The penultimate day of our stay on the island proved to be intriguing. Our first stop was Arrecife, the island’s capital famous for it’s warren of narrow streets. Until this day we had taken the ring road, avoiding the confusion. This time, on a mission to deposit copies of The Drago Tree at a bookContinue reading “What a sight!!!”
Tag Archives: The Drago Tree
Long gone the old ways …
As any anthropologist will tell you, the old ways of indigenous cultures the world over are always tramped on in the name of progress. Some are decimated, wiped from the earth like unwanted crumbs. Others allowed to exist on the fringes, tolerated, ignored and oppressed all at once. Then there are smaller cultures absorbed intoContinue reading “Long gone the old ways …”
The fire mountains
What can be said about driving down a narrow road carved through a lava plain, a road that goes on and on and on? The basalt that covers the land in every direction, thick, crusty, alive with lichen. Volcanoes or calderas 500 metres high and about 1 or 2 kilometres in diameter, rising up likeContinue reading “The fire mountains”
Nothing has changed…
Before I came here I was informed by one and all that Lanzarote had changed in the last twenty-six years, changed dramatically, for better or worse who can say. When I landed and saw the development, the mass of white cubes where once was rocky terrain, I had agreed, and when we headed north toContinue reading “Nothing has changed…”
Shifting perspectives
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”
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 