Zzzzzzz...

Zzzzzz...! If you are getting bored with my posts from Lanzarote, please rest assured that we are only here for a week and now we are getting to the end of this holiday time. We will soon be home and normal blogging activity will be resumed shortly. Please bear with me.

In the mid eighteenth century, Lanzarote witnessed major volcanic activity to the south west of the island. New mountains sprang up and a vast gooey lava field edged its way into the sea. Millions of tons of volcanic ash were spewed out and the air was thick with steam and toxic clouds. Today that area of the island is now the Timanfaya National Park - its establishment partly inspired by Cesar Manrique.

You pay ten euros per person at the park entrance and then you drive up to the visitors' centre. There you transfer to a coach and the bus driver takes you along a twisting route that curls through the heart of a volcanic landscape that seems as if it was created just yesterday. The lava field in the valley is like a moonscape of black, jagged rocks and creamy lava flows with holes and crevices. Unfit for farming, plants have found it difficult to gain a foothold over the past two hundred and fifty years. The last significant eruption was in 1820. In geological terms this is but a moment in time.

It was as folk are wont to say - an awesome spectacle.

We drove on to Playa Blanca and saw the lighthouse at Punta Pechiguero. Playa Blanca is very different from when Coppa's Girl (blog visitor) used to stay there years ago. It has become a sprawl of holiday villas and apartments reaching down to the shoreline. They are all white and look the same - little boxes made of ticky tacky. But the sun shines down and that's the main thing that many western European holidaymakers want.

Onwards to the salt flats and to the rugged coast at Los Hervideros before arriving in the tiny seaside village of  El Golfo where we ate lunch. I asked for grilled sardines and they brought me a pile of them - maybe fifty of the little blighters. A dozen would have been plenty. The restaurant cat enjoyed four or five of them under our table. I couldn't manage more than twenty. Shirley is a rather fussy eater and wouldn't even try one of the little fishes which you eat whole - eyes, bones, everything. We also had a  mixed salad and Canary potatoes with mojo sauces. The bill was not humble.

At El Golfo we also visited Charco de Los Clicos - a spectacular green lake below volcanic cliffs, trapped by a vast bank of grey volcanic sand.

We only had our hire car for two days but it allowed us to achieve a much better notion of Lanzarote's constituent parts and the rugged sunlit beauty that  illuminated Cesar Manrique's dreams. There is more to this island that might at first be presumed.

Manrique

Seen at Toro - the Cesar Manrique house

Cesar Manrique was born on Lanzarote in 1919 and died here in a car accident in 1992. He was many things. He was an artist, an architect, a hell-raiser, a fighter, a sculptor, a photographer, an orator,  a leader and a visionary. Long before others were beating the environmentalist drum, Manrique was warning of the dire consequences of unrestrained development and fearful about where our planet was going. He wanted us to live a different, kinder way, cherishing Nature and actively caring for our world.

In the late sixties he was exploring the lava fields south of Arrecife, the island's capital,. He noticed a tree growing from what he called a "bubble" in the  sun-baked black rock. As he explored further he discovered other solidified bubbles. They were like little caves. He had always been fascinated by Lanzarote's volcanic heritage and after making his  discovery decided  that that was where he would make his home. He called in Toro.

It took years to complete. Above the subterranean lava bubbles he designed upper buildings in the simple Lanzarote style and began to forge a different kind of home, driven by his artistic and ecological principles. It was also his workplace and here he painted many abstract canvases - increasingly influenced by his observations of the island's volcanic geology. 

Cesar Manrique

Toro is now the epicentre of the Cesar Manrique Foundation. We visited it yesterday before driving to another of Manrique's architectural masterpieces - Mirador del Rio which was carved into a lofty clifftop and looks out to the much smaller island of Graciosa. The view was quite breathtaking and even the windows in the clifftop cafe were stunning.

After a simple late lunch by the harbour in Orzola we headed back through a coastal plain of rugged lava fields towards Arrecife then home to Puerto del Carmen which is a rather tacky kind of town. Thank heavens our apartment complex is away from the main drag. The Aqua Suites make a pleasant sanctuary, just to the east of of Calle Cesar Manrique. I am not at all sure what the artist would have thought about having a street named after him in such a sprawling tourist town that appears to shun so many of his guiding principles.

At Mirador del Rio

Arrecife

The capital of Lanzarote is a bustling little town called Arrecife - population 56,000. We caught the Number 3 public bus there this morning, straight after breakfast. I was delighted to discover that the place wasn't thronging with foreign tourists. In fact the heart of the town was decidedly Spanish in character with local old men playing dominoes under the canopy of a bar down by the waterfront and workers enjoying long lunch breaks in timeless tapas bars. Girls fishing with a red bucket and local men casting their lines into the harbour.

We visited an exhibition of postcards at La Casa Amarilla. It was a lovely little exhibition with soporifuc music playing in the background and enlarged images of the island from the very first days of tourism back in the 1890's when the local people eked out their livings in agriculture and fishing. Farmers would often use camels to plough their sun-seared fields and folk still wore traditional costumes on Sundays and at religious festivals. How sad that the age of the holiday postcard is now almost over as people turn to social media , e-mails and even blogs to send out holiday messages from far away.

We visited the fifteenth century Castillo de San Gabriel - a fortress which was erected by the entrance to the town's  two harbours  to ward off pirate attacks when trade between Europe and The New World was being established. After a good walk round we entered Cafeteria La Recova on Calle Ginés de Castro y Álvarez. There we ordered three tapas dishes with drinks. The staff were very pleasant and helpful and we were delighted with all three dishes but especially the small pieces of chicken in a tarragon and saffron sauce. Yummy!

At three o' clock we caught the bus back to Puerto del Carmen. To our dismay, three alcoholic gentlemen we had noticed down by the seafront were also on our bus. They were loud and smelly but they behaved themselves as the bus wound its way past the airport towards our tourist seaside town. It had been a real delight to visit Arrecife - a much nicer place than I was expecting. All the pictures were taken there.

Idling

Lazy in Puerto del Carmen. Mushroom and cheese omelette for breakfast followed by slices of ripe papaya. Then lying idle by the pool reading our novels. It's a fifteen minute walk to the beach and there's a stiff breeze just now. It costs twelve euros to rent two sunbeds and a beach umbrella. You might not be able to put the umbrella up in the breeze. Maybe we'll just mosey on down with our towels, take a quick dip, dry off and come back up the hill. The gradient of the beach is such that we'll have to paddle a fair way out before we can swim. Life is filled with problems like this. In the meantime here's a bunch of pictures from around our holiday complex. 

The rare Lanzarote palm - Cleanus Lanzarotius

Postcard

Dear Blog Folk,

Here we are in Puerto del Carmen, Lanzarote. Above, the sight from our terrace this morning. Below our humble beach hut - Room 217:-

A morning stroll and this caught my eye - railings festooned with the padlocks of love. I wonder when and where the craze began. It never happened in my youth that's for sure. Padlocks were for sheds, school lockers and bicycles:-

We reached the big beach to the west of the resort town and there I snapped the lifeguards' shelter. Three fellows were deep in conversation about the existence of God and other philosophical matters:-

 I spotted a cat called Franco, pausing on his way down to the sea:-

Afterwards we swam in the hotel pool and read our novels. Wish you were here.

Fond regards,

Yorkshire Pudding

xxxx

Absence

Later today we  will be on an aeroplane heading south. We are going here:-

No it's not the surface of Mars. It's Lanzarote - one of the Canary Islands or what Spaniards call Islas Canarias. The name has nothing to do with little yellow birds. Islas Canarias means Islands of the Dogs which in distant centuries may have been a reference to the monk seals or "sea dogs" that dwelt there.

We shall be flying from our local airport - Robin Hood, otherwise known as Doncaster-Sheffield. Air traffic is increasing from Robin Hood and it is going to be really nice leaving from there rather than Manchester, East Midlands or one of the London airports.

We have never been to Lanzarote before. I am not sure it will be my cup of tea but I think the accommodation in Puerto del Carmen will be very good as Trip Advisor reviewers have nearly all given it five star reviews. That's pretty unusual. Here's a view of Aqua Suites:-

I will be taking our laptop and hope to blog from Lanzarote. I shall tell you about my sunburn, food poisoning, why I got thrown in a Spanish jail and the volcanic eruption that is certain to happen while we are there. It's so nice to bobby off on holiday.

Cattle

On Thursday evening, at the end of a grey and rather wet day, I was sitting in "Clint" reading a book. I was parked up adjacent to a gateway on Fulwood Lane, not far from Brown Hills Farm. After a couple of pages I noticed a cow strolling over to the gate with two brown calves. All three were observing me with that quiet, becalmed nature that is characteristic of most cattle.

Compared with human beings they appear so peaceful, at ease with their outdoor life, content to munch grass and let the hours pass by. As the three beasts observed me, I wound down my window and mooed at them. Though I say it myself, my impersonation of a lowing cow is so authentic that if I were following you down the road you would turn expecting a Guernsey or a Friesan, not a crazy animal impersonator.. However, the three creatures at the gateway seemed deeply unimpressed.

More cows wandered over to the gateway till there were around twenty checking me out with their big brown eyes.. They pushed against each other to get a better view of the human in the silver car. It may have been the most exciting event of their day and briefly I felt like a TV celebrity enoying the adulation of his adoring fans.

I tell you, it isn't easy to concentrate on a nineteenth century novel when you have a small herd of cattle watching you from six feet away but after half an hour they began to drift off towards the other side of the field. The show was over and more grass munching was required before nightfall.

I snapped the top picture of the resting cow on the edge of Houndkirk Moor last week. She is just relaxing there in the sunshine. Beyond her, down in the valley, you can see the western side of the city of Sheffield where I have lived since 1978.