Where are we? In a place called Puerto Calero on the south eastern area of the island. If there was an original settlement here it’s been swallowed up by a shiny new marina with restaurants, shops, apartments and gin palaces as well as slightly more modest vessels. Our place was located a short walk away.
You walk in to a small hallway which opens on to a large lounge diner. Off to the left is the little kitchen and a small enclosed courtyard. Full width sliding doors open onto a covered patio, stepping down from which is a larger patio and the little pool. Beyond the end of the patio is a private walkway and beyond that is the sea – it’s that close, and absolutely wonderful.
A wooden staircase takes you both up and down. Below the lounge is a bedroom with ensuite, this one is a little dark as it’s only natural light is through a skylight set into the patio. Upstairs are two further bedrooms. One at the back with a tiny balcony and the main one at the front, with a full length balcony that overlooks the pool and of course the sea. It’s heaven and honestly, the pictures on the website where I booked it do not do it justice. It’s fantastic.
Having arrived fairly late we didn’t do much on the first night – a little excursion to pick up some essentials – bread, cheese & wine – unpack, and then bed.
The weather forecast for the next morning was spot on, a bit of sun but largely cloudy with a northerly breeze. So, with morning ablutions and re-fuelling completed we fired up Penelope and headed back to the main road and south.
Lanzarote isn't very big – in fact at about 36 miles in length and only 12 miles wide you could drive around it in a day. We were going to have a look at the southern end first though.
First up was the town of Yaiza. A pleasant enough place but of little interest to tourists other than a crossroads. We stopped first right at the southern tip – at Playa Blanca – a popular tourist resort with regular ferries making the 25 minute crossing to the northern tip of Fuerteventura and larger and better beaches.
We headed back north, stopping off at the salt pans and marvelling at the landscape. With over 300 volcanoes active at one time or another as you can imagine there is a lot of lava about. One can only imagine the noise and the heat when the volcanoes were giving off all those years ago. It makes for a very dramatic landscape. Further up was the little village of El Golfo. Largely untouched by developers it is a pleasant little place with just one hotel but a number of apparently excellent fish restaurants dotted about. Like many places here the beach is black, for obvious reasons. We headed back, dodging the large groups of German lycrists at various points on the way. Our final stop off was Playa Quemada, the next settlement just down the coast. Again, largely untouched by development, just a number of the little ‘sugar cube’ style whitewashed houses that are prevalent on Lanzarote. There was also what appeared to be a pik-, sorry, travellers site here though most of the caravans clearly hadn’t moved for a while.
A beer, snack and a dip in the pool followed, then a nice meal at one of the restaurants in the marina brought a close to a very enjoyable day.
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