From the beginning
We'd been offered the use of an 18th century farmhouse on Lanzarote, but by some miscalculation the only dates available to the Mrs. was over the Golden Jubilee Weekend, which of course, was also school holidays. Oh boy, I already had premonitions of thousands of screaming kids wanting to leave the country at the same time as me. So a call to my friendly ticket people, to find more bad news. First, that Lenny had left, to be replaced by an unhelpful Carl, and because of the date, the tickets are going to cost four times as much as their own advertised 'lowest' price. Now, I don't expect to ever pay the lowest price, but this had a whiff of rip-off about it, I've flown to New York cheaper! But I couldn't find a better deal, so I took 'em. Then, a few days before the 'off', I checked around again, to find that tickets were now available at £70 less, by booking with the airline direct.

Gatwick is one of my least favourite airports, and having dumped my car at an off-site parking lot we joined the disorganised Britannia check-in. One hour and 20 minutes standing in line at 7:30 in the morning, surrounded by queue-jumpers and fractious kids is not my idea of a good start to a holiday. I'd never flown with Britannia Airways before, and don't suppose I'll be flying with them again. They seemed to represent all my worse fears about charter airlines, although to be fair they got away only 25 minutes late and landed pretty well on time. Watch out for their outrageous exchange rate of the Pound against the Euro though!

Now a Bit of Geography
Lanzarote is the east-most of the Canary Islands, a group of volcanic islands in the Atlantic about 100 Km west of Morocco. It's a Spanish protectorate and although nearer west Africa than Europe, it feels like southern Spain. The Canary Islands have been a popular holiday area for the English and the Germans for years, and most people you meet will speak English. The currency is the Euro along with most of the rest of Europe. Oh, and the weather, relatively cool for the latitude at around 20 - 25 °C all year round, humidity is moderate, and rainfall is low. As I like it really! With a bonus, because of the low rainfall, there are very few biting insects around to worry you. 

Arrival
Lanzarote has one airport, outside the capital, Arrecife. The passenger handling was fast and efficient, sadly the same can't be said of the baggage handling. It was quite obvious that there was only one plane to service, ours, so they weren't exactly overrun. It's a mystery to me why it took 35 minutes before the first bags appeared. Well, perhaps not so much of a mystery, as the rate that bags filled the carousel would suggest there was only person round the back humping them about. Finally we grabbed our bags about an hour after landing and wandered out to find the car. Turns out, we got rather fast service, an hour or two delay is more unusual. 

The man waiting to hand over the car was English - should have guessed with a company called UK Cars, and the collection was quite painless. We now had a white Citroen Saxo for a week and within minutes the bags were in the back and we're driving out of Arrecife Airport. Pity about the right handed gear shift, but the brain cells must have remembered from France last year, and I didn't end up in the wrong gear too often. Out with the map to find our farmhouse for the next week.

Lanzarote is not a big island, about 50 Km from end to end, but even within this small distance, it has a number of micro-climates, in general, the north end is 'greener' than the south end. It turns out our farmhouse is down at the southern end of the island, halfway up a valley between two old volcanoes. This involved a winding road up the side of a volcano cone, although nothing like as hairy as the roads halfway up mountains in France. Spotting the house from the road was the hardest bit, as it was almost hidden by its own garden. You don't actually see it till you've driven past the track. If they'd said, "..watch out for the only greenery for miles.", we might have spotted it sooner. The instructions were precise though, down to the telephone box on the corner.

Nice place, it's 100 metres off the road (and that's not exactly busy anyway). The farm house has been divided into three self-contained apartments, around an inner courtyard. Cool - in the sense of temperature - 60cm thick stone walls would have something to do with that. Inside is spacious, light and airy. And everything is immaculate, clean and tidy, there's even a basket of fresh bread rolls, butter, cheese, biscuits, coffee, 5 litres of water (it's not advisable to drink the stuff out of the tap), and another basket full of fruit - Phew. Then there's the swimming pool; and a pretty garden as well. Nearby, hidden in the garden is the old stables and servants quarters, these have been converted into two more separate apartments. All very tasteful and beautifully done. It's small enough to be friendly with the neighbours, yet big enough for privacy (if you want it). This is some nice place to stay!

Around the Island
So now we're here, what's to see and do. The choice is wide, take Puerto Calero for instance, this is an up-market marina with a modern boat yard and dozens of restaurants to suit everyone. Parking is a bit limited though, and I didn't see a beach (be fair - I wasn't looking). Puerto del Carmen, on the other hand has beaches and all the sophistication and finesse of the Golden Mile at Blackpool. The Irish Theme Pubs all have satellite TV and you can watch East Enders every day of the week. I just can't see the point of travelling a couple of thousand miles just to sit in a pub watching TV, although I suppose the beer's a bit cheaper! Then there's places like El Golfo, a typically small Spanish village, good beach, although a bit stony, and the sand is black, with adequate parking, and a selection of restaurants to suit most tastes. All three are all within 10 - 15 minutes drive of the farmhouse.

There's plenty of public beaches all round the island. Down south, the sand tends towards course and black, whilst up the north end, around Orzola, the sand is, well, like sand and sand coloured. I don't do sunbathing, so I can't say whether north or south is the better experience. The Mrs. did make a point of doing her sunbathing up the north end if that's of any significance.

The one thing missing is high-rise hotel blocks. There is one, in Arrecife. The locals took one look, threw their hands up in horror and said, "Not here, mate!". They quickly passed a local law, and now no building can be more than 4 or 5 stories high. Nice one. Though some of the newer 'developments' look like they might be pushing their luck

Ok, the place has beaches, sea, restaurants and night life - so have a lot of other places, what makes it different? In a word volcanism. The whole character of the place is governed by the need to avoid being overrun by lava or being buried under ash. The volcanoes have been in business for thousands of years, and every now and then, just when you think you've tidied up from the last eruption, whoops, off it goes again. Right now, none of them are active, the last significant eruption was 250 years ago, and there's been nothing for 150 years. But when you go to the Fire Mountains in the National Park, you get the idea that it wouldn't take much to make it start all over again.

Volcanoes
Parque Nacional de Timafaya is probably the biggest tourist attraction on the island. Big? It's got whole volcanoes in it, of course it's big. Entry cost is reasonable, but the word is go early, by mid-morning, I can imagine the place is heaving. You drive across a lava plain up to the Tourist Centre - not to be confused with the Visitor Centre, 5 Km away. It all happens here, you're scooted on to coach and taken for a manic ride round the volcanoes. Now the National Park logo is a devil with a trident and I was beginning to wonder if our driver hadn't sold his soul to this guy, the way he was slinging the coach round the park roads. Interesting thought, they don't allow cars on these roads, as it's too dangerous. Now is the danger the likelihood of running out of road and driving down a caldera, or is it the possibility of meeting one of these coaches, trying to finish it's ride in the 45 minutes allotted to it? 

Once back at the tourist centre there's an interesting restaurant that does its cooking over hot rocks, pricey though, and the only choice if you're parched or starving. There are interesting little shows of stuffing hay into the rocks and watching it burst into flames and pouring water down a vent and stand clear whilst the geyser erupts. Allow about half a day, provided you get there early enough. Otherwise you're in a half day queue. Having done the Tourist centre, on to the Visitor Centre. For budding geologists this is the place. A proper exhibition of how volcanoes work complete with a real live working one round the back.

The volcano place is a National Park, and is controlled by the local government. Not so the camel treks over the volcanoes. The idea is you join a camel train and walk over the ash fields and lava flows. There is only one flaw in the idea, the camels. They don't like walking on warm surfaces, and so make considerable efforts to point the other way, unless of course, they're on the way home, and then can't resist the urge to run. Hilarious if you're standing by watching, not so much fun if you're a nervous rider and the camel has just taken off like a rocket.

Cacti
Seeing that it doesn't rain much, cacti feature large in the landscape. Over towards the north end is the Cacti Gardens. These are impressive, sharp spiky things alongside soft furry things, and with amazing flowers when in bloom. Some are big and some are small. Some are laid out in neat rows whilst others are allowed to grow all over the place. On the horizon there's a windmill. It looked pretty authentic but when I looked closely, I'm not so sure, it didn't look fake, but there was something about the mechanism which didn't look quite right. Could be the person who moved to its current site took it apart and then couldn't get it back together again,

Cacti feature fairly low in my estimation, but cactus flowers, that's something different. This is a good place to exercise the camera. Plenty of big close-ups of intricate flowers, and all colours and sizes. Don't get caught in the restaurant though, not unless you've raided a bank

Arrecife
Arrecife is the island's capital. It's about the only densely populated bit on the island. Ok, so it's where the up-market night clubs are, but that apart there's really nothing exciting going on. The castle of San Jose is small and up one end of Arrecife, not exactly defensive, but at one time the only thing that stood between the island and being overrun by marauders.

Teguise
Teguise is roughly in the middle of the island, and used to be its capital. On Sundays it's home to the largest street market I've ever seen. It sells everything from goats and rabbits to pirate CD's to tourist tat. There's also entertainment, groups of ethnic dancers get quite large audiences, but then so does the Peruvian pan-pipe orchestra. I'd swear it's the same bunch of peruvians that I've seen in Croix Valmer, down on the quays in Monterey, and even in the St. Ann's Centre in Harrow. Another entertainment is the large numbers of unlicensed traders who spend most of their time being moved on by the police.

During the week we were there the town square was taken over by salt paintings. These are around 1.5 by 3 metres and made from coloured, damp, salt. We arrived early afternoon and so didn't see who 'painted' them but it must have been some church festival or something as most were of some religious motif. We saw them whilst the salt was still damp and the images were quite crisp, but what does it do when the salt dries out?

Maybe you get the impression that Teguise is brash and noisy, well it is on Sundays during the market, but at other times it's quiet and peaceful. In the middle of town is a preserved 16th century merchant's house. Enter and you get an immediate feeling of calm. It doesn't matter how busy the market is, or who is shouting at whom, go through the doors and all is quiet. It's almost magical. Another thing, the furnishings. Apart from the very obvious candle holders most other fixtures and fittings could easily be mistaken for repro modern items. I hadn't realised, but the design of things like dining chairs or settees hasn't changed in hundreds of years. Certainly you could move in and survive in comparative luxury without the need to throw out most of the furniture.

Caves
The concert hall is certainly novel, it's a cave. Well more precisely, it's a lava pipe. This is where a lava run has cooled on top, and solidified making a kind of tube, but underneath the lava has kept running. One day the lava stopped and the remaining lava ran out of the tube leaving the top and bottom of the tube intact. Over time muck and debris collects in the tube, and we end up with a flat bottomed pipe. If it's large enough, then you can turn it into a concert hall and restaurant - which is what they've done.

There's a lake in one part of it and this is unique because of it's crabs. It seems this lava pipe formed many millions of years ago, and at one point had an exit to the sea. At that time the pipe was totally closed overhead and inside the pipe was pitch black. None the less small beach crabs wandered up it, found it comfy and stayed. Over time the sea entrance collapsed and the cave was cut off. The crabs evolved, turned white and went blind (as animals in caves are wont to do), whilst their sea borne brothers came and went, so the Lanzarote Cave Crabs are now a totally unique species. Actually they are rather small, inactive and boring - but they are unique. When they converted the cave into a concert hall, they also added an artificial lake above it. This has concrete beaches and as a place for sunning yourself, it's rather unattractive. On the other hand from above it's blinding. The beaches are painted white, whilst the waters become a pale cyan colour. Throw in a few 'walks' around it and the odd small cave for the kids to hide in and you become totally unaware that it's about the most unnatural place for a lake. Works though, as an enormous work of art, it actually works - and me? I'm about the world's least arty person.

What Else?
What else has Lanzarote got to offer? Haria is a nice town. More built up than most, and the architectural style is probably what gives Lanzarote its southern Spanish feel.

Up north is the 'Exotic Bird Garden', a sort of zoo full of birds. Interesting, and many of the birds are quite tame. The owner is an English man and he wanders about the gardens like a tourist. Well perhaps it was a tourist, but whoever, he takes a passionate interest in the welfare of the birds.

Most of the drinking water on the island comes from a desalination plant which is why you're advised not to drink it. Actually there's nothing wrong with it, it has a slight brackish taste. It is delivered by tanker and kept in a local storage tank, so the quality is dependant on the quality of storage. Just keep your teeth together to filter out the newts and other local pond life that lives in the bottom of the tank. Apart from that ... my guess is the locals make more profit flogging bottled water.

Oddly enough, at least one small export trade exists. Salt. Not the sludge left over from the desalination process, but real salt made with real sea water. The salt pans at Janubio are a bit of a tourist trap, can't think why, with a regular stream of people coming to look and leaving with a little bottle of sea salt crystals. Being a cynic, I wonder if the bottles of sea salt are made locally, or actually imported as the local stuff is too expensive to flog to tourists?

Conclusions
So? Worth it? Yeah. The island was really interesting, the people likeable and friendly. The farmhouse was fantastic, it really was great. The weather, not what I expected, but exactly what I like, so I can't complain there. So why only 8 out of 10? I'm not sure. It maybe that I felt ripped off over the air fares or it could be what happened on the way back (read on). It's just - well - I normally leave somewhere planning my next trip - this time it felt like I'm planning to avoid the next disaster.

A final whinge
All aboard the Jolly Britannia charter plane and off home we go. The plane arrived a bit late, but all the passengers turned up early, the check-in went well and we got away on time. The trouble we had getting here is all forgotten as we zip across the Bay of Biscay heading for Gatwick. Not bad so far, we even arrived at Gatwick 10 minutes early, but that disappeared as it took 10 minutes to find a stand. Through immigration and on to baggage claim. Where's the baggage? Not just ours, the whole plane load. It's not up on the board - it's nowhere. An hour and 10 minutes it took before it appeared on the board, and another 30 minutes before we found ours and during that time not a word from (dis)Servisair the baggage agents, they must have all run and hid because we couldn't find anyone at the Servisair desk or the cubby-hole they call an office when we sent out a lynching party.

So on to a bus to pick up the car. As we drive into the compound I spot my car at the end of a line. I know it's mine because there's not many silver Rovers about with a 70 cms radio aerial attached to the driver's door. Up to the desk, and ".... er - we're terribly sorry sir, but we seem to have lost it.", which is laughable because I know precisely where it is. I explain that I saw it as we drove in, "But that's not possible sir, that area doesn't even belong to us.". It's getting late, I pointed out they'd said they'd lost it, so might it not be somewhere where they didn't think they'd left it. If they'd provide my wife with a (free) cup of coffee, perhaps we could go and see if I really did see my car. So off we go for a nice brisk walk around the parking lot. Yes it was my car. No-one knows how it got where it was, but it's mine. So we packed in the baggage, had another (free) cup of coffee, and had an uneventful trip home.

Overall, a very nice holiday spoiled by the incompetence of the airline, the service agents and the car parking people (all in the UK I might add).

Updated: 02/02/07