Arrecife, Lanzarote

February 20^th, 2025

There were 2 large ships in port with us, as well as a  smaller one called La Belle Des Oceans.

Now that looks like a nice ship, I looked her up on Google. She is described as a a small, yacht-type cruise ship operated by CroisiEurope. Definitely better than the Aida ship next to us and the Mein Schiff one across from us. I was hoping that all of the passengers from the 3 ships weren’t on the same tours as us. Things could get crowded on a small island.

We booked the ship’s The Best of Lanzarote tour. There must be a lot to see as it is an 8 hour tour.

I love volcanoes and had hoped to see a few on the tour. I was in luck. There are over 300 volcanoes on the island, and loads of lava. Yay!

We saw a volcano as soon as we left the port.

The buildings in Lanzarote are mostly white to reflect the sun and keep interiors cool. This is part of the island’s traditional architecture, which was influenced by the artist César Manrique.

Although most of the island is very dry, there are areas of lush vegetation.

And there are areas where there are plants are trying to thrive.

Agriculture is difficult due to the lack of rain, but as the lava does hold water, there are attempts to grow vegetables, although it looked a bit pitiful to me.

I love anything that moves, especially artwork. I would love to fill our courtyard at home with mobiles. I was thrilled to see that many of the roundabouts on the island feature beautiful kinetic sculptures. Our roundabouts back home are so boring.

Our first stop was at Mirador del Rio. This is one of the most unique architectural creations by the artist Cesar Manrique and is located high up on the Risco de Famara escarpment, at an altitude of 474 meters, in the northernmost part of the island.

It doesn’t look like much from the outside

But the minute you enter the building you know it is something special.

It made me think of what Gaudi would have done had he been a minimalist.

The corridor leads to a vaulted room with large glass windows, the eyes of the Mirador,

that provide a panoramic view over the Strait of El Rio towards the island of La Graciosa, with its small fishing village.

The beautiful staircase leads to an upper room, which has the obligatory gift shop, and more views of the surrounding countryside.

Another of Cesar Manrique’s brilliant “cultural spaces”, is his transformation of a series of caves formed by a lava tube, known as Jameos del Agua.

After you enter you descend to the first cave which is now a café and was a disco in a former life.

You can still see the beautiful dance floor

And adjacent cave.

Further down is another cave, this one is filled with water, and is home to endangered tiny albino crabs.

Then there is the best part, the swimming pool. In the past it was a popular place to swim, but with the increase in the number of visitors, now you just look at it rather than immersre yourself in the waters.

I was totally in awe of the pool, it is one of the most beautiful places I have been,

Beyond the pool is the auditorium. We had done a fair amount of walking and it was wonderful to sit on a bench there and listen to the soft, soothing, cello and harp music playing in the background. It was a totally magical place.

One of the other guests on the tour remarked that Seabourn should have an overnight in Lanzarote and rent the auditorium for the evening and treat us to a concert from Ronni and Jay. Wow, what an amazing idea. I would totally be on board with that. It would be an incredible experience.

After the auditorium we climbed up out of the caves and wandered around the structures at the top.

The plants were beautiful, as was the architecture.  Cesar Manrique was an absolute genius. Seeing this work of art made me want to see more of his work. But there wasn’t time on this tour.

We drove along the coast

to La Cascada the restaurant where we had lunch.

The restaurant was very pleasant, and not like the usual restaurants we go to on tours.

We had a tapas type meal with several small plates and plenty of local wine.

Then we drove through the lava fields.

Our next stop was camel riding. Now we had done this is Dubai, but this was very different.

First of all the camels all had muzzles. I felt bad for them, but I know that they do have a nasty habit of spitting.

The instead of riding the camel as you would a donkey, you rode in sort of paniers on either side of the camel’s hump.

This actually did make the ride easier than negotiating the sand dunes in Dubai, and all in all it was a much tamer experience compared to our first camel encounter.

We rode over the volcanic terrain, and it was not an entirely bad experience, but I did feel sorry for the camels.

We were on the edges of the Timanfaya National Park, so after the camel experience we went to the visitors’ center, where we watched 3 “experiments”.

At our first stop we were presented with lava rocks that had just been dug up, and sure enough they were hot.

Next a bucket of water was poured into a hole, and suddenly up spouted a geyser.

Finally some straw was thrown into a hole and it caught on fire.

OK, there was poof that there was volcanic activity going on right under our feet.

Actually things have been quite quiet here for a while since the most recent volcanic eruptions that took place between 1720 and 1736, and in 1824.

We drove around the park which our guide described as a lunar landscape. It certainly did look like that, but also what we imagined Mars would look like. It was amazing.

We then drove from the park towards our final stop at the La Geria winery.

I was wondering what the vineyards would look like as there hadn’t been much vegetation around, and I must say they are pretty unique. At least I would think that you don’t have to do too much weeding.

There were 3 wines to be tasted, a red, a dry white, and a sweet white. I only tasted the dry white, which was actually quite nasty. The other 2 weren’t winners either according to those brave enough to try them.

Still, it was an education to see how the vines are grown, and we wandered around a bit before taking the bus back to the ship.

Back on the Sojourn there was a great sail away with Amy and the Trio performing. Somehow the Sojourn sail aways just work so well. It is wonderful to sit back, listen to the music, and watch our ship head out to sea.

We will be back in Africa for our next port. Good, I am not quite ready to leave Africa behind just yet.