Languid, lazy (not) days in Lanzarote

andromeda of plymouth
Susan and Andrew Wilson
Wed 6 Oct 2010 14:34
Lanzarote has a landscape quite unlike any other we have visited so far,
particularly given the recent volcanic islands we have been to (San
Miguel, Santa Maria, Madeira, Porto Santo etc.) which have been very green
with masses of vegetation. Lanzarote is very dry (average of 9mm of rain
per month), very brown and stark and, in the Timanafaya National Park, has
amazing volcanic landscapes – calderas, twisted rocks, black sand and
fumaroles. It’s this landscape that inspired Lanzarote’s favourite son,
Cesar Manrique, to design and develop some spectacular gardens, sculptures
and indeed planning regulations. Under his influence virtually every house
is white, is no more than two stories high and has green doors and
windows. There is one multi-story building in Arrecife – we got lost here
for about an hour with the dirth of signposts, but that’s it. The resorts
are clusters of white buildings, there are no roadside billboards or
adverts, most of the towns and villages have few signposts – a challenge
on the navigation front given most have a sort of one way system – and
many of the tourist visitor centres have most of their facilities below
ground. When you see the landscape in the national park you do wonder what
the landscape would be like on other worlds!

Manrique designed a house for himself based around 5 large old gas
bubbles in the lava – a fascinating place to visit. He also designed a
magnificent cactus garden, a visitor centre in the national park, a
mirador (a look out point) overlooking the island of Graciosa, and a
garden (Jameos del Agua) to protect the unique and very small albino
crab, complete with a swimming pool reserved solely for the use of the
King of Spain – no one is quite sure whether he has ever used it! Many
major roundabouts have his sculptures in their centres and a number of
his colourful and dramatic mobiles pop up all over the place. Andrew is
already a huge fan of Manrique and we have visited all 5 of the must
see’s related to his work and vision, and got a tee-shirt!

It took us just over two days to sail from Madeira to Lanzarote with light
winds on the first day and good winds on the second. After an uneventful
night the first night out, our second felt like we were in Piccadilly
Circus as we had no less than 5 very large ships to keep an eye on and
track but fortunately no big fishing nets this time. The moon did however
put in a spectacular appearance and made all the difference to the night
time sailing, though with the moon up we didn’t see so many stars. We can
also report that for the second journey Susan kept eating and, not only
that, kept going below to make hot food with no sign of the dreaded M de
M; fingers crossed for our future travels we think!!!!

Marina Rubicon made us very welcome and is very pleasant place to stay.
The facilities have showers that are not on a timer, which is really
appreciated, and there is even a lovely pool to swim in, a must after hot
boat work. There is a market here two days a week and a few trips we
might sign up for. We decided to hire a car and have spent two days
driving around the island as we waited for the boatyard to help us resolve
a couple of problems. The first problem to sort out was the genoa repair
after it slid into the sea off Santa Maria, the second is a problem with
our batteries which decided not to hold a charge - this has gradually
worsened since the Azores. The good news is the genoa is repaired and
looks good; the bad news is that we need some new domestic batteries(4 big
ones)! Ho hum –these have now been have bought and fitted – ouch. We are
also having the rigging checked as well – after the forestay incident and
a few miles of additional sailing we feel this is a prudent step before
the trip across the pond.

Our two days touring the island included visiting the Timanfaya National
Park which involved driving to a visitors centre and then boarding a bus
for a 45 minute trip with commentary – you are not allowed to walk in the
park due to its uniqueness. Much of the volcanic activity is comparatively
recent, some 200-300 years ago, but it’s very noticeable how little grows
in this landscape. Susan enjoyed chicken grilled over a hot air vent –
very tender and succulent. They have camels here, a relic from the recent
past when they we used to till the soil, carry goods, people and water to
remote communities, so we had a ride on a very calm and chilled out camel
that walked at no more than 4km per hour, very laid back indeed. There is
lots of agriculture here despite the obvious challenges – potatoes and
wine predominate but they also grow lots of prickly pear cactus in small
walled plots and make a great deal from the aloe vera plant, also grown in
plantations. James and Lesley joined us on the second day out when we saw
the Cactus garden and visited the north of the Island. Grasciosa looked
lovely in the sunshine and we waved to Kodiak who were anchored over that
way, somewhere. On the way back to Rubicon after a rather nice lunch we
stopped at a beach and had a lovely paddle in the extremely warm waters,
looking in many rock pools teeming with fish, crabs and shrimps.

We have met another ARC boat – Bavarian Spirit (Gerry and Margaret) and
met up once again with James and Lesley( Coba Libre), who we met in
Madeira and we helped to celebrate James’ birthday until the early hours
of the morning, and yes, we were very late getting up the next day. We
also met Trycha, Alice and Jill on Triple D of Chidham, a lady only crew
on the ARC – Alice is the one person Andrew has met so far who can out
talk Susan, and I do mean out talk - Susan was almost silent compared to
the amount of talking Alice kept up throughout the entire evening –
quite, quite amazing. And an Alice! There are a couple of other ARC boats
here but there is no-one on board at present.

The marina has lots of facilities and a chandlers which is almost on a par
with the UK in terms of prices – this is indeed a first, but also very
tempting. Thanks to cousin Chris our packages in Lagos have been collected
by Andrew & Celia on Alice so we are looking forward to catching up with
them in Las Palmas.

We hope the photos do Manrique and Lanzarote justice – he was certainly a
visionary and way ahead of his time in terms of man and is influence on
nature, but it’s also interesting that the entire island has aligned
itself behind his vision of harmony with nature. Manrique died about 15
years ago so it will be interesting just how well his legacy is preserved
given the pressure of modern life and tourism, which is so important to
the island – we certainly hope so.

We are having a short break so it will be a little while before we post
any further updates – we have some final preparations to complete before
the trip to Las Palms so will be busy for a few weeks but we will post an
update on progress. We want to arrive there with everything done except
the final provisioning so its heads down for a few weeks to finish
everything.
We are looking forward to our crew arriving next – yes it really is –
month and have been sending them various bits to peruse to prepare
themselves, and of course we are getting Andromeda ready.

We have had some great feedback from various people recently, thank you so
much and hope you continue enjoying reading about our adventures – it’s
wonderful that you are keeping in touch.

More in due course,
Andrew and Susan
s/v Andromeda of Plymouth

Timanfaya national park 1-6
Manrique's house 7-12
Cactus GArden 13-20
Jameos de Agua 21-22
Graciosa 23
In the pool at the marina 24
lizard 25
agriculture 26 - 27
Playa Blanca 28-29
James' birthday

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