Caves and Omar's House
Ile Jeudi
Bob and Lin Griffiths
Thu 4 Oct 2012 18:01
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Monday 1,Wednesday 3 and Thursday 4 October
2012
On Monday, with no news about the fridge, we
set off around the island, visiting some caves in the north of
Lanzarote. These were formed out of volcanic lava so don't have the
deposits that create stalactites and stalagmites in 'normal' caves and there is
very little water to do so in any case:-
 The closest thing to stalactites were formed by the
molten lava at the beginning:-
 Then off to the 'Mirador del Rio' - the high
viewing point at the north end of the island. The island is Graciosa which
had been our first landing point when we arrived in the Canary Islands.
The anchorage, which had only two boats in when we were there, is in the bay at
the top left of the picture. Graciosa harbour and 'town' are in the
centre:-
 Nev, just checking the cliff edge:-
 Tuesday was spent at the boat doing a of voltage
and resistance tests on the fridge and it's wiring under the guidance of the
adviser in Italy. The conclusion is that the wiring needs to be
replaced to eliminate it as a potential contributor to
the problems. Mon, Nev and Lin spent the day at the pool at the
marina.
Wednesday was our last full day before Mon and Nev
return to England tomorrow so we visited what is promoted as 'Omar Sharif's
House'. Much of the house is open to viewing by the public but a large
part of it has been converted into a restaurant. The house was built
into a cliff face by an English developer in the 1970's. Omar Sharif
visited the house and liked it so much he bought it. The developer,
knowing Mr Sharif was partial to gambling challenged him to a few games of
bridge. In the end Omar Sharif lost the game - and the house - to the
developer who, it seems, was the European bridge champion. Whether this
had been disclosed at the time isn't said but the outcome was that Omar Sharif
owned the house for a whole day!
Tunnels and walkways leading around one of the
pools to cave-like rooms in the cliff face:-
  You could imagine the parties that might have been
held at this house - this area, certainly now, being a bar and rest
area:-
 Nev and Lin inspecting the entrances in the
cliff to some of the rooms:-
 One of the walkways with stepping stones over the
water:-
 Thursday was sad as we packed up. It has been
a good two weeks but the weather has been cloudy with some rain on many
days. We have managed to see much more of the island than we thought there
was to see, played lots of 'Mexican Train' in the evenings and eaten both in and
out in equal measure, usually in very nice restaurants. However, we were
told that there are supposed to be 5 days of rain in a year in Lanzarote.
Well it has managed to rain on seven of those five over the last two
weeks.
We drove Mon and Nev to the airport and then south
to move back on to the boat in the marina and went out again for
dinner.
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