked Roberto to drop us off at a good tapas restaurant. We had a great lunch and ran into a fellow ship mate, Ference, who joined us. We had 2 orders of shrimp in garlic oil, Spanish potatoes, and fried cheese and bread. All excellent, though the service was so-so. 55 euro for the 5 of us with tip and wine.

We then went walking around the town and after some shopping, stopped at a place with great looking sangria for 4.5 euros per huge glass. It tasted like there wasn't much alcohol but sangria can be that way. Trust me, it had alcohol. All in, and treating our friend Ference to lunch, it cost $135 usd for the 2 of us. Much less expensive than the similar excursions offered by Princess and tour operators like Viator.

Then we headed back to the shuttle to return to the ship. Some more pics along the way. Now notice the tide was much higher.

The rest of the day was standard, dinner at the buffet, a comedian at the show and the bedtime. Tomorrow's our last port of the cruise. So bittersweet!!!