Having each paid our € 5 entry we entered a quiet and stunningly beautiful world where, it seemed, everyone wanted to talk in whispers such was its impact. Pat had read about this place as worth a visit and although neither of us have any great knowledge or love of cacti it was worth a stop. I was thinking about this when we pulled up outside the Cactus Garden – the Jardin de Cactus – in the north east of the island. It would have been so easy for Lanzarote to jump on the same band wagon and sell itself on Hollywood’s glitter. Marlon Brando’s gloomy face peered out from every shop window and every street corner (see blog “Footprints of the Past”). I don’t know if that is true but certainly put these two things together and it would have been so easy for some tourist entrepreneur to have had a space theme park built and for shops to be filled with space memorabilia! When we visited Sicily last year, the Sicilians and the island’s economy seemed completely based upon Hollywood mafia legend Don Corleone. There is also a belief that Lanzarote might have been used in the Star Wars films. She will tell you that the lunar space buggies were tested here – the terrain was judged to be similar to that experienced in the moon’s surface. When one climbs aboard the bus to transport you from the airport to the hotel the guide will at some point remind you that this tiny island does have a claim to fame in the modern world. Absolutely right.Īnd yet, it would have been so easy for things to have been different. Indeed, as we drove across the island one day, we came across a great sculpture – constructed as a homage to the farmers who work the land. But equally, everywhere one goes you can see the results of hard work by those who work the land. Everywhere one goes one feels that farmers must have to work hard to coax anything from the ground – the burning sun, the low rainfall and the rocky and barren landscape must make the task very difficult. For much of the island grass is at a premium but when one comes, for example, to a traffic island, although the ground might be grey volcanic “dust” the carefully painted white edging to the island and the display of colourful cacti make it a real “garden”. Having said that there is a desolate beauty in its bleakness and each time we go I am amazed that islanders have created a life for themselves in this potential wilderness. Lanzarote – like all the Canary islands - is volcanic.
0 kommentar(er)
