Introduction
Lanzarote with its maximal spread of 60km counts to the smaller islands of the canaries. The surface is branded by a wide black volcano scenery. I felt really comftable in Lanzarote, as the people are amazingly relaxed and everything seems to be a bit slower.
My Route
One day is enough to cross the whole island, go south, north an back. We went from Puerto del Carmen, where our sailing vessel was, into the nationalpark, took a visit in the South and hitchhiked via Teguise up into the far north. Swimming at the white sand beach and back.
Roads
Around Arrecife exists something similar to a highway with two lanes. Except that you have in Lanzarote mostly normal street, which all are in perfect conditions. They look brand new everywhere. A bit disturbing is the fact, that most of the time there is no extra space beside the road, as they usualy put stones as bounds next to the road. This means, there is no keep are, once you are on the road. I think this is because it is very difficult to build roads into the cold volcanoerruptions and they safe every centimetre possible.
The volume of traffic on the federal highway (the red one) is a bit bigger than on the small roads. But also the small roads are absolutley recommendable for hitchhiking.
People
As i said before, the people on Lanzarote are very relaxed. At least when we got picked up by locals they have been. This happened very much, as the filled with shitloads of tourists, which are enthusiastic to pick up people. Most of the time, one of the first 5 cars stopped for us. Official language on the streets seems to be German, then English and after Spanish. At the end of our tour we didn´t make an effort anymore to speak english, cause anyway everyone spoke German with us, Even the french.
Tactics
In Lanzarote you don´t have to make much, beside standing at the street and smile. Cars stop from themselves. Just go and enjoy moving around.
Specifics
Characteristic for Lanzarote are the white houses with the blue shutter. The island was influenced by the artist César Manrique, who is responsible for the uniform surface. Unfortunately he died in a car accident within the 90s.
Teguise is a wonderful dozy place. Once a week there is a big market, which is not recommendable, even if half of the island talks about it. Lots of crap for sale and more lots of plastic bags everywhere in the street. But afterwards there is some Live-Music in the pubs nearby, which invite you for a bear or some delicious tapas. Definitely one of the nicest cities on this island.
Near El Golfo in the south exist a salt fabric with a nice panorama viewpoint. Its worth to go there, afterwards visit the breakers in El Golfo and see the occean working.
Inland some people try to plant wine. The island has very little rain, but in return alot of wind, which forces the farmers dig little pits for protecting the wine. The wine itself tastes pretty heavy, like Portwine.
Except that you have alot of boring volcano landscape.
Fotos
