Lanzarote - Spanish Island

My plane landed at Arrecife in Lanzarote island late at night.  After a long wait at the airport due to a misunderstanding with the hotel owner who was to pick me up on arrival, I eventually made it to Cortijo Eco Finca, a 30-minute drive from the airport.  The accommodation facility rather than a hotel is situated at the Northern tip of the island and approximately three kilometres from the seaside village of Orzola.  The owner, a man called Emilio runs the place and caters mainly for nature lovers who go there to enjoy the raw, isolated beauty of the area and the countless walks in the wild.  

Daniel's Food and Wine Tours - Our Quarters for a Few Days

Emilio is a local from way back.  He has inherited the hacienda-looking building from his ancestors.  Sadly, he has let the place run down and the facility is in bad need of repair and maintenance.  Despite it all, the basic comforts are available if one is not too choosy.

Daniel's Food and Wine Tours - A Volcano Near El Cortijo

After a short but peaceful night, I took a first look at my new home for the next few days.  I had purposely chosen a quiet location away from the main cities to fully appreciate the wild and untamed beauty of the island.  I wasn’t disappointed.  No further than one kilometre from my room, rose a majestic volcano.  All around, vestiges of the tumultuous and fiery past of the island.  Black volcanic rock everywhere with some tough, sparse vegetation desperately clinging to Life.  Black gritty sand and petrified lava flows from past eruptions on the ground.  The harsh and unforgiving environment and the feeling of being on a foreign planet were simply overwhelming.  I knew I was in for the trip of a lifetime.

Daniel's Food and Wine Tours - A View From One of the Sides of the Inn

Daniel's Food and Wine Tours - I've Never Been So Close to a Volcano

Lanzarote is a Spanish island, from the autonomous Canary Islands in the Atlantic Ocean.  It is located approximately 125 kilometres off the coast of Africa and 1,000 kilometres from the Iberian Peninsula.   Lanzarote is the fourth-largest of the islands in the archipelago.  It is the third-most populous Canary Island, after Tenerife and Gran Canaria.  In the centre-west of the island is Timanfaya National Park.  The capital is Arrecife.

Daniel's Food and Wine Tours - Arrecife



Daniel's Food and Wine Tours - The walkway along the beach



Daniel's Food and Wine Tours - The Fortified castle at Arrecife



Daniel's Food and Wine Tours - Pavers Made out of Volcano Lava

From 1730 to 1736, the island was hit by a series of volcanic eruptions, producing 32 new volcanoes in a stretch of 18 kilometres.  Lava covered a quarter of the island's surface, including the most fertile soil and 11 villages.  100 smaller volcanoes were located in the area called Montañas De Fuego, the "Mountains of Fire".   In 1768, drought affected the deforested island, and winter rains did not fall.  Much of the population was forced to emigrate to Cuba and the Americas.  Another volcanic eruption occurred in 1824, which was less violent than the major eruptions of 1700s.  The island has a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve protected site status.

Daniel's Food and Wine Tours - Volcanoes everywhere around you

Daniel's Food and Wine Tours - A house at the foot of a volcano

Daniel's Food and Wine Tours - Volcanoes and Volcanic rock on both sides of the road

The Timanfaya National Park is a natural landscape that would be difficult to find anywhere else in the world.  It is a mineral museum in full activity: volcanic cones, craters, seas of lava, ash and temperatures that in certain places reach 400 degrees centigrade just a couple of metres below the ground.  There is a restaurant in the area that serves a variety of meals using subterranean volcanic heat.  I had roast chicken for lunch that day and it was delicious.

Daniel's Food and Wine Tours -  Montanas del Fuego at the Timanfaya National Park

Daniel's Food and Wine Tours - Volcanoes Every where you Look

The Tunnel of Atlantis", the largest underwater volcanic tunnel in the world, is part of the Cueva de los Verdes lava tube.  The beauty of the place left me speechless.  Its formation is the result of the eruptive activity of La Corona volcano some three to five thousand years ago, giving rise to an extensive underground volcanic tunnel over six kilometres long, running from the cone of the volcano down to the sea. Cueva de los Verdes and Jameos del Agua are located inside that tunnel. 

Daniel's Food and Wine Tours - Inside the Cave



Daniel's Food and Wine Tours - Coming out of the Cave

Jameos del Agua is the name given to the lower part of the tube where there is a small underground lake joined below its surface to the sea.  The fauna from this lake has been cut off from the sun for some three thousand years.  There, one can find the blind albino langoustine.

Daniel's Food and Wine Tours - Going Down in the Cave of Jameos del Agua

Daniel's Food and Wine Tours - Coming out of the Cave of Jameos del Agua

A section of Jameos del Agua has been converted into a concert hall without spoiling the natural beauty of the place.  It provides the visitor with an opportunity to attend musical events in an incomparable setting.  I was lucky enough to be there at one of the rehearsals for an upcoming opera.  It was a magic moment and I felt truly lucky and thankful to be there and at the right time to witness the forces of Nature in unison with Art.

The vineyards of La Geria wine region captivated me.  Single vines are planted in pits 4–5 metres wide and 1-2 metres deep, with small stone walls around each pit.  This agricultural technique is designed to harvest rainfall and overnight dew and to protect the Malvasia grapevines from the winds.  I found it hard to believe that grapes could actually grow in such harsh surroundings.  I sampled some of the local wines at the Bodega and I was pleasantly surprised.  I especially enjoyed their Moscatel a sweet wine with a light colour, elegant flavour not too sweet and with noticeable mineral tones I visited Lanzarote late autumn and unfortunately didn’t see the vines at their best.

Daniel's Food and Wine Tours - La Geria Winery



Daniel's Food and Wine Tours - Grape Vines Are Planted Almost Half Way to the Top of the Volcano

A visit to Lanzarote would not be complete without seeing the House of the World-famous artist Cesar Manrique (1917–1992).

Born in Arrecife, Cesar rapidly gained a reputation among the major contemporary artists.  His work, largely influenced by his childhood experience took him all around the world but he returned to his beloved island in 1966 and built a home which must be seen to fully appreciate the child-like vision of the man.  The Volcano House, now the “Cesar Manrique Fundacion” built in 1968 stands in the middle of a lava coulée formed during the major eruptions that changed the island’s landscape between 1730 and 1736. 

Daniel's Food and Wine Tours - The Entrance of the Fundacion

Manrique interconnected five volcanic bubbles and used them as rooms.  “Huge windows open the home onto the surrounding tongue of hardened lava and invite Nature to flow inward, merging volcano and architecture”. 


Daniel's Food and Wine Tours - A Lava coulee just outside the window of the building.

Truly a Must Visit place if on the island one day.