Lanzarote = A Brit's Paradise

As promised, here are the photos from the Lanzarote portion of my spring break!

This is our small balcony that overlooked the ocean!






















Our pool! There were snot-nosed little Brit kids screaming and playing there All. Day. Long. but it was still a good place to tan alongside the topless mothers and leather-skinned tan fathers.






















Our kitchen! We made some incredible meals there... It was good to be able to cook what (and how much) I want!






















Our living room - probably within the first 10 minutes of our arrival because it certainly wasn't this clean the rest of the time.






















Sarah and my bedroom! Guess which bed is mine...






















Day #2's delicious salad lunch! We got really crafty with our salads over the week. I believe in this one we had tuna, tomatoes, cooked potatoes and carrots, and green olives!






















Alex completely covered in sand from all of the sunscreen we caked on ourselves before heading to the beach to avoid being burned. And we didn't have any towels (we thought the hotel would supply them and, let's be honest, we didn't have room in our suitcases) so we had to lie in the sand and get all icky.






















These are the lawn chairs that we could've used - if we wanted to pay 4 EU each. No thanks.






















The wonderful pasta sauce that we made! It had onions, potato, and carrots in it. Mmm! Mmm!






















The view from our balcony. All of the buildings in Lanzarote are white and under 3 stories tall by law (or you can pay triple the taxes). It was a very quaint town, but definitely hard to navigate because everything looked the same!






















Julie's camel friend! He/she kept nudging us as we walked along.






















Sarah and Alex riding their camel! It tried to bite Alex when they sat down on the seats without the trainer being their to help them. Apparently camels are very temperamental because they won't carry anyone with perfume on them either and they get really mad at them.






















Me riding our camel! I got to drive it as well because our trainer gave me the lead rope! Okay, so I didn't actually really do anything because our camel just followed Sarah and Alex's around, but I like to think that I played an integral part.






















All of the camels waiting for their turn to carry people. The Canary Islands have strict laws protecting the camels so they're not overworked. They're only allowed to work a total of 5 hours or carry 6 "loads" of people in one day. After either of these limits is met, they're walked back to their stables and allowed to rest until the next day. The average work day totals to about 10-15 miles of walking, when they're actually capable of walking 25-30 in the Sahara, so I'd say that they've got it pretty good here on the island.






















Our nudging camel friend again. He/she made funny noises when we walked up a hill.






















Julie and me riding our camel!






















Other camel caravans above us on the hill.



























The entrance sign to the national park and the symbol. It's a little devil because the inhabitants of the island believed that the 4 years of intense volcanic activity (back in the 1700s) was brought on by a devil.


























Artificial geysers at the restaurant that we visited that heats all of their food from thermal cracks in the ground over the volcanic activity below. They shot a loud spray of water out of them!


























Preserved blue and red volcanic lava. Usually it turns a boring brown color when exposed to the elements, but this lava was buried underground for awhile.






















Ever wondered what the inside of a volcano looks like? Here you go! This is the inside of a volcano that was blown open by an explosion.






















The volcano that was the epicenter of all of the explosions during those long four years. Over 12 towns were buried under 30-90 feet of lava.






















An example of the agriculture here (in this case a vineyard). The pits are dug into the volcanic ash to reach the super-rich soil below and the small walls serve to protect the plants from wind.