Day 6 and my awe and delight at having returned are replaced by an acute awareness. Here are some of my observations. Lanzarote is an island of contrasts. The everyday lives of the locals, with their tight knit family networks, their lives lived behind closed doors, and the tourists. Like almost all tourist destinations whereContinue reading “Shifting perspectives”
Tag Archives: Lanzarote
Picking up the breadcrumbs
Yesterday we took a tour of the island’s north, where the malpais (bad land) fans to the coast, the legacy of eruptions of a chain of volcanos about 5,000 years ago, two of which form the view from our farmhouse, to the west and the north. It is the route Ann took in the firstContinue reading “Picking up the breadcrumbs”
Of the people…?
Yesterday we were up and out of this old farmhouse bright and early. A little cloud on a warm and breezy day, and as we drove down past the saddles of the massif on our way to Arrecife I noticed the swathes of untilled land, land that used to be a checkerboard of haphazard plotsContinue reading “Of the people…?”
And the wind it blows
Well I cried on touchdown. It was the sight of the barren forms of the mountains of Los Ajaches, Lanzarote’s southern massif, and the villages of La Quemada then Puerto Calero coming into view, then the sprawling mass of white cubes that is Puerto del Carmen and the villages in its hinterland. Michelle had theContinue reading “And the wind it blows”
taking flight
Tomorrow begins a grand adventure, although it feels like it has already begun. I am flying to Lanzarote, Canary Islands after a twenty-six year absence, and I will be accompanied by my publisher, Michelle Lovi. And I have only met her once. It is hard to say when this journey began. I could say itContinue reading “taking flight”
Lanzarote: the fulcrum of an empire
The history of the Spanish conquest of the Americas upon the famous voyage of Christopher Columbus in 1492, pivots on an earlier conquest, that of Lanzarote and the Canary Islands. Sailing is largely dependent on ocean currents. The Canary current sweeps down from Spain and Portugal along the West African coast, until it reaches the EquatorialContinue reading “Lanzarote: the fulcrum of an empire”
Isobel Blackthorn 