Tuesday, we did a big fat zero.
No sightseeing, no morning run. I did don my bathing suit late in the day and we
walked down to the rock pools to see if I could bring myself to go in for a
dip. I could not.
Despite the warm sun, the air
felt positively chilly. The breeze was from the north. It was supposed to be
our warmest day yet, but didn’t feel it in Punta Mujeres. It was also low tide.
The nearest pool to us was little more than a puddle. The one in the town
square was deep enough to swim, but you had to climb down a ladder to get to it.
I did, and dipped my foot in. The water – this is the Atlantic remember – was about
the temperature of Lake Huron in June. I don’t swim in Lake Huron in June. Some
people do. My personal opinion: they’re mad as snakes.
Feeling guilty about our
slothfulness, we did make an effort and got out for a rare evening walk, over
to Arrieta, the next town south of us, and back. And that was the day. This
island has a way of slowing you down. Just sitting next to the sea seems
enough.
We did better on Wednesday. We
got away before one and drove to Órzola, about 12 kilometers north of here, for
a supposedly short walk described in our guidebook. Órzola is the town from
which the ferry leaves for Graciosa, the northernmost inhabited Canary island.
The walk starts from near the ferry terminal and cuts across badlands to Playa
de la Cantería, Punta Furiones and the cliffs above the beach – the same cliffs
from which the Mirador
del Río looks out.
The first thing we noticed was
the hang gliders floating out over the cliff. At one point, as we were making
our way to the beach, we counted eight of them in the air. There are two kinds.
Some are like long narrow parachutes, with the flyers – or in one case, a flyer
and a passenger – sitting in seats suspended below it, connected to the chute by
guy lines. The pilot pulls on lines attached to the wing tips to direct the
glider where he wants it to go. The other is more like the hang gliders we saw
when the craze first started back in the 1970s, with a v-shaped wing. The flyer
lies suspended below it, hands gripping a bar in front of him. He rolls his
body from side to side to shift his weight and pulls down on the bar to direct
the glider. The v-shaped gliders in particular were a long way up, and stayed
up for a long time.
The path meandered through the
rock outcroppings, with many little paths that led us into cul de sacs. It took
awhile to pick our way over to the beach. The route took us by a little shack
built into the rock. We’re not sure if it was just a beach house, or something
fishermen use. By the time we got to the beach, my legs – in short pants – were
nicely exfoliated from walking along some of the narrow paths between thorny
bushes. The beach is terrific, with long white rollers piling into a sandy
shingle, and the craggy cliff rising above it.
The hang glider people were parked
in the beach parking lot, and were taking off from a little way up the cliff.
As we were walking along the beach, we saw one guy take off and almost
immediately crash into rocks. There was no movement from where he fell, and
people from the hang glider encampment began hurrying up to where he was. By
the time we reached the path, the panic was over. The guy was up with his
parachute glider and pack, trudging down the cliff with minimal assistance. He
later took off again and got airborne.
The path rises diagonally up
the cliff face and gives great views over the beach, back to Órzola, and ahead
to the next, hidden beach and the rocky promontory of Punta Furiones. I’m not
sure what the translation is for furiones, but it has to be the same root as
English fury and furious, although neither of the online Spanish-English
dictionaries I consulted recognized it. Maybe it’s Spanish for the Furies, the Greek
godesses of vengeance.
As we walked up the path, we
watched the Órzola-Graciosa ferry, a surprisingly small vessel that looked no
bigger than a lake-going police launch. It was rocking crazily in the ocean swell
as it chugged along about 200 meters out from the beach. We might not be going
to Graciosa after all. We had one European ferry ride with projectile vomiters
years ago, and once was enough.
The path was obliterated by
rock falls before Punta Furiones, so we turned and retraced our steps. The walk
back to Órzola from the beach didn’t take quite as long as we didn’t get stuck
in as many narrow cul-de-sac pathways this time. We did try one dirt track that
dead-ended at some stone-built beach shacks, one that looked like a hobbit house
in a pile of laval rock.
By the time we got back to the
car, it was 2 o’clock, lunchtime in Spain. We drove to our next destination,
Haria, where we planned to have lunch at a restaurant, and then visit one of César
Manrique’s houses, the one he was living in and still renovating when he died
suddenly in a road accident in 1993.
We found Restaurante el Cortijo,
a grill-style establishment, just around the corner from city hall square. It
has a huge patio seating area where we sat. It was great – for a casual lunch out.
We both had the menú del dia: 12.95€
for three courses and bread, no drink included. It’s not the best deal we’ve
had at a lunch place in Spain, but still pretty good. The portions were
generous. I had a very tasty lentil soup for starters - lentils are apparently
a big crop here – followed by pork chops (two) with fries and mixed veg, and for
postres, something they called
chocolate cake. It resembled no cake I’ve ever had – quite dense with several
layers, most custardy. But it was very nice. Karen had a large green salad,
half a roast chicken with fries and veg, and ice cream. If we’re honest, the
meat was a bit overcooked, but everything tasted really good. Total with a
glass of wine each: 31.90€ (about $47).
After lunch, we found, with
some difficulty, the Casa Museo César Manrique. We had been uncertain what time
it was closing as there were different hours given at various sites on the Internet.
It turned out to be 6 p.m., so we had time for an adequate visit.
I’ve mentioned Manrique a few
times. He is a ubiquitous presence on the island, despite being dead over 20
years. Many of the top tourist sites have his fingerprints all over them – the Mirador
del Río, the cactus garden, the Museum of Contemporary Art in the Castillo de
San José in Arrecife. His huge sculptures adorn several intersections on the
highways. He was an architect, designer, conservationist, painter and activist.
His activism helped prevent the
island being even more overrun with tourism than it has been, and ensured it didn’t
become the highrise hell of some Costa del Sol communities on the mainland. There
are virtually no highrises here. One of his other victories was banishing
billboard advertising from the island’s highways. One of his big bugaboos as a
conservationist and activist was controlling the increase in the number of cars and the
traffic on the island – ironic given his death in a traffic accident.
He was well respected
internationally in all his roles. BMW, for example, chose him to design one of
its “art cars” in the 1980s. Others chosen make up a who’s-who of
mid-20th-century art stars: Andy Warhol, David Hockney, Robert Rauschenberg, Roy
Lichtenstein, Alexander Calder, etc.
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| Living room in Manrique house |
The house is stunning, a
light-filled oasis, all designed by Manrique and filled with his and his
friends’ art. It has been left pretty much as he left it when he died, right
down to the magazines on the tables and the clothes in the closet. Manrique was
single, with no children. The house is not tiny, but there are only two
bedrooms, both large and gorgeous. The ensuite bathrooms are something else: lots
of glass and views of sky and trees, but still private – just. Somebody who
desperately wanted to see Manrique sitting on the john probably could have.
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| Guest bedroom - how would you ever get them to leave? |
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