LANZAROTE, CANARY ISLANDS – 3 October 2026
After our first “commercial” tourist tour we’ve voted that Christine has outdone herself. That bloody car can stay in the driveway forever for all we care. At 8.30am we walk down to the main road and wait where we’ve been told to wait for the “bus”, and it turned up! So, we consider this as a bonus!
Mind you, it’s a double-decker bus, I certainly wasn’t expecting this number of people on the trip LOL.
Our first stop was at a road-side shop, have absolutely no idea where we’re at! However, my blog-worthy moment was when I spotted this boab tree aka a bottle tree. Looks just like the Western Australia boabs except it has pink flowers – Googled pink flowered boabs and see that they grow in Africa. The climate here in the Canary Island is so dry, and I’m sure that as they are volcanic islands, there aren’t that many native trees/shrubs, so they’ve imported pretty much all the vegetation, including Australian eucalyptus trees and she-oaks!
Apparently, it is “law” that all houses are painted white. Sometimes you see pale yellow (white that’s turned yellow from dust), and a pale peach colour. I have to say it’s pretty cool to see just white houses. Also, although I’ve only seen 1 or 2 multi level buildings, apparently everyone is restricted to 3 floor levels, although if you choose to go underground you can exceed the three-floors only rule.
Our first planned stop is Lago Verde (the Green Lake) which is in the southern part of the Island near the small fishing village of El Golfo. You don’t see much except a beach when you disembark the bus.
And there it was, what I expected to see in Portugal, lovely beach, beautiful blue water and boats dragged up after a day’s fishing.
The lake is in a volcanic crater which was formed during the eruptions of the 1730s and was flooded by the ocean. With erosion, only half of the volcano cone remains. Lago Verde was formed and now maintains its water level thanks to underground fissures. The green is due to the combination of seaweed and sulfur.
The interior of the volcano is also unique in that its porous rocks are highly susceptible to erosion. Apparently, this is typical of hydro volcanism, where magma meets water. The highest point of the volcano is 157 m above the lake.
I walked the 500m track up to the lookout and there it was the lake in the caldera. See that they had to build a fence to keep people out of the lake LOL. I’m sure the Instagrammers would try to swim in the lake if that fence wasn’t there.
Back on the bus and the next stop was to a Camel Ride experience where you could experience what the early farmers would have had to do to get around – given there wouldn’t have been any roads. Apparently in this area there were “farms” (before they were destroyed by volcanic eruptions) and the only way to get around was by camel.
Looks sort of fun, right? Chistine, Ray and Rhonda said “no way”. I lined up to give it ago and I must have guilted Rhonda (I didn’t mean to), so she said that she would go with me.
I’m having a lovely time with my camel, we’re really bonding, we’re looking into each other’s eyes, he’s going to give us a good ride, right?
It started to go to shit when they put a “seat belt” on us, the guide locked Rhonda’s hand to a handle which hurt like hell (until it was released), then the place where you put your feet were the wrong level and she constantly felt as if she was going to fall off.
Don’t be deceived by this photo, Rhonda definitely didn’t want to be there. By the end of the trip she was pretty much hyperventilating. I think this shot was the only time she smiled!
By now Rhonda is hyperventilating and muttering “get me off, get me off”. I’m trying to find out where Ray and Christine are so I could tell them to get the “boss” to get Rhonda off the bloody camel.
And they are standing there just taking videos, I’m trying to signal “stop photographing and get the “boss” over here to no avail. I swear if Rhonda could have jumped off that poor camel she would have.
We had to give Rhonda some Mercyndol to calm her down, I wasn’t sure she’d ever calm down, I did feel really guilty!
Next stop was the Timanfaya National Park. It’s called Timanfaya as that was the name of one of the villages that was destroyed by the volcano. I was told by Christine’s son Aaron that if you wanted to get into this NP, then you’d have to arrive there around 8am because the queue to get in (the parking is limited), would be very long through the day as you waited for there to be a vacancy in the parking lot. Being in the big-arse bus, we just swanned out way through the gate. We would find out later, that the bus would also take us on an extensive tour through the NP which private vehicles wouldn’t be able to do (bonus thank you Christine, we’re seeing something we wouldn’t have been able to see if we’d driven there).
Some information about the NP. There are 25 volcanoes in the area, ones that have erupted and “red” ones that have a temperature 15m underground of up to 600° (not sure whether F or C but at that temperature, who cares). Apparently from 1730 to 1736, these volcanos were erupting and 172km² of farmland was covered by volcanic debris. Between 1726 and 1730 frequent earthquakes and loud underground rumblings caused the population to panic and seek refuge. The eruption took place on 1 September 1730 and the eruptions continued for 19 days and erupted on and off for the next 6 years. The farmers didn’t return to the area of the eruptions, but did continue farming in those areas that were only impacted by ash – which turned out to be good for some agriculture.
Once we parked we were taken to a viewing spot where it was demonstrated that we were at the top of dormant volcano, but the heat of the earth showed that it was still sort of active about 30m down. The staff person dug up a shovel load of dirt and walked around putting a teaspoon full in our hands so we could see how hot it was.
The NP has a very large interpretive center – this is the view from it. A moon-scape.
Next demonstration was a view of fire coming up from the magna below ground. A staff member poked the hole a few times and up came the flames.
Christine said that once the flames retreated you could see the magna below, but I didn’t get close enough.
(Interpretive Centre in the background). This staff member poured water down a hole to create the geyser – that was pretty specky!
The view from the interpretive centre, see the waves in the distance on the coastline.
After we’d had our fill of the interpretive centre, we boarded the bus for the 14k drive around the NP (as I mentioned private vehicles cannot do this). The road is spectacular – most of the time you cannot see it as you go up and down hills/mountains. This is one of the spots where I’m pretty sure lava was expelled.
A caldera at the top of one of the mountains.
View of the waste-land, much of it impacted by ash.
A view of part of the 14k of road.
Another caldera.
Once we exited the NP, we were taken to a bodega for lunch – as much wine as we could drink and very nice lunch (we wouldn’t need dinner!). Our next stop was Cueva de los Verdes or in English the Green Cave (a lava tube that I was very keen to visit), Christine offered to go through it with me, Rhonda and Ray opted to sit this one out.
The Cueva de los Verdes is part of the largest lava tube in the world. It was formed by the Corona volcano and in the past was used as a refuge from strong storms and pirate attacks (If you go down into the entrance, there is a small passageway that could easily be missed, hence those living in the area would be safe from pirates). Whilst it is almost 1k long, the part of the cave that we visited was about 100m.
This is a show cave and given that Lazerote has a huge tourist population, care has been taken for the visitor experience to be above average.
Just at the bottom of the steps, you can see that the Lampenflora has taken hold (the green on the rocks from light in this case it’s natural light so only to be expected).
The chambers are huge (you can just see the visitors in the bottom of the image). Lava would have flown through this tunnel on numerous occasions and on each occasion would melt some of the old lava, making the rocks smooth.
My camera picked up a lot of lampenflora deep down in the cave.
Parts along the passageway where the lava smoothed out sections.
Very big passageways, the blue light is from “lighting” that has been put into place. In the bottom/middle of the image is a visitor used for scale.
More smooth lava walls.
More wall formations.
More lava and sections where the lava has created a formation as it slowly cooled.
They’ve smoothed out the walkway with cement, and whilst it’s artificial it’s reduced a lot of trip hazards.
Towards the end of one section a large auditorium was created by the artist Jesús Soto. The acoustics of the cave are impressive.
Looking down into another passageway.
And then we came to the pool that the tunnel is famous for. Due to the lighting this pool looks like it is 30m deep, the water is very clear but because of the lighting you can’t see the bottom.
And then the guide threw in a stone, revealing that it’s not deep at all. A staff member pulled the rock out of the pool and it turns out it’s only a few cm deep!
A better view of the tunnel.
Once we got out of the cave, we were then driven over to Jameos del Aqua – another lava tube. This cave is part of the same volcanic complex as the cave of Los Verdes, it stands out for its aerial exposure and the presence of a large natural lake within the cavern itself in which the only species of albino crab in the world is found. The Lanzarote artist César Manrique designed an auditorium inside that takes advantage of the sound of the cave itself and in which a number of concerts and events are held.
This photo taken from the entry and you can easily see the exit. It’s about 60m long and the water is nice and clear but that’s about all I can say for it. It’s had too much non-cave stuff done to it. Was good to see it but wouldn’t recommend it to anyone (who is a caver LOL).
And, that was the end of our first “tour”. We all agreed that it was a great day, we wouldn’t have seen half the stuff if we’d used the car to get around, and we wouldn’t have had a guide like Paul who was an encyclopedia of information – and he shared that information both in Spanish, French and English – I don’t know how he did it.
Big thanks to Christine for the organisation!
NB: the car is still in the driveway!