July 27 - Arrecife (Lanzarote), Canary Islands, Spain

Canary Island flag

Weather – 25º, little humidity, lovely

Manrique crab sculpture

Steps – 8,563

This the first time to the Canary Islands for us, all I know little about these islands is that they are part of Spain and are close to the north west coast of

Africa…time to learn. One thing I have learned is that these islands are about as south as the southern most part of Morocco and northern part of Western Sahara. The first thing we learn from Jon our guide, is about César Manrique, an artist from here who influenced the many things on Lanzarotte, the island where we are today.

not exactly hard to figure out

Driving to our first stop, Jon pointed out sculptures in the middle of round-abouts and architecture influenced by Manrique. I’d never heard of César Manrique, apparently there is a museum of his work here, unfortunately we don’t have time for this. I could do with a museum visit…we haven’t had one yet on this trip.

Atlantic Ocean

Our first stop is to the Jardin de Cactus Manrique created. This place is called a cactus garden but is more of a cactus museum. There are some MASSIVE cacti here – incredible. There are thousands of specimens of cactus from around the world here…very unique place. After wandering, and admiring the cacti, we had time for a refreshment…beer and a sangria…I ordered all in Spanish…not super difficult, but I was very proud of myself. Jon told us to be sure to use the washrooms…they had Manrique art indicating which was for women and which was for men.

Our second and final stop was at Jameos de Agua also designed by Manrique. This place is an 8km series of lava tubes or caves

cacti!!

that the La Sorona volcano created. We see a few huge caves and some of the pools in these caves.

very charming

These pools are sea water that rise and fall with the tides and are home to tiny albino crabs, less than a cm in size. We can see some of these, but apparently there are thousands!

It seems as though we arrive right at opening time as there is a massive line to get in. After about 30 minutes the crowd disappears. Fortunately, we breeze past the line with our guide.

Canary Island refreshments

There is a restaurant built into one of the caves and here is where we eat lunch of squash soup,

cave and pool

Slow cooked pork with sweet potato purée with a chocolate cake for dessert, all of this was sashed down with wine. The food was good, but nothing special. We paid extra for this tour, so I was hoping for a bit more from the food. It was a very unique place to eat in, that was for sure!

We returned to the boat around 3:30 for

outside the caves

a siesta, blogging and the usual boat evening.

Manrique road sculpture