The Black and White Island

Lanzarote is out of this world. You feel that you’re on another planet. There are barely any green spaces. Outside of the towns and cities you feel desolate.

I think Lanzarote was my least favourate island because I want to see trees and grass and there wasn’t any. You would see signs scattered all over that said: “Don’t walk on the green spaces”. Then I started wandering if a cactus or palm tree surrounded by black gravel, are their "green spaces". It was very interesting though and I would return just for a holiday.

We saw Timanfaya Volcano officially the 2nd volcano we had seen (1st one being Teide in Tenerife). My favourate part was Puerto Calero because I liked the marina and the promenade full of restaurants. I also liked Costa Teguise where we ate lunch at Luis’ the 4 times we went there. He was the only one who had fresh orange juice and I enjoyed the selection of deserts. There is a clear difference between the north and south of the Island.

The eye-catching thing in Lanzarote are the white houses popping out of the sea of black rocks. This is because the island was designed by Cesar Manrique who was the main creator of art of the island. He wanted to create the ugliest island of the Canaries into a place of art where well-educated tourists come to see it. It’s almost like the white houses are popping out of the forlorn black landscape. Also I like the fact that there is a lack of skyscrapers doesn’t seem imposing on you.

El Tomate

Remember the night-time watcher who got cross at us and soon became a friend? El Tomate was the restaurant the night-time watcher recommended to us. There we met the owner, who turned out to be Romanian like us. We became good friends with Ana (the owner) and we were treated really nicely by Ana and her staff. A can say that we were treated like VIPs by Ana and her staff.

We went to that restaurant every evening for 3 weeks and tried nearly everything on the menu. All the food on the menu was really nice! But I highly recommend the seafood. My favourate was the grilled grilled squid and the tuna in tomato sauce.

On my birthday Ana surprised me with brownies with a candle on top singing Happy Birthday to me. We invited her on our boat where she also gave me presents for my birthday and a beautiful gift for the boat. We became good friends with her and I would certainly go to El Tomate again when I go to Lanzarote.

The French Catamaran

The French are born sailors. We met a lot of French people during our journey. Including 3 boats of people in Lanzarote. But one boat caught my eye.

This boat was handmade my one of the French people in a monks monastery. He started building the catamaran in November when we decided to sell our home and buy a boat and apparently sailed from France to Lanzarote on the funky looking catamaran.

Overall, I wouldn’t live in Lanzarote but I would return again for a holiday for a change of scenery (or planet!!).