Hola

Our weather remains a little strange at the moment. Normally the trade winds have long gone by this time of year, but they’ve persisted this week. We have seen a drop in the overnight temperature, though, which brings us a morning dew which I love. There’s a wonderful freshness to air at dawn, and you can see the plants perk up as the picón draws the moisture down into the soil. The volcanic ash does an amazing job for us here. As just one example, grape vines need at least 300mm of rainfall a year to survive, and we get around a third of that. If our vines were simply planted in the soil, they would die, but because they have a layer of picón over them, enough moisture is drawn into the soil with the changing temperatures overnight. There’s something slightly magical about it.

I’ve heard a couple of stories this week about tourists walking out of restaurants without paying. Of course, it’s a despicable practice, but I desperately hope this sort of thing doesn’t keep on happening. Most businesses here, including our own, operate on trust. When someone books a hire car with me, I don’t ask for credit card details or a deposit. I just trust they’re going to turn up, pay for, and collect their car. Most of the time it works, but we have had situations where people have simply not shown up, or cancelled on the same day, when the car has already been prepared and sent to the airport. Some of the car hire companies are talking about introducing a deposit system, but I hope that doesn’t have to happen. And I would hate it if bars here started asking me to pay for each round of drinks, or restaurants went down the credit card swipe system so prevalent in other countries.

We’re moving in to the growing season here now, and everywhere I’ve travelled on the island this week, I’ve seen people in the fields planting, weeding, trimming and generally tending to their fields. The vast majority of fincas here are tiny – basically a small plot of land, always with an almacen, or storage room, on it. They’re usually beautifully looked after with a good mixture of fruit, olive and fig trees, with perhaps some aloe vera and rows of onions, potatoes and tomato plants. As well as being a source of food, and perhaps a little income for the families that own them, they also become an important part of their social lives. At the weekend, you’ll often see the whole extended family at the finca, and they will do some work in the morning, before cooking up a big paella or barbecuing some fish, and they will sit around with drinks, sharing their news. Have a look at the almacenes as you drive past, and you’ll see many of them are almost houses, with patios, pergolas, barbecue areas and even TV aerials.

A few readers have asked me if we’re doing our Lanzarote Information calendar for 2025, and the answer is yes, of course. We’ve already started loading our best images of the year into a shared folder, and next week we’ve set aside some time and wine to go through each and choose the final thirteen. We’ll then send them to the printers and once the final design all looks good, I’ll let you know where you can order them for delivery to your home.


What we’ve been doing

I had a huge wedding last Saturday in Playa Blanca – 135 people, who had flown in from all over the world. Ceremonies have a different feel when they’re so large. I don’t have a preference either way, but with a small group I can be much more personal and relaxed, and with the larger ones, it’s more a little formal. Of all the nationalities we do weddings here for, I think the Irish are the best dressed – sharp suits, gorgeous shoes and some truly stunning dresses.

Our friends at Wine Tours Lanzarote asked us to go along to their first ever “Wine Experience” tour. This is a completely new one, available now, that really takes things to the next level. Their normal wine tours are fabulous, but if you’ve already done one, or you want to delve deeper in the art of winemaking, this one is for you. We were given detailed instruction on how to look at, smell and taste wine, using loads of different props, including a tasting wheel and an aroma kit. Our guide Anita took us through the whole year of grape growing and even showed some us some of the tools used in the process. But best of all, we were able to visit one of our favourite wineries – Bodega los Bermejos, home of the wine with the classic Italian bottle, as well as a brand new winery we’ve never been to before, Roca Negra, run by a delightful couple, Pepe and Raquel. We also met David, who is the island’s only maker of Vermouth. Two high points for me were a wine made from the Diego grape, which I normally dislike, that was superb, and for the first time ever, I was blown away by a Lanzarote red! If you enjoy really good wine, you should book it, and I’ll post the link on the links page.

It was our wedding anniversary on Tuesday and we chose to enjoy a bottle of El Grifo’s superb rosé brut nature, which is made using the Champagne method, and to eat home made pizzas under the stars, with our fire basket lit. Life doesn’t get much better!

I mentioned a few weeks ago that I spent some time with Kenneth Gasque, but at that time, I wasn’t able to tell you about what we’d been discussing. It’s finally in the public domain, and Kenneth is going to be launching a charity, with the aim of helping underprivileged people get into sports. The launch event is going to be at a dinner dance in Puerto del Carmen on 1st November. Sadly, Julie and I can’t be there as we’ll be off the island, but if you fancy it, I know it will be a brilliant evening, attended by all the island’s most influential people. Part of it will be a charity auction, and I’ve been helping to pull that together this week – the auctioneer is going to be Kevin Roper, who I’m sure many of you will know. If you want to go, or just make a donation, I’ve put all the details at the links page.

Here’s a sentence I never expected to write: We spent an evening this week having dinner with someone on holiday here recuperating from spending the last few years fighting on the front lines for Ukraine in their war with Russia.

He’s a battalion commander and is here with his partner and son. We were introduced to them by our one of our very best friends, who lives on the island and who went to school with him in Ukraine. Our Lanzarote newsletter isn’t the place for me to go into any great detail, but I will say that many of the things he told me were harrowing, but I was also inspired by his resolve, I admire his appreciation of the precariousness of the international support for his country, and I loved his straight talking about the reality of Ukraine’s situation. I left full of admiration about what he and his country have achieved, but full of doubts about how we, and it’s all of us, can find a way to put an end to the unnecessary deaths of a generation of young men and the destruction of towns and cities.

I had a “Bah Humbug!” moment this week, when the first events for Christmas arrived, which in turn meant I had to delete last year’s massive Christmas guide, and the 140 images (!) on it, and start this years. Over the next few months, Susana will be diligently finding pretty much every event on over the Christmas period, adding them to the What’s On page, and then passing me the details to add to the Christmas guide. Julie started the project way back in 2010, and whilst it’s loads of work, I know it’s something people value – more than 300,000 visited that one page last year.


In the news

The news about the migrant boat capsizing near El Hierro sent shivers down my spine. It took me straight back to 2009, when the same thing happened here in Lanzarote, at Los Cocoteros. It was a terrible day, and despite some incredible bravery by local people, 25 people drowned. This latest tragedy looks much, much worse, with currently 9 confirmed dead, but another 54 still missing and almost certainly drowned.

Good to see work progressing well on the new pitch for UD Lanzarote’s stadium. The old one has been removed, and work has started on preparations to lay the new pitch and resurface the running track. It’s hoped it will be ready early next year for The Rojillos to return, after having started the season playing home games in Tias. It looks very sorry for itself in the image above, but I’m looking forward to seeing it with the new surface.

The organisation behind the April 20th protests against “Mass” tourism has called for another protest to be held on 20th October. I kind of think it was inevitable they would do so. After lots of wordy statements from politicians back in April about things like “consultation,” pretty much nothing has changed. And in the meantime we’ve had record after record broken through the summer for visitors to the island. Once again the organisers have said clearly that “they are not against tourism but against mass tourism without control.” But there are so many more things they asked for during the April protest, and again, it would appear that little has been done. We need some real strength in our politicians for once. Yes, they need to address the issue and find a way to reduce the overall numbers of tourists to a more sustainable level, but they also need to tackle all the other points raised, one by one, and explain which can be done, and which can’t, and with the former, they need to give people the plan – “This will happen, by this date…” It really feels like they all just got their heads down after April and hoped it would all go away.

On a much lighter note, we had some fantastic news this week. The bells for new year will toll from Lanzarote! Every year, here in Spain, the main TV station broadcasts the midnight bells on New Year’s Eve from somewhere in the country. It’s the moment when we all eat 12 grapes for good luck, and hug our loved ones to wish them a happy new year. And this year, they will be broadcast from Jameos del Agua. There will be a 15 minute live broadcast from there, and as usual, when the chimes come from The Canaries, it will be at 11PM local time, as the peninsular is an hour ahead of us. There will be a second set of chimes broadcast locally at “our” midnight.

I was deeply impressed that the overall winner of the swim from Lanzarote to La Graciosa last weekend. Juan Carlos Vallejo, who did it in a very fast 34 minutes, is 61 years old!

There’s a big buzz around Puerto Calero at the moment, as the annual Marlin cup is underway. Fifty of the best fishing boats from all the islands are competing, and it all ends with a big awards ceremony and party tomorrow evening.


That’s all for this week. We’re out with a group of Club Lanza Info members tomorrow, doing a sunset cruise on a very cool electric catamaran, and hoping to see dolphins and whales. And on Sunday, we’re doing a walk with friends, which will be followed by an epic Sunday lunch somewhere.

Have a wonderful weekend wherever you are!

Un saludo

Miguel

Here’s where to see this week’s new and updated content, what’s on, videos and photos: Newsletter Links.