Monday 7 April 2014

Lanzarote, part six- Orzola and the volcanic beaches.


PART SIX.


If you want to see a panorama video of the Mirador del Rio, click HERE

After Mirador del Rio, we took an unplanned turn-off to a place called Orzola. The road down to it went past these fields of black, volcanic ‘soil’. There didn’t seem to be anything planted in them, but SURELY they must grow stuff here?

They look too tilled to be just fields.

We could see colouration of plants in other fields nearby.

The most impressive thing were these ‘bombs’. HUGE chunks of rock that had obviously been blasted out of the erupting volcano nearby, to land in the surrounding countryside.

It reminded us of the sheer power of nature.
The farmers just treated them as roundabouts!

 The winding road eventually reached the harbour (or is it a small port?) of Orzola.
There had obviously been money spent here, and there were cafes (VERY expensive) and a couple of shops, but we seemed to be the only ones about.

Isla Graciosa & Isla de Alegranza.
Click on the picture for a larger version.

This tiny lump of rock just juts out of the ocean.
It’s called Roque del ‘este (rock in the east).
It is less than one square kilometre, and 84 metres at its highest.

You wouldn’t want to get shipwrecked here – this is what it looks like on Google earth.

The ferry, making its way to Orzola from Isla Graciosa.

The surrounding coastline looks vicious and barren here, almost as if this was the newest part of the island.

The docked ferry in the tiny port.


Waves were breaking on the ‘reef’, which is man-made.
It certainly does the job!

Ships that pass in the........DAY!

We left Orzola to explore the local coastline more.
Amongst all the black was this flash of greenery.


A hard life indeed amongst the lava.

We managed to find a sandy ‘beach’ to walk on, so pulled over, parked up and went to explore.

The rocks on the foreshore are like razors. Although I was wearing sandals, I managed to sustain a very nasty cut to my big toe, but didn’t feel a thing when I did it. It was only when I noticed the blood flowing when we got back in the car!

I bet the snorkelling here is good.

 A heron was fishing in the rock pools.

And, to our amazement, a curlew was here too!

Sue, picking her way carefully (which I should have done).

LOVING it!

A random bit of rock-balancing (not by us).

The sun was blazing through the cloud - time to head back.

More Manrique brilliance on the way back.


This sculpture set us up for tomorrow, as we intended to go to the Manrique foundation, which still carries on his good work and tries to influence good practice on development on Lanzarote.



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