It is perhaps a bit unusual that I had been coming to Lanzarote for 10 years before I finally took the tour of Timanfaya National Park, and for many tourists it is probably one of the first places that they take an excursion to.

But for whatever reason, I had only driven past the entrance until now, which does not mean that I had not seen photos and films of what to expect.

The day of our visit must have been a popular choice, because the cars were queued back onto the road (LZ-67) when we arrived. An efficient member of staff was going along the queue, handing out leaflets and enquiring as to the number and age of people in the car. This allowed him to have our tickets ready for us by the time we reached the front of the queue.

But the queuing was not over here. We then had to wait on the next piece of road to continue up to the car park.

At the car park there were at least three people directing the traffic and making sure that everyone found a parking space as soon as possible. Once we stepped out of the car, one of them immediately asked us which language we spoke and directed us to one of the faded orange coaches that was going to take us around the park. (more…)

On my last visit to Lanzarote I discovered a book called “Cuando ardieron los Volcanes”, or “When the Volcanoes spewed Fire” as it is called in English.

Published on the island itself, it is only a small book – 32 pages long and available in Spanish, English and German.

It contains the notes written by one Don Andrés Lorenzo Curbelo who was a priest on Lanzarote during the volcanic eruptions between 1730 and 1736.

His chronicle includes details of where on the island volcanoes were erupting and when, along with other seismic events and even which direction the lava was flowing and the villages that it had reached.  Later he also talks about how the inhabitants took shelter on Gran Canaria.

The book contains some stunning aerial photos of Lanzarote’s volcanoes, but also drawings of the island made to document the volcanic eruptions.  These not only bring home the scale of the disaster, but are also of interest to linguists.  In 1730 the island’s name was spelt “Lansarote” and one of the volcanoes was called “Chimanfaya”.

I have been unable to find the book on Amazon, but I did find a website on Tenerife listing the Spanish and English editions – albeit currently out of stock.  I picked up my copy for 5EUR at the Librería España in Arrecife.

ISBN Numbers
Spanish: 978-84-89023-29-1
English: 978-84-89023-30-7
German: 978-84-89023-31-4

It took me three visits to Lanzarote before I got on a camel. In fact, it was my daughter that really wanted to ride on one, having seen them on our previous holiday and being, in our opinion, too young then.

So this time we returned to the camels in Timanfaya and were surprised to see so many of them there. The reason was obvious: a number of coach tours were going on the same day, so extra camels had been laid on.

We headed to an area away from the buses and were duly assigned to our camels. The price was 12EUR per camel, with each camel able to take two people.

Camels at Timanfaya

The trip up the side of the mountain and back down again took a little over 15 minutes. There are fairly new facilities built under the lava with toilets, a bar and a gift shop.

We thoroughly enjoyed the ride, and I was also interested to read in a local publication (pp.32-33) that the camels are not only well looked after, but that their working hours are also strictly limited.