This
past weekend I finally made it to the Canary Islands! Whitney, a friend
of hers (Erin), and I flew in to the island of Lanzarote on Thursday night and
flew back to the “mainland” on Sunday morning. Two other friends
(Anna and Sara) joined us Friday morning. We settled into our
apartment-style accommodations (living room, kitchen, bathroom, bedroom) after
getting dinner at a Mexican restaurant (complete with sombreros and margaritas)
and passed out from exhaustion.
In the morning,
we hit up the store to get some beach/breakfast/lunch goodies, checked in
officially, Whitney bought a towel that looked like a 100 Euro bill, and we
made our way to the beach. The other girls met us there once they had
arrived and gotten situated.
The beach was
absolutely gorgeous. The sand was so soft, the water bright blue, and the
volcanic mountains made for the perfect background. We spent the rest of
the afternoon swimming and tanning. I’m not usually a big fan of swimming
in the ocean...I don’t like the idea of swimming with animals that you can’t
see below you. But this water was pretty clear and the only animals we
managed to spot were tiny fish, so I felt okay about it. We were in the
company of all British, Irish, and German people. The only Spanish people
we saw were the men walking around trying to sell us ice cream (obviously
bought at Spar and marked up in price), or offering us “free massages.”
We had applied
and reapplied sunscreen, but after about 5 hours of beach time, we felt
ourselves getting burned. We took the burning and the rising of the tide
that was creeping up to our towels as a sign to move on. We stopped for
some real ice cream, and then explored the shops on the “boardwalk.” In a
few of the places, we even sampled a healthy amount of aloe vera to help our
red skin.
After walking, we
didn’t want to go back to the beach and get all sandy again, so we went to the
pool. There weren’t many people there and it was actually a really nice
pool. We stayed there for a while and took little siestas. When we
were all awake, a little before 7.00pm, we decided on going back to the
apartment to rest and shower before going out for the night.
That night, we
all went out to an Asian restaurant. We ordered in tapas style and for a
fixed price, we were brought tons of plates of food. It was all very delicious
and after eating it all, we were stuffed. We paid the bill, then set off
to find a good bar to hang out in. Little did we know that the bars would
find US.
Walking down the
main strip of bars, men were standing all over, handing out flyers. But,
they didn’t just hand out the flyer and let us on our way. Oh no, that would
have been too easy. They would literally take our arms, saying, “Come,
come to my bar. This way. Free drinks!” It was so difficult to shake
them. Eventually we couldn’t stand it anymore, so we gave in and went to
one of the guys’ bar. It was actually a great decision. We each got
a healthy amount of beverages for very cheap and, though not many other people
were in the bar, the music was good and we made our own little dance party.
We even met a “professional rugby player” from London. Yeah, right.
After leaving
that bar, another guy immediately hounded us and after establishing that he was
going to give us free drinks, we went into his bar. After Whitney and I
ordered the drinks, he brought them over, along with a fruity drink, and shots,
then told us it would be 7 euros each. I said, “Um, excuse me? You said
these were free.” He said, “Oh, no, no. The cocktail (fruity drink)
is free, you must pay for the rest.” After some back and forth about
defining the word “cocktail,” I said, “Well, you said it was free and we don’t
have any more money” (lie). He gave me a nasty face, collected the drinks
back onto his tray, turned his back to us and walked away. We walked
right out of the bar and I felt very proud of myself. We didn’t even
really want anything else to drink.
At this point, we
were getting pretty tired and, earlier in the day, Whitney and I had gone to a
car rental place and reserved a car for the next morning, so we figured we
should all get a good night’s sleep.
In the morning,
after we went through the process of renting our automatic Mercedes (no manual
drivers among us) and Whitney and I became the insured navigators, we set off
to explore the island. I was first up to drive. It was my first
time driving abroad and it went surprisingly well. Thanks to my year living in
the Middle East, I’m a pro at roundabouts.
 |
| Drivers for the day. |
We drove all
around the island, from the south, to the north, and back down to our
beach. We saw all sorts of beautiful landscapes, caves, black sand
beaches…
 |
| El Gulfo- a naturally green lake. |
 |
| Yes, the water really was that blue. |
We even drove up
a very (scary) curvy road to get to a mirador (look out point), but when we saw
we would have had to pay to go in, just to see a view, we were about to get
back into the car and count our losses when a British couple stopped us and
told us if we drove down this one road off to the side for about a mile, we
would see the “most beautiful view you’ll ever see.” After deciding that
we would ignore the “authorized vehicles only” sign, we ventured down the tiny
road (meant for two-way traffic…there was definitely only room for one-way).
After reaching
the destination, we had to park and hike a few minutes. When the bush
thinned out, the view truly was the most beautiful I had ever seen. It
took my breath away. The water was so clear and all of the other colors
so vibrant.
After a good
amount of time just staring out into the distance, we drove back down the road
and went into the Cuevas de verde (green caves), where our silly tour guide
told us (in all seriousness) that there was absolutely no green in the cave
(judge for yourself), then we went into Los jameos del agua, a secluded
paradise built into an old volcanic crater.
 |
| Mmm, I think I might see some green... |
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| Super cool optical illusion- looks like a massive hole in the cave, but it's really about 2 inches of water reflecting the ceiling. |
By the end of the
day, we were exhausted, so we made it easy for ourselves and went back to the
Mexican restaurant from the first night for dinner. Then, we decided we
would take a stroll down the main strip. But this time, we had no
patience for the club promoters. We graciously took all of their flyers,
not even slowing down, shouting some “Yes, yes, thank you. I’ll take your club
into consideration” back at them. Once we hit the end of the strip, some
girls got crepes, we all got one drink at a bar, then decided it was time for
bed. On the way back, when we saw our club promoter friends, we had a
plan. When they would yell, “Girrrrrls!! What are you doing tonight???”
we would ask, “What club do you work for?” They would say (for example) “Nikki
Beach!” and we would respond “OH!! What a coincidence!! I work there too!” and
we gave them all back their flyers. They weren’t too amused. All
three times they smacked them away, shouting, “I don’t want those!!” It
made us laugh.
In the morning, we
got up pretty early for our flight back to Madrid. The flight was nothing
special. Once back, I said goodbye to the girls and went to hang out with
some Madrid friends. We all went to the Museo de Jamón for a drink and I
had to say a few “goodbyes” to the people I wouldn’t see again. I cried
the entire bus ride home. I knew the next week wasn’t going to be fun
(emotionally). And oh, it wasn’t.
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