Last year was the first time that we had been to the Canary Islands, since then we went back to Tenerife in March and just got back yesterday from another Canary Island, Lanzarote. The Canary Islands are off the cost of Africa, the language here though is Spanish and they have the currency of Peseta. Well here goes, last night we got back from a week in Lanzarote. I booked the apartment off the internet (op to follow) and the flight with the travel agent. Altogether it cost £550 for the two of us, it saved about £100 compared to the travel agent. We flew from Manchester with Britannia airways and it took just less than four hours to get there. We had a delay of about 30/40 minutes.
When we got to Arrecife, Lanzarotes aiport, we got a taxi to our accomodation, this only cost us £6.00. We were staying in Puerto del Carmen along the south coast, it is only about 10 minutes from the airport. There were plenty of taxis waiting and the drivers were very helpful in helping you to carry your luggage. Our apartment was in the quiter side of Puerto del Carmen, overlooking the Los Pocillos beach. There was just another block of apartments in the way of what could have been a fantastic view of the sea. If you went onto our balcony you could see part of the beach and the sea, it was very nice. Across the road was a little shopping arcade, here there were two chinese restaurants, quite a few english bars, a souvenir shop and supermarket and even an exotic dancers club!! Just around the corner was the beginning of the Avenida de las Playas, this mentioned in my little travel book that it was a pedestrianised place. Well I just called it a long road with loads of bars/restaurants alongside it. Even cars could go up and down it, to me it was just like Blackpool but cleaner. There were hundreds of bars/restaurants to cater for every taste. We liked one called Way West, it was done up to look like a saloon cowboy bar, even the waiters had on checked shirts.
The menu was very extensive, you had about a choice of 15 starters, loads of different types of soups, salads, there was chicken done in every possible way, steaks, burgers, fish, even a childrens menu. We had a starter each, then the main dinner, I had half a litre of Champagne Sangria and my husband had three beers. They then gave us chocolate cake and half a carafe of wine on the house. To top it all we got compimentary Honey wine in shot glasses. When they brought the bill it came in a little wooden box with the words ’’Bank’’ on the side. It sure was a novelty. I’ve never seen a menu with so much choice, the waiters were very friendly and you could sit outdoors on the verandah overlooking the sea. It cost us about £16.oo for the two of us including drinks.
Harleys Rock bar was another place we frequented, this was similar to a Hard Rock cafe, here you could have a meal, we got two for the price of one this week. We also turned up when it was Happy Hour by accident, we also got two drinks for the price of one. Beware though, the drinks are still quite expensive. There was a decent selection of massive cocktails for less than £4.00, these were good value. Every night there was a band on called Question, at first we enjoyed it, but after three or four nights they started getting too repetitive with their music. They played soft rock, i.e Bryan Adams, Bon Jovi stuff, they were quite good. If you like the typical british bar, there are plenty of them, they serve cheap food, watch out the portions are enormous, there is also Karaoke, live bands, Charlies bar was another great place for live music. There are a number of scottish/irish bars, plenty of Pizza places, Lanis restaurants are a chain of about 8 and they look great. We didn’t go in one as they are very busy, we prefer to eat in a smaller place. Lanis had a lovely restaurant where you could have chicken, steaks fish etc, but they also did Indian food in the same place. They cooked the food on a large grill where you could see it. There were some many places to eat and so many places to have a drink, there were loads of cocktail bars, some with very extensive lists of cocktails. There were a few discos, but we didn’t bother with them.
We did a spot of sunbathing on the second day and because it was very windy didn’t realise the strength of the sun. It was hot but because of the wind felt cool, if you know what I mean Harry. I applied my usual factor 15 and stayed out for only two hours. By the end of the day I come to have a bath and I was covered in red burns. It ruined my holiday, I spent the rest of my time there walking round like a crab, it was and still is painful. I tried the usual aftersun, natural yoghurt. My friend has told me to try Simple bubble bath along with a few drops of Lavender in the bath to heal my skin. We did hire a car though, we only did this because it was too windy to sunbathe, the sand got in all the crevices possible, all week I had sand in the bed, ears, nose etc. The car we got was a little Daewoo, it was less than a 1, 000 cc engine, it struggled going up hill, especially that it was too windy. It cost us £52 originally for three days. The company was called Payless, more like Paymore. They advertise cars starting at £5 a day, then they stick tax on top and insurance, in the end you pay about £12. We asked for the cheapest car and we was told there were none available, we ended up with the Daewoo. In the end we extended the car hire for another three days for another £52, they wouldn’t give us a discount. We only did this because there was nothing else to do.
We went to Costa Teguise on the North east, this is known as ’’Tegeezy’’ to rhyme with ’’Breezy’’ more like Gale force winds. This was just another purpose built resort, with nothing more than a few beaches, tacky souvenir shops and a quite a few bars/restaurants. Further inland is the town Teguise which people get mixed up with, this is where the sunday market is, we missed this as it’s only on a sunday, this is the day we got there, and the day we left. Apparently it’s a good market with lots of bargains. We also went to Playa Blanca in the south, all these resorts take about 20 minutes at the most from Puerto del carmen . Playa Blanca is a good place for windsurfers, kites etc (Joke). There were only a few shops, these were closed because we went during siesta time. We did have a drink and a snack olong the promenade, this was very nice and peaceful.
I don’t know if June is still out of season but everywhere we went, there wasn’t so many people out during the day. Most of the beaches you had to yourself, but then again maybe that was because it was extra windy. Locals told me it wasn’t normally that windy. The good thing was I didn’t see any mosquitoes or many cockroaches or even time shares ha ha, they probably had got blown away. We visited Timanfaya, the fire mountains. I suppose this was worth a visit, if you like that sort of thing, really it was eerie, where a bus took us on a 14 kilometre tour on the most narrowest roads ever. The coach seemd wider than the roads, this trip cost 1.100 pesastas each, this is about just under a fiver each. We went in the car, then to visit the attraction a man sells you a ticket which includes a tour on the bus. But it is very windy, which I did not like much.