Lanzarote
- part III
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LZ-2 : the main road south
from the capital Arrecife heading towards the ferry port of Playa
Blanca and the ferry to Fuertaventura.
Eight kilometers short of
Playa Blanca is the Salinas de Janubio developed on the shore
of a natural lagoon.
Although much of the southern
part of the island is desert ...
... almost unbelievably,
here and there, horticulture ingeniously flourishes. And the local
wines, from vines like these snug in their sheltered oases, we
found to be very palatable.
I'm uncertain whether this
church in Yaiza was the one where parishioners would have given
thanks for their deliverance from the volcanic eruptions of 1730-36.
The lava flows wiped out eleven surrounding villages but halted
at the edge of Yaiza village.
The road from Yaiza, through
the 'malpais' or volcanic badlands still incapable of supporting
any but the smallest and sparsest marginal vegetation even after
nearly 300 years. Lichens grow on some of the rough surfaced boulders
and occasional seeds have rooted in small pockets of proto-soil.
There's certainly not enough
to feed even one of these camels here seen heading home to Yaiza
from their morning shift toting tourists up the flanks of Timanfaya
mountain.
High on the ridge of Timanfaya,
from the free tour-bus, a north easterly view over the malpais
and the road to Yaiza.
Back at the mountain-top
restaurant a resident warden, watched by the restaurant clientele,
demonstrates the effect of the still slumbering volcano beneath
our feet by pouring a bucket of water down the blow-hole and making
a dignified but speedy departure before the steam blows out.
The designer of the Timanfaya
restaurant and overwhelming presence on the island is the local
artist Cesar
Manrique who also created this sculpture at the Museo del
Campesina.
He was fond of wind driven
sculptures (Juguete - wind-toys) such as this sited in
the grounds of the Fondacion Manrique which used to be his home.
Manrique built his house
on the malpais outside Tahiche and made use of the naturally
occuring voids in the volcananic substrate to create five intrguing
and interlinked rooms below ground.
Jameos del Agua, another
of his creations, also makes use of these subterranean 'tunnel'
spaces where once lava flowed below the surface. Here one of the
collapsed areas of the 'tunnels' is converted into a garden.
Another part houses an underground
auditoreum and another a restaurant/night club.
Castillo de San Jose once
defended the harbour of Arrecife but in 1976 it was converted
by Cesar Manrique into a Museum of Contemporary Art.
Looking down an internal
stairway treated organically in the Manrique manner complete with
sculpture ...
... but the original structure
still has a character and personality of its own!
But it's time to leave Manrique's
island; as we climb over Arrecife a last shot before we're into
the cloud.
The lengthening shadows
of early evening in the Picos de Europa in north Spain as we cross
the coast onward over the Bay of Biscay and home.
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