The land of fire and wind
On the surface, the landscape of Lanzarote in June has an air of bleakness. The volcanoes, dramatic as they are at first sight, look barren by the third day. The empty highway looked so pristine that I thought the tarmac was newly laid. In front of my hotel there's a farm covered with dark volcanic soil, devoid of greenery except a desultory palm tree and a few lemon saplings. Miles of hardened lava fields, ragged and jagged like open wounds. The arid climate preserves its unruly terrain. They call it malpaís, a badass of landform too wild for farming.
I arrived to the island at the most inconvenient time at work. It happened that my long-planned getaway in Lanzarote fell into the same week to launch the project I’ve been working on. Feeling half burnt out, and guilt ridden to delegate even more work to my team, I paid little attention to my surroundings on the first day. Sure, the white villa with sprawling bougainvillea looked pretty and exotic, but it was too quiet. It was the silence of walking along a traffic-free road, the non-existence of nightlife outside the touristy areas, the inexplicable listlessness of a disintegrating brick shed on a vacant lot. The island’s quietness could be disquieting for someone simply looking for a sunny Spanish weekend.
I was, indeed, looking for a sunny holiday. I needed a break from the tiring business of living in London. I had enough of jostling in the tube, shopping at Tesco, trying to small talk with my quick witted colleagues, keeping up with outrageous and tragic news about the state of the world, and still wearing two pairs of socks to warm my feet in early April.
I was fed up with steeling myself for another week to maintain the façade of streamlined productivity. I needed peace, silence and solitude, to surround myself with nature, spend my afternoons with a book and doze off. But when it finally happened, I couldn’t tear myself away from the unfinished work.
It wasn't until the afternoon on the second day, after I was done with emails, turned off my laptop and silenced Outlook on my phone, that I could leave London behind, and became attuned to the austere beauty of this wild rock.
Having lived in Barcelona for some time, I found the vibe of Lanzarote strikingly different from mainland Spain. The Lanzaroteños don't talk much to tourists. They seem to be a bunch of contented islanders, uninterested in the self-important concerns of city dwellers. I haven’t got a chance to talk at length to any locals. Nonetheless I felt their warmth and sincerity from their unaffected manners. I suppose it’s a no-nonsense life being constantly reminded of the elemental force. The northeasterly trade wind blows all year around. In summer it gets as strong as 40+ km/h, coating everything outdoor with a layer of fine, reddish dust from the Sahara. The wild gust and blazing heat might be exotic wonder for the European sunseekers and surfers, but for the islanders, it’s a parched and windswept island, a tough land to farm on, a rough sea to set sail.
There is beauty in how they forge a modest way of life within a harsh environment. Unintended beauty emerged as a response to nature’s challenge, most notably in the elegant simplicity of their farmhouses. The houses are painted in white to reflect the scorching sunlight, which makes a stunning contrast with the charcoal black volcanic rock. The wooden window frames are commonly in green, simply because in the past the fishermen painted their windows with the leftover green paint for their fishing boats.
None of the rustic charm of Lanzarote we see today would be so well-preserved if it wasn’t for César Manrique, the architect-in-chief, the nonconformist artist, the indefatigable campaigner, the modern-day patron saint of Lanzarote. A quick read on the wikipedia page of ‘César Manrique’ would give you a fascinating account of this exceptional Lanzarotean than I could ever sum up here. But I’d try to tell some of his greatest influences to the island in my own meandering way.
(To be continued)