Lanzarote – Mars on Earth

Lanzarote – Mars on Earth

It’s been a while that we visited this adorable island with my husband. I remember I was planning a laid-back type of holiday with as little fuss as possible so I had a look at beach holidays in November and I figured out that the only option is to go back to the Canaries if we don’t want to cross an ocean or a continent…

When we landed on Lanzarote, I was thinking, wow, there is really, really NOTHING in here, what the hell were the travel books talking about? A thick cloud of fine red sand made the sky look like the polluted air I saw over the busy city centre of Chengdu in China, and I had serious doubts that we would find anything enjoyable on this vast land of emptiness out of a Martian horror scene. So we picked up our car and left the airport heading to the north and to the west, in hope for seeing something… or just please, anything before we get to our place for the night. Well, we didn’t have to wait too much, it took just a few minutes to fell in love with this strange world: after an ibis(!) crossed the road in front of us and we drove through the dead valleys decorated with huge fields of cactus (and other spiky plantsies) and pretty (and tidy) villages, I had no doubts anymore that the island is truly beautiful. We stayed in the most peaceful house ever in the neighbourhood of a volcanic wasteland (“malpaís”), enjoying the best views of the big starlit skies, visited Timanfaya – a national park that makes you regret your whole life and wondering why you did not study volcanology instead of whatever, and many times we felt like we were in a cool sci-fi movie from the 60s whenever we came across one of Cesar Manrique’s genius works! I need to highlight two more things before I skip to the next island: people and food. Lanzarote people were super kind and patient and they make the best pastries on Earth (Mars?) ever! There was a bakery in the tiny village where we stayed where these lovely people were baking and serving their heavenly goods from 5am in the morning until late night, please if I convinced you to visit this island, do not miss this panaderia!

Can’t wait to explore Mars again!

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