This is a typical view when you are driving from town to town. There are no high rises, so you have a great view of the ocean from wherever you are.
My three boys are soooooo handsome and getting so tall!!!!
On the island of Lanzorote there are over 1100 types of cactus, I didn't even know that there were that many different types of cactus!!
I found this very interesting, this island is basically a big volcano and there is no grass just the dirt. They build up the rocks around the plants to protect them. They don't have to water them because they take the moisture out of the air and bring it down to the roots. So instead of vines for their wine, they plant it each separate behind these rock walls.
The first place we stopped at was Cesar Manrique's house. He is the most famous person on the island. He had so much dedication and love he was active with the appearance of "his" island. Hardly anyone was connected like him so much with his homeland. It is him, that Lanzarote's natural beauty not in mass tourism sank, but was highlighted by the harmonious combination of art and nature. His idea to make Lanzarote, the most beautiful place on Earth is reflected in all his works.
The boys checking out the tree coming out of the hole.
You can see all the walls are made out of the volcanic rock.
He wanted to show off the beauty of his island and all it had to offer. So he decided to build his house on top of five volcanic bubbles. You see one of them below that has his small swimming pool.
The boys heading down to the "basement" as they call it.
These are the tunnels between the five volcanic bubbles that were mostly naturally made. AJ is about 5'3", so you can tell how tall the tunnels are.
This is one of the living rooms. As you can see he likes to have nature as part of his house. The tree grows up through the hole in the ceiling, but the couches are covered by the rocks.
The boys in front of another sitting room. I think it looks sooooo cool!
This is his outside patio table. I can just imagine nights sitting around with friends talking. There is a dance floor just a little ways away.
David in front of his outdoor BBQ. That is cooking in style.
The boys in front of his swimming pool. As you can see he incorporates nature with everything that he built in his home.
Each room is a little different in the volcanic bubbles, some have more nature than others, but all are beautiful!
This shows how much he built it into nature, there is a window here and the rock continues inside and outside the window. You can see his landscape past that. He was very passionate about making this island the most beautiful place on Earth and wasn't afraid to take on those that wanted to build high rises. He also said that they shouldn't have billboards along the highways and they don't. You can see the beauty of the island instead of all the advertisements.
The boys liked this cactus because it looked so much like a tree!
This is one of the wind chimes that Cesar made.
This was another creation by him. He did so much for the island and tried to keep all the builders out who wanted to build high and fast, not worrying about what it looked like.
Here you can see another town near the water. I am not sure if you noticed, but all the houses are white, another thing that Cesar started. They also have green shutters, fences and doors - all the same color green too.
Here you can see some more farms and how they build up the walls around them to help the plans grow.
Next we headed to Timanfaya National Park, lucky for us the island isn't too big so it only took about 40 minutes to get there.
Michael decided to use the last of his energy to climb up the sand, or little bits of rock.
They had a bus tour that goes around the park, David and I getting ready to do some learning. We were the last ones on the bus so the boys were farther up front. Michael started to feel worse and he slept through most of the tour.
There is 1172 square kilometers of lava for more than 200 years. In a big one from 1724-1730, it was burning for 19 days and lasted for six years. The lava was 800 degrees and killed all life.
Life will always find a way to survive. Now there are over 800 species of animal and plant life in lava rocks now. You can see some of them here.
I love all the colors that are in here in the national park!
Here you can see more of the plant life on the volcano.
Look our gorgeous it is!!!!!
From here you can see the ocean and its waves. It was so peaceful and serene up there.
This is really cool, it is a BBQ from the heat of the volcano. It is heated strictly by the volcano and it is really hot to stand where AJ is.
AJ and Michael taking a little rest on lava rocks.
My boys and me - look at that blue sky!!!
This gentleman put small rocks in the boys' hand. The rocks were so hot that they almost couldn't hold onto them. And he just took it off the top - didn't even dig down to get the hot rocks.
This is pretty cool. This hole is only 2 meters deep, but it is 250 degrees down there. He put some sage brush in the hole.
It was so hot that is caught on fire with nothing down there but the rocks and it was a HOT fire!!!!
This gentleman poured water down a hole that is 10 meters deep. At that depth it is 400 degrees. It took only a few seconds for the water to explode!
After that we headed back to our hotel. On our way we saw quite a few floats. Not sure what they celebrate, but it is a neat float.
This is the wine field of Lanzarote - you see all the rocks that were built up to protect the them.
This is another one of Cesar's wind machines.
David and I hanging out at the hotel.
The boys playing a little ping pong.
Michael really wanted to stay for the show. He really didn't feel good at all, but was stubborn and wanted to stay. So stay we did. AJ didn't want to stay, so he and David went back to the room.
When the show started, it started like this with two guys pretending to play the piano with their parts. Neither Michael nor I were impressed at all. So we decided it wasn't worth our time and we left.
No comments:
Post a Comment