Robert
Q dropped us at the airport almost five hours before our scheduled departure. Taking a later bus would have
left us too little margin for error, they said. The upside: at that hour of the
day, no queue to drop our bags at the Air Transat counter, and virtually none at
security.
With
so much time to kill, we decided to splurge on two hours in a lounge ($60).
Unlimited food from a buffet – not bad tasting, but after-effects not so great
– and unlimited bar, plus quiet surroundings with nice view of runways. Assume
food problem a one-of, so would do it again in similar circumstances.
Good
flight to Gatwick. Karen and I had a row of two seats near the back. Only
occasional brief wafts of sewage smell from loos. (Shelley would have been
gagging – but when would Shelley ever be at the back of a plane?) Didn’t bother
with onboard entertainment system. We watched video we’d downloaded to our
tablets: Dr. Thorne, a new
mini-series from Amazon Prime, based on the Anthony Trollope novel, adapted
and introduced by Julian (Downton Abbey)
Fellowes. Very good, not quite as rose-coloured a view of aristocracy as Downton. Food: inedible – but then we
weren’t hungry.
It was
cold in London, colder than home. We caught a shuttle bus (£3 each) to our
hotel, the Courtyard by Marriott. It wasn’t even 11 a.m. when we arrived but
they found us a room that was ready. (I had called and asked for early check-in
after we booked through Hotwire, but I’d said we wouldn’t be there until 11.)
We
napped for a couple of hours, then got up and read and fiddled with electronics.
Caitlin had sent us the proofs of her book, which we read with great pride and
enjoyment. That girl can write. We went for a walk around the hotel halls – too
cold for outside. Finally went down about six for dinner in the hotel
restaurant: not great and horrendously expensive. Tried to watch TV after
dinner to keep awake, but British TV a wasteland so turned it off, and
ourselves soon after – I don’t even think we made it till 9 o’clock. Took a
whole Gravol and slept through until 8.
We had
lots of time in the morning, so had a leisurely full English breakfast in the
hotel, and read depressing news of Trump in the local papers – what other kind is there? Caught the
shuttle back to the airport and had another lo-o-ong time to kill, as our
flight was an hour delayed, which we only discovered when we got there.
Camped out in the departures lounge and read.
Flight
good: three hours 45 minutes. We had a spare seat between us. No free food or drink, so
bought sandwiches and beer and wine. It took us an hour or more to collect
baggage and take delivery of rental car in Arrecife. We found the nearby
Mercadona I’d scouted out ahead, albeit with the inevitable wrong turns and
backtrackings – it was only five minutes from the airport, but took us almost
30 to reach it. We did a fairly big shop as fast as possible.
I had
emailed, Sandra our landlord’s onsite representative, to say we would be later
than we originally said. She had asked that we text her when we were leaving
the airport. I tried to text her when we were leaving the Mercadona, but
discovered that my phone does not work here for some reason. Still have to
troubleshoot that problem. (Later: user error - failed to enter international access code, needed because this is a French phone, left over from two years ago, calling a Spanish number. Duh!)
So we
just drove, using wonky Google map directions. Roads here are very dark at
night. We found the place, by luck and the kindness of strangers as much as
good navigation. Google maps had directed us to a similar, but wrong, address.
The woman there, luckily, knew of Daniel, our landlord – she said others had
knocked on her door looking for his place – and was kind enough to call Daniel (wherever he is - not here) and used her
minimal English to point us to where we needed to go, about a half a kilometer further along.
I
parked where she had suggested and wandered down into the villa complex where
our place evidently was. Sandra, by great good fortune, lives next door and was up watching TV. She saw me through her window stumbling around in the
dark and came out. Why hadn’t I texted? I tried to explain, but was basically
brain dead at this point.
The
place is fine: right on the sea with black volcanic rock beach. We were
prepared for disappointment, but it’s fine – not quite as great as it looks in
the Internet ads, of course, and the kitchen is poorly equipped. But it’s decent
enough. And the Wi-Fi works - most of the time. We unpacked, had drinks and finally collapsed into
bed about 1 a.m., the sound of the sea soothing us to sleep. Stayed under until
almost 9 this morning.
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| Our villa in Punta Mujeres |
Biggest
problem discovered so far: you cannot put paper down the toilet. Huh!? That’s
right. You have to put your TP in a bag and take it to the public garbage bins
up in the village. I don’t understand why. Sandra tried to explain, but her
English is only so-so, and my Spanish seems to have entirely fled. “This is a
problem,” she asked a couple of times? Ah, yeah! But we will have to live with
it, I guess.
The
sun is in and out, and very hot when out – we will need sunblock. It’s up to
about 66F now, headed for 68F. We will go exploring soon.
Writing
the next day… In the late morning, we went for a long-ish walk through the
village – “a tight cluster of dwellings,” as the author of our Lanzarote
walking guide dismisses it. It’s a pretty little place with several rock pools
for swimming and a few tiny beaches of black sand and volcanic stones. The
biggest, the so-called Playa Grande, is barely about 20 meters across.
 |
| Punta Mujeres |
When
you get to the northern edge of the village, there is a walking path heading off north towards Jameos del Agua and Orzola at the far
end of the island - which we intend to explore. The surrounding landscape is strangely attractive: a knobbly
mix of volcanic boulders left by the early 18th century eruptions and cacti and
succulents that thrive in the rich laval soil.
On the
way back, we met Sandra in town. She asked if we liked the rock pools. Of course,
we said, but it’s a little cool for swimming. No, no, she said, it makes you
feel alive. We later saw her in bathing suit, toweling off after a dip. Karen
and I disagree about how old Sandra might be. I think she’s mid- to late 40s,
Karen thinks younger. I think Sandra’s daughter, husband and two little girls
have just moved into the unit beside ours. The little girls have Sandra’s
frizzy hair and one of them has her honey blonde colouring – and they follow her
everywhere.
After
lunch, we drove to one of the island’s biggest tourist attractions, the Mirador
del Rio at the north end of the island. It is lovely, with views across to
Graciosa, the tiny island just to the north, and the last in the Canarian archipelago.
The stone-built chalet at the mirador was restored and renovated by the island’s
famous artist-architect son, Cesar Manrique. It features sculptures and mobiles
by him. We thought the 4.50€ entry fee was maybe a bit steep, but it was the
only way to see the best views.
 |
| Mirador del Rio |
We walked
down the road a way from the mirador, climbed a drystone wall and walked out to
look at the fabulous light effects, with the late sun shining through cloud and
haze, spangling the water with gold. Directly below us was a long,
crescent-shaped sandy beach with exactly three people walking on it – or they
might have been ants – and no villas or houses in sight. Very isolated. And so
home to dinner.
Today (yesterday),
we made a concerted effort and got out of the house a little after 9:30 in the
morning. This was after getting up at 8, so not bad. Our plan was to drive to
Teguise via Haria, both within 20 kilometers of Punta Mujeres.
We
drove first to Haria in the interior, an old town in the “valley of a thousand
palms.” It reminded me a bit of Palm Springs driving into it. The palms are
very lush looking. There is nothing like 1,000 of them, though. This is
apparently because pirates – who plagued these islands for centuries – had burned
many of them in the 19th century. Why?! We parked near the inevitable Plaza de la
constitucion, the city hall square. A fabulous red (I said crimson, Karen says fuschia) bougainvillea vine over archways
in the park, nicely restored white-washed buildings all around.
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| Haria: Plaza de Constitucion - City Hall |
A
couple of blocks away is the other major attraction, the Plaza Leon y Castillo,
a long square with some nicely restored buildings, cafes, lovely old trees and
a church at the end. Not many people around.
 |
| Haria: Plaza Leon y Castillo |
Some
interesting-sounding flute and lute music drew us further up the street, but it
turned out to be recorded music – not live as I had initially hoped. It was
coming from a little jewelry shop. The elderly proprietor I glimpsed through
the door must have been stone deaf – you could hear her music all over the town
centre.
 |
| Haria: near City Hall |
Back
at the city hall square, we spotted some interesting-looking bright-coloured “sculptures”
sticking up above the rooftops a few blocks away. I wondered if might have something
to do with the Fondacion Cesar Manrique, which is here (but not on our
itinerary today – we’ll come back to it). So we went to investigate. It turned
out to be a private walled garden. The sculptures appeared to be wood, some of them dead trees, that someone had carved and painted. Karen thinks it must be the home of an artist.
We
headed out of town on the LZ 10, which switch-backs up to the top of El Risco
de Famara, a high ridge between the interior valleys and the island’s west coast. (We're on the east coast.) We stopped first at Mirador del Risco de Famara with its fabulous views back
down the valley to Haria and over to the east coast.
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| Mirador del Risco de Famara: east to Arrieta and Punta Mujeres |
 |
| Mirador del Risco da Fama: south to Haria |
We had
seen a few cyclists peddling furiously up the hill. One of them came huffing up
to the look-out point while I was standing there taking pictures. He wasn’t
huffing – or sweating – that hard, though, so maybe he hadn’t come uphill from
Haria. He stopped for about 30 second to take in the view - ho-hum - then hopped back on
his bike. The restaurant and shop here rented bikes – presumably for
those who didn’t want the work of getting up
the hill, but did want the thrill of gliding down.
A
little further along the LZ 10, we pulled off to Ermita de las Nieves –
Hermitage of the Snows, a church in the middle of nowhere. It gets its name
from Our Lady of the Snows, one of the many names by which the Virgin Mary is
known in the Catholic Church. There is no snow on the Risco de Famara. Other
sources translate the name as Hermitage of the Clouds, which makes sense, given
its altitude. But this appears to be incorrect. The church, in any case, was locked
up tight as a drum.
Ermita
de las Nieves is right by another fabulous mirador looking out from atop the
Risco de la Famara to the west coast – the Playa de Famara and the little
fishing village of La Caleta. Wonderful.
 |
| Views from Ermita de las Nieves |
Next
stop was Teguise, once the island’s capital, and a “royal” city, because the founding governor lived here in the 15th century with the daughter of
the king of the Guanches, the native African population that was later
exterminated.
At the
edge of town is a winding road up to the Castillo Santa Barbara, a fortress originally
built in the 16th century to defend against pirate raids, which were constant from the 16th through the 18th centuries. Today, you pay
3€ to go up on the ramparts and look down to Teguise and Arrecife beyond. There
is also a somewhat lame museum about piracy. It’s all painted placards with
explanatory text – in English and Spanish, thank goodness – and hokey videos. I
think the intended audience is 12-year-old boys. I’m quite sure the history of
piracy in the Canaries is fascinating, but the museum failed to make it so.
 |
| Castillo Santa Barbara |
Teguise
itself is a very attractive town with lots of restored whitewashed buildings, a
handsome cathedral and what appears to be a thriving artisanal scene. Most of
the galleries and studios were closed, however, either because it was lunch
time or because it was Monday. The town was all but deserted, except for a few
shopkeepers and restaurateurs and a handful of other tourists, mostly German.
 |
| Teguise cathedral |
We
wandered about, admiring the little squares and shuttered residential
streetscapes, then wended our way back to Loris, a tapas place in a square not
far from the cathedral. We had passed it earlier and I thought it looked like a
good deal: 15.95€ for a tapas plate for two. It was a good deal.
The
plate included Canary-style potatoes (boiled in heavily salted water until
wrinkled and crisp on the outside), meatballs, tortilla (Spanish), jamon,
salad, a soupy bean dish, bread spread with what tasted like a version of
baba ganoush, and an unidentified vegetable we think was African-style yam (also
called sweet potato here, but really nothing like our sweet potato – white, not
as sweet and with a starchy texture.) There was just the right amount of food
for the two of us – we left practically nothing, but felt quite replete. Total:
21.65€ with a glass of wine and a small beer.
We were amused by the waiter - and apparently, the owner - a handsome 50-ish Spaniard with a pony tail held back with a bandanna and a straw panama clapped on top. He was wearing a Hawaiian shirt and a patterned waiter's apron that clashed with the shirt. His image is in the restaurant's logo, which you can see in the picture below.
