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I actually wrote this entire entry yesterday, but it took so long that I was logged out and I lost it all. So now I'm going to do it again, I want some sort of written recollection of the holiday (I should really start a proper diary)
I came back from our week's holiday yesterday, (very) early monday morning. Back from a lovely sunny holiday, and we were greeted by rain. Typical.
And now to re-live every day....
Sunday: We arrived on sunday, but we landed around 22:00 I think, so we just went to our appartment and settled down.
Monday: We walked down to the promenade, stopping in on Valerie's appartment on the way to see if anyone was there.
There was, valerie and her husband called stuart. Valerie used to work at my mum's surgery, and she lets people use her appartment to holiday in. They said they would take us on a tour of some sort on wednesday.
We got to the promenade, then we walked along the promenade. Mum looked out for crocs and a bikini, I looked for a Lanzarote towel. Mum found some crocs, some for mee too, but no bikini. So she just wore her old one during the holiday. I found a Lanzarote towel.
We had a salad and potatoes with mojo sauce for lunch, we really liked the sauce. We ended up buying some from the shop at some point.
I paddled in the sea a bit, then we walked back home.
Tuesday: We went to a beach called.....playa jabillo. Yes. It was sheltered a bit, there was this....sort of horse-shoe shaped rock....formation thing. So the sea was very calm. When you swam in it, you could see lots of different fish. I chased them &D
Oh yeah, we bought some flippers. There is a diving "centre" (it was a small thing) on the promenade at the top of the beach, and we bought flippers, and organised a scuba diving taster for me. It was in a pool of the hotel adjacent to the diving place. After doing the taster, we arranged a scuba diving session for thursday.
Back on the beach, I swam in the sea and lay in the sun. It was so lovely and warm, but I got burned! I felt silly. My mum said she thought about telling me, but she always fusses and I'm always fine. The one time, the one time.
Wednesday: On this day we had a tour. They drove around, and we went to Cesar Manrique's house which is now a museum thing. Cesar was an artist who also did conservation work to stop Lanzarote being ruined and made al touristy. He's built loads of wind toy sculpture things aound the island, I videoed them. His house was really stark, all painted white. Some of it is underground. It's built in volcanic bubbles.
Then we went to ...jameos...del....agua, I think it was called. Which is one of the two caves. It wasn't really a cave, one of these volcanic holes again. But it was very nice, nice and tranquil. Stuart bought me a freshly squeezed orange juice from the bar restaurant thing and it was delicious :D Anyway, these caves are home to the small blind white crabs which are exclusive to the island.
Then it was over to the over cave...er, "cave verde" I think. This one was a proper cave. It was a volcanic lava tube. There were lots of amazing patterns in the rock. At one point, the slightly annoying guide told us that "there is a really good echo here, so please for your benefit, please stay quiet, stay silent and please, no flash photos, don't take flash photos please, for your benefit, please, you will listen to this echo". Then he lead us to this massive cavern and told someone to throw a stone in. Splash! Yes, the cavern was actually a reflection in a glassy lake. That explains the symmetry.....I thought "no flash photos" was a bit absurd.
In the evening mum and I dressed up in the evening for the meal out, which we always do on holiday. We walked and walked to try and find a restaurant to eat in. In the end we came to the restaurant that we had salad and potatoes and we ate there because it was getting too late. We had potatoes again and a different salad which were nice, but then we were full with risotto and nachos still to come. They weren't even nice, we didn't finish and we didn't have dessert. It was disappointing :<
Thursday: The original plan was for me to go scuba diving, but I thought my skin wasn't quite ready so we reschedueled for saturday. Instead, we went to the capital, Arrecife.
We went on the bus, and we got to a stop in arrecife which looked nice and I said "this stop looks nice" and then "we could get off here"
but mum said our stop was at the bus station. We waited, the bus drove off. Eventually the bus got out of the ity and onto the motorway again, we missed arrecife.
So we had to wait until the end of the line, get off the bus, wait on the other side of the road for a few minutes until the bus drove over from the other side of the road to pick us up. Then we drove back and got off at the nice stop.
It was so windy, we weren't even on the beach and yet we still got sandblasted. We walked around, along the beach and looked in various shops, forts etc. Then we ventured into the main shop-bit. I said we should find somewhere that serves nice ice cream sundaes. Eventually we stopped in a cafe and both got sundaes. They were DELICIOUS. And compentsated for the meal the night before.
Darkness fell and we went back to the bus stop to go back home.
Friday: We went our again with stuart and valerie. They aked about my scuba diving, and I explained I hadn't been yet sweatdrop
First we went to Timanfaya National Volcanic Park. It was VERY windy up there, sometimes I felt quite precarious. We had to wait for a coach in a big line, but first we looked at some hay being set on fire in a...vent, I guess. And we picked up the hot butning stoned off the ground, and quicky put them back XD There was also sardines and little chickens/birds roasting over a vent. It was really hot, if your just leaned towards it you could feel the heat strongly on your face.
We got on the coach, and it drove around the site. You're not allowed to walk around, they want to preserve it. And you can't trust tourists not to stray off the paths onto the razor sharp rocks. The scenery was amazing, beautiful. It was like an alien landscape. In fact, I think they filmed a planet of the apes film there. They even trained the astronauts there for the moon landing XD
We finished the coach tour and ate food at the food place. The floor was warm, warmed by the volcanic heat and I liked it. I didn't like my food though. I got a salad, but changed my mind so mum had it.
Then we drove around and saw a camel train and we went to have a look. I was going to go on with mum, but it looked a bit windy. The camels were having trouble staying up. When mum and val went to the toilet, a load of dust and stones blew over the hill and pummeled the car. We spoke to the camel people and they said it was too windy. I was kind of relieved.
We drove some more and got to El Golfo where there is a GREEN lake and the volcanic beach was littered with peritdot! Which my mum really likes, so we collected some. I went paddling in the sea.
Then we went to another beach and got drinks from a cabana bar thing. And mum and I both got another sundae! I took lots of pictures of a mangy and fairly tame pigeon.
We drove back home.
Saturday: Scuba diving today! We went down to the beach, it was so windy that the waves were coming in over the rocks. It was a completely different experience to the tranquil bay we first visited. The waves swelled up and made high walls of water right at the shore. I had lots of fun swimming in the waves. I went right out, then I got scared of the rocks (rocks in the sea scare me. Especially when there is a risk that I will be smashed against them) so I decied to swim back.
It was way too lively to do the diving there so, when the time came, the diving people drove up to another beach in the south. Puerto del Carmen? Possible. "Carmen" was in there somewhere. Anyway, it was much calmer. I got into my wet suit, I felt like a penguin. Then all the equipment which was SO heavy. I almost fell over when they were ragging me about because they were tightening all the straps.
It was so good in the sea. I saw black fish and colourful fish, tiny fish and schoals of big fish and wierd fish that hang around on the bed. Mum bought me a waterproof disposable camera and the instructor took lots of photos of me holding this and that: and urchin, a starfish (only 4 legs) a.....sea cucumber I think it was and this big wierd soft pink frilly thing.
When we got back to the complex, mum talked to some random people like she sometimes did. We talked to a man, and he had been out to sea on this day. A big cave just washed him out to sea. The had to get the rescue team to save him an' all! He only scraped his legs though, which was lucky.
Sunday: The last day. We were supposed to be out of our room by 11:00, we got out at 12:00-ish I think. Then we hung around the pool. I sat in the sun, swam in the pool, ate ice cream, sat in the sun again. We had chips in the bar for dinner C: We ate the last of our mojo sauce with them.
The coach to take us to teh airport came at 19:30. When we got there I kept our place in the check in line, whilst mum weighed our cases and sorted them out (they charged 1 euro for each time you used the scales at our place so we didn't use them). The people behind me in line weren't very nice. They were making fun of mum, all joining in and laughing. I felt like turning around and saying coolly "that's my mum your talking about" but I don't have the guts to do something like THAT so I thought I'd just let them squirm when my mum inevitably came over.
And they did. My mum came over to them, was chatty and offered to help them out with some thing or other. They looked awkward.
Then a rep cam and said to us "you can come to the priority check in, because you've got a baby" so we went over and the people behind us followed -_- They were discovered and were told that they weren't allowed to check in here, and the father started trying to justify to the rep, and himself, that it wasn't his fault he came into the queue. In fact, he did that as he followed us. "He said 'you', and pointed to us lot right? Yeah, he just told us all to come over here". His face dropped slightly when he realised they might have to go aaaaall the way to the back of the other queue, which completely ruined their plan of beating the system and checking in 5 mins earlier. "I was just doin' what you told me to do, I was just followin' orders. Where do I go then? Do we go back to where we were before? I can't go right to the back, we've already been waitin' for......three quarters of an hour!" We'd actually only been here for about 10 mins. The rep said they could use priority check in, after the girl in a wheelchair and her family had checked in. "oh yeah, of course. That's fine, of course, after them". Hmph. Trying to act gracious. He was just relieved that they didn't go to the back of the queue.
The in-flight entertainment was "confessions of a shopaholic" so I watched that. It wasn't as good as the books. The characters weren't as funny.
And then we're back to the beginning, landing in the rain.
*sigh* I still miss my holiday. Even though it's thursday friday now. I feel sad writing about it now, why do I have to be such a misery? stare
I liked getting up in the morning, getting fresh bread from the shop, going off on a nice outing then coming back at night and having my math whilt mum cooked pasta for dinner. Now I'm back I just laze around all day.
The holiday just felt too quick. I thought we should got for ten days, even 2 weeks. Mum agrees with me now, and says she's very sorry we didn't go for 2 weeks. She's sad too. What a pair we make.
 Lady-Shiro · Tue Jul 07, 2009 @ 10:43pm · 0 Comments |
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