Lanzarote 2013, Lindstrom and Todd Terje
We have had some long and beautiful hikes the last two days in Lanzarote. For New Year's Eve, we walked from Femes to the South Coast of the Island about nine miles up and down hills to the tiny sea side village of Playa Quemada. We had spectacular views along the way and also enjoyed a beer at the end.
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| We started from the mountain village of Femes circled on the map and headed for Playa Quemada which is down and to the right of it on the map. |
Femés was once the hub of the island for goat’s milks and cheese and people would head from all over Lanzarote for their products. Nowadays visitors can still buy it fresh from local farmers according to old recipes. We have been fortunate to sample quite a bit of it on this trip. We started at a small goat farm and made our way down to the lunch spot seen below.
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| Our trip guide, Judith, enjoys her sandwich while a sailboat cruises by. Playa Quemada is seen as the white houses in the background. It looks close but what you don't see is the hill between us and the little village. To give you an idea of it's size, we looked DOWN on hang gliders while traversing it. |
The tiny village was amazingly full of people and they couldn't accomodate us for a beer so we drank it while sitting along the road next door.
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| Waiting for our well deserved and much appreciated cervezas! |
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| Playa Quemada. Pretty sleepy except at the only open restaurant on New Years Eve. |
For our New Year celebration, we joined our group of hikers for a special dinner at Villa Toledo. It has a lovely seafront location near where the fireworks were lighted. The food and service were very good.
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| Not too shabby for New Years Eve |
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| We ate in the same restaurant the day before and enjoyed a beautiful paella. |
We stayed up till midnight but not much passed it, so we could hike about 12 miles today to Mirador del Rio. Pictured at the beginning of the blog, this is a Cesar Manrique architectural creation using local materials and even scrap from a military base to create a viewpoint on the North end of Lanzarote onto the island of La Graciosa. We learned today that it is the 8th Canary Island and gained independence from Lanzarote last year.
We hiked from the town of Maguez, a sleepy traditional village that farms mostly onions and potatoes and through the Parque Natural Archipelago Chinijo.
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| Our starting point today. The village of Maguez. Lanzarote is pretty keen on white buildings everywhere. |
We had ups and downs again but had the pleasure of seeing some vineyards, a large caldera and the sea on both sides of the island at certain viewpoints. The highlight was a 3 mile uphill walk, but on an easily conquered road, to Mirador del Rio.
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| A look inside the caldera of a dormant Lanzarote volcano. The Canaries, like Hawaii are volcanic in origin. |
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| The inside of a tiny chapel we passed along the route |
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| The view behind us. |
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| The view ahead. Turquoise waters and the Isla Gracisosa |
From here it was uphill all the way to our final viewpoint at Mirador del Rio which is easily recognizable as Manrique's work. There used to be a military base at this site.
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| A viewpoint onto La Graciosa built of local materials, mostly volcanic rock. Lots of window and amazing views. It's not looking on a river either. The ocean between the two islands reminded Manrique of a river. |
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| A large mobile inside the building made of rebar and other leftovers from the military base. |
We had dinner today at a nice Italian restaurant on the beach. Overall a great end to long walk with views that made it worth it.
"Located 400 metres high, on the Risco de Famara, the Mirador del Río is one of César Manrique’s most representative architectural creations as it shows a series of artistic and architectural details and his eagerness to combine art and nature. It is located near the remains of an ancient military base that dates back to the end of the 19th Century. It is camouflaged on the rock in a way in which only a genius of Manrique’s magnitude could conceive. The Mirador takes over El Río, the narrow stretch of the sea separating Lanzarote from La Graciosa. Although unassuming on the outside, the inside hides surprising details and impressive glass windows, the eyes of El Mirador, conceived by the artist aiming to increase the effect of the panoramic view, and the monumental and unique sculptures hanging off the ceiling challenging gravity. "
From the magazine, Discover Lanzarote
Paul's Ponderings: Two great days out on the island....the first one was fairly tough and about 8 miles of rugged hiking up and down but some great time near the water and very warm temperatures by the end. On New Year's Day, it was super windy and a bit cool and a very long hike of about 9-10 miles, but on unimproved or paved roads. Both were great with the awesome scenery you get in this part of the world. On New Year's Eve we had a great dinner at Villa Toledo and on the first day of 2020 we ate some fine Italian food near our hotel. But make no mistake, this is some pretty vigorous hiking all around and we were pretty worn out at the end of both days prior to dinner time.
We learned that La Graciosa is apparently now the eighth Canary Island after a period of advocating to be such, so hopefully we will visit it on this trip to stay on track to visit all the islands. There are some rock islands near it, but they are not inhabited. It's too rough to take a boat trip to the latter, but we do hope to journey to La Graciosa this time.
We are staying in a fairly tourist-centric area called Costa Teguise, which is quite different than our first couple of days in Haria, which was a rural oasis like town. But, it's all good and a chance to see yet another aspect of the Canaries.
One thing for sure, this kind of hiking leaves you tired at day's end.....good for sleeping in order to get up and do it all again the next day. On the 2nd, we head to a national volcanic park and likely a totally different experience.
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