LANZAROTE - COCHINEAL AND CULTURE
Written: Jun 29 '02 (Updated Jun 29 '02)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Exciting sci-fi scenery and cantankerous camels
Cons: The Pot Noodles. And Playa Blanca.
The Bottom Line: Mixes its own culture with tourist culture - but the lunar landscapes make it like nowhere else on Earth.
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| smile2k1's Full Review: Spain |
This review has been a shockingly long time in coming, but it’s hard to stay away from Epinions forever. I just can’t abandon you like that. Well, now it’s coming up to holiday season and that’s causing me to reminisce. Earlier this year, I visited Lanzarote. I had no idea what to expect and, if nothing else, the trip has made me a little wiser. So, prospective holidaymakers, prepare to be wisened up!
What happened to the grass?
Lanzarote is technically part of Spain, but to be honest it has more in common with the moon. The lunar geology would lend itself better to a sci-fi film than to a popular island resort. And it certainly required one giant leap for my parents to take us somewhere so touristy... so rocky... so expensive. In short, somewhere so different from anywhere we’ve been before.
Family holidays for me have always been a cheap and cheerful experience. Living in England, France isn’t far to go by ferry so we normally pitch our tents, load up on the duty-free and practise rolling our Rs somewhere on the western coast in the middle of the summer vacation. This year, we wanted to try something new. What better than to escape England’s April showers and fly off to the sun? Lanzarote, we were told, was somewhere we were GUARANTEED good weather. (I type ‘guaranteed’ with just a hint of sarcasm in my fingers.)
Anyway, I hadn’t flown since I was six and barely old enough to know what a plane was, let alone deep vein thrombosis. The flight in itself was a novel experience. I marvelled at the altitude, the sights, the lack of leg room. As we came into land, I greedily hogged the window seat and watched as the weirdness started to unfold.
My first impression was of a very peculiar colour scheme. I’m used to grass – a lot of grass – with towns and cities and cosy little villages and trees. From the plane, Lanzarote was sort of brownish, as though it had been baked, and the brownness was punctuated with white dots which eventually turned into houses.
And what makes the sea so different depending on where you are in the world? At home it’s a grey, miserable sort of affair. On idyllic Barbados beaches it’s supposed to be an impossibly clear turquoise. Here it was an angry cobalt blue, with green swirly bits and purple undertones. Surely it’s just water, wherever you are?
Stepping out the plane was like being hit with a blast of warmth. OK, so it wasn’t run-for-cover-quick-or-I’ll-receive-third-degree-burns warmth, but it was definitely enough to wish I wasn’t wearing a jumper. Bear it in mind, this was still March. After a sticky few hours whilst we waited for our luggage to reappear, we clambered into our hired car/perpetrator of doom and set off for Playa Blanca at the other end of the island.
Now, before you rubberstamp me Not Helpful and leave comments about how I should be reviewing the country, not just describing my holiday, please read on. I’m coming to all the important info (what to do, what to see, what to eat – not calamares) but let me ramble for a while. I don’t know much about Lanzarote, I’m not a guide-book, but I can present you the views of an objective sixteen-year-old observer.
The scenery was just as bizarre as it looked from the plane. In the 18th century, the island was ravaged by a series of catastrophic volcanic eruptions. They lasted six years and buried one side in ash, lava rock and miscellaneous rubble. This is what gave it its lunar appearance and made the island so barren – the only indigenous plants seemed to be a few straggly palm trees. Oh yes – and the cacti. You can’t talk about Lanzarote and not mention the cacti.
Tourism or crushed beetles?
Well, Playa Blanca can be summed up in one word and that word is touristy. It’s an assortment of white, geometric villas and hotels (plus more straggly palm trees) cluttering up the southern coastline. Shops display signs in English and German and you can even rent videos in your mother tongue. This, I suppose, is designed to put the tourists at ease. And yet for me it had the opposite effect.
The way I see it, you go abroad to sample other cultures. It is a shame when you find the other cultures are merely trying to replicate your own. But tourism is a way of life in Lanzarote. Holidaymakers outnumber residents by I don’t know how many to one and it’s a good way to make money. It’s not a place for crops or technology, and unless there’s a thriving lava market, tourism seems the sensible choice. Well, it’s either that or the other industry – harvesting cochineal beetles to make the red dye in Smarties.
It just seemed rather fake. The golden beaches were all manmade, there was little local produce (not even, surprisingly, fish) and nothing to suggest that this was anything more than Britain without the grass. Thank goodness for the camels and César Manrique.
Calling all culture vultures!
Manrique was the saviour of Lanzarote. Born in 1919, he became an artist and sculptor and revolutionised the island. As the tourism industry began to develop, he drew up plans to ‘protect the island’s natural and cultural heritage’. (Good job too – otherwise by now it would probably have rechristened itself New Germany and given itself a British flag.)
Well, we owe it to him for a good day’s sightseeing. He covered the island in sculptures and designed a boundless number of places to go. These range from Jameos del Agua (an underground lagoon) to the Jardín de Cactus (fairly obviously, a cactus garden). I would recommend Mirador Del Río if you’ve got a camera film to use up, and the Cueva De Los Verdes if your Spanish vocabulary stretches to underground volcanic passageways. Otherwise, just explore. Before long, you will definitely come across Manrique.
He also helped set up the national park, which you can only visit by bus tour and is ideal if you like the sound of space travel but can’t be bothered to discover a new planet. It made for a very strange experience. Picture steam shooting out of the ground and enough rock to rebuild an ancient empire and you’ll have a fair idea of what it’s like.
It’s hard to conceive that people once lived there. But apparently so – ordinary people, going about their ordinary business on an ordinary island – when kaboom, nature had a tantrum. It makes you less inclined to moan about the tourism, anyway. The eruptions destroyed all chance of there being much else.
Well, at least they’ve still got camels. You can exchange your euros for a see-saw of a ride up a volcano, which is not as worrying as you might think since they have muzzles and cannot drench you in camel spit. If your camel really hates you, it may attempt to throw you off its back (don’t try calling it ‘feo’; I have found this provokes an unwelcome response), but otherwise the ride’s good fun and nothing more daunting than a pony trot. If you’re really worried, practice saying ‘Eres el camello más simpatico en el mundo’ – the theory goes, if you’re nice enough to the camel, it may be nice back.
We didn’t get flash floods!
I mentioned earlier that there’s little local produce, and therefore not a lot in the way of cuisine. Some places were even dishing out full English breakfasts and fat German sausages. The most authentic sounding restaurants serve tapas, snack style finger-food, but if you’re a vegetarian like me then I wish you good luck! We were disappointed with the supermarkets too. Besides smelling heavily of drains, our closest one sold UHT milk, foul fruit and veg, and... erm... Pot Noodles. Pot Noodles?! Your only real choice is to live out of packets and leave freshness a fond memory of days gone by.
For a lot of people, their main motivation in coming here is the weather. You are promised blistering sunshine all year long, and only 15 days rain per annum. However, we were unlucky enough to get 5 of them. Although it was pretty warm, the island was enveloped in thick, foreboding clouds and it drizzled non-stop throughout our stay. The beaches somehow lost their appeal (even the one next to the hippie commune) and we became eternally grateful to César Manrique. Anyway, it was better here than in neighbouring Tenerife. At least we didn’t have flash floods.
A thought here. Our bad weather should actually be an impetus for others to go. If we had 5 days downpour, and it’s true about only getting 15 each year, there can be no more than 10 left to go. So stay in Lanzarote for 11 days and you should by rights get at least one sunny day. Makes sense.
This review, reading through it, has seemed incredibly negative. And you may assume I’m a kind of anti-holiday Ebenezer Scrooge. I’m not. I’m really not. I’m an optimist. Honest I am. (Methinks she doth protest too much...) No, Lanzarote has some redeeming features. Our villa was gorgeous and we couldn’t have asked for more (hmmm, a private jet would have been nice...). There’s something for almost everyone: camels; clubbing in Arrecife; culture where Manrique has been; golden beaches for beach-bums and black beaches for Goths; green lagoons and semi-precious stones; camels; photo opportunities and did I mention the camels?
All in all I enjoyed my stay. I may moan, but it was fun. The weather makes for a good dinner party anecdote and the rest of it was great – or at least tolerable. For a last-minute holiday deal, you’d have nothing to lose. Just be prepared for those Pot Noodles.
Thanks for reading,
Abi :-)
Recommended:
Yes
Best Suited For: Families
Best Time to Travel Here: Anytime
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Epinions.com ID:
smile2k1
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Location: Darlington, England
Reviews written: 36
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