Lanzarote: Island of Fire, Water, Air, and Rabbits

Photo from Haría, el pueblo de diez mil palmeras (10,000 palms)
On Monday I arrived at my last port of call – Lanzarote, just in time to catch España take Honduras in a portside bar in the capital of Arrecife. That night the white-washed city was alive with horns and singing and flying banderas.

Earlier this year Salomé Gonzalez wrote me to ask about what I would do while in Lanzarote, and when I wrote her back in search of contacts she invited me to her home! Tuesday morning I called up Esther Gonzalez, her mother, and lugged my bags to Playa Honda, where I’ll stay until I get settled. In the last two days I’ve received an incredibly warm welcome!

Last night was El Noche de San Juan, and I joined Salomé's brother Xavier and his girlfriend Maite to attend a party on the coast of Teguise. We barbecued and danced salsa and bachata until the moon vanished and light began to leak through the clouds. In tradition, everyone wore white, and gathered round a hoguera, or bonfire, to celebrate. At midnight, people swam in the sea to rinse away any bitterness or sorrows!

Lanzarote may be the last leg of my solo sojourn, but in many ways I feel like I’m coming full circle. I’ve come to believe that stories don’t have beginnings or ends – but fall in chains, waves, and circles, propped up by history and legend.

In highschool, one of my favorite history teachers used to tease me that I was the only student whose mother had immigrated on her own vessel to the United States. After they were married in Scotland, my parents sailed through the Mediterranean before crossing the Atlantic and making their way up Central America and the Caribbean to settle in Maine. Before the transatlantic, they cast off from the Canaries, a chain of volcanic islands west of North Africa.

In Greek mythology the Canaries were thought to be the Hesperides, or Fortunate Isles, where the goddess Hera kept an orchard of golden apples that when eaten, promised immortality.

Lanzarote is the Eastern-most island of the Canaries. Before the Genoese sailor, Lanceloto Malocello, arrived in 1312, the people of Lanzarote were mainly of Berber descent. Known as mahos, they arrived from North Africa’s Maghrib around 500 AC.

The island was called: Tetergaget, meaning “la que está quemada” (that which is burned), or “Montaña Colorada” (Colored Mountain). Its an extreme landscape - dark, volcanic sands, ashy peaks, and crystal blue sky.

The indigenous population dwindled after the arrival of Europeans – many taken away as slaves. Today, the conejeros (coming from Rabbit, the name for people from Lanzarote) have Spanish and indigenous roots.

These days the Canaries are a popular European tourist destination, their coasts laced with strings of hotels and picnic umbrellas. Lanzarote, however, stands apart from its siblings. Among other influences, this is largely do to the work of one painter, sculptor, artist, architect, ecologist, urban planer - Cesar Manrique.

(Photo from Cesar Manrique's home)

Born in Arrecife in 1919, Manrique visited New York in the 1960s, where he stayed with a Cuban painter on the Lower East side. In a letter to a friend back home, Pepe Dámaso, he wrote:

"…more than ever I feel true nostalgia for the real meaning of things. For the pureness of the people. For the bareness of my landscape, and for my friends… My last conclusion is that MAN in N.Y. is like a rat. Man was not created for this artificiality. There is an imperative need to go back to the soil. Feel it, smell it. That's what I feel." (cesarmanrique.com)

He returned to Lanzarote with a desire to protect that which was beautiful.

Lanzarote has a history of being ahead of the curve. In 1965, the island opened the first desalination plant in all of Europe. Today, largely due to Manrique, nearly all of the buildings are painted white – as were the traditional dwellings (to reflect the sun and keep the buildings cool).

There are few skyscrapers, and much of the architecture draws on natural elements – the folds of lava from the 1730s volcano eruption, the natural acoustics of la Cueva Verde, where early inhabitants used to hide from rogue Berber and british pirates (Walter Raleigh attacked Arrecife in 1617 in his search for gold).

After Manrique’s death in a tragic car accident in 1992, his legacy continued. In 1993, Lanzarote established a Bisophere Reserve over 42 % of the island with UNESCO.

I’m here for a short time, but I hope to investigate and conduct interviews to see if that spirit preservation and change still exists – how it has changed, and how Lanzarote and los conejeros continue to evolve.