Hola
With Christmas done and dusted, everyone’s thoughts here now are moving towards carnival, and the themes and dates are slowly trickling through to us from all the municipalities. Carnival is a time for excess and partying, but it retains its religious roots here, and many locals observe the 40 days of lent, abstaining from all sorts of things. If you walk through the towns and villages of the island in the afternoons at this time of year, you’ll hear the batucada bands practicing hard, to make sure they get all their changes right at each of the processions they are attending. It’s a fabulous sound!
At this time of year, the people on the island have changed, the kids have gone home, and we have three large groups enjoying Lanzarote – sports people, swallows and hikers. In the first group, we have thousands of people using our benign climate to do their pre-season training and enjoy themselves, riding bikes, running, scuba diving, hang gliding and much more. The swallows are the ones here for an extended stay, getting away from cold weather, and more or less living like locals on the island, spending the money here that they’re saving on heating their homes. And the hikers are all over the island, with their sticks and rucksacks, enjoying nature and clocking up many miles in the countryside. I love the way the vibe here changes according to the time of year. I was out walking yesterday, and came across three large groups of hikers, one Irish, one Italian and one German, and although I couldn’t understand the latter two languages, they were all chatting excitedly, smiling and laughing, and enjoying their time here – it made me feel good, and very proud.
The weather has generally been good here this week, with plenty of blue sky, although we did have an episode of calima on Wednesday afternoon, which cleared overnight. I was at the airport yesterday and there were loads of people heading out of the doors, smiling, looking up at the blue sky, blinking, and taking a deep, satisfying breath of fresh air.
I mentioned that Tom Cruise was here last week. A friend told me that Ricky Gervais was also here, and he played a round of Golf at the new mini golf in Playa Blanca!
What we’ve been doing
We took the image above at the airport yesterday – check out the sky!
We had a cracking day last Sunday. It was our turn to organize a group walk to raise money for the Parkinson’s charity on the island. We took our group from the top of the island, at Peñas del Chache, 9 km, past the dam, and into Mala, where we had a fantastic meal. You can’t beat a day spent out in the fresh air, getting some exercise and then chatting with a big group of friends over a meal.
As you’ll see from this week’s video, I spent time in Famara and Soo this week. I’d originally planned to combine filming in Soo with one or two other villages, but in the event, there was plenty to see there for a whole video, and I ended up walking over 5KM . It never ceases to amaze me how you can drive through a village thousands of times, and still spot loads of new things when you actually walk. You also get the atmosphere – a bunch of old boys were sitting on a wall, waiting for the sociedad to open, and they sprinted off like a bunch of kids when they heard to locks being pulled back to open the doors!
Julie has been doing early morning workouts sessions in Puerto del Carmen for several months now, and this week I decided to travel there with her, and I went to the gym at The Fariones while she was doing her class. 06:30 is a lovely time to be driving here, watching the sun come up, relishing the light traffic and welcoming another new day.
These early months of the year are always our busiest time, booking holidays and car hire for our clients, for those coming to Lanzarote, and also the ones traveling all over the world. It means very long days in the office, but it’s also exciting and satisfying, making sure our clients are getting exactly what they want.
I’ve been using artificial intelligence a lot this week. I have to give a series of talks about places in Spain in April, and I’ve started work on the project. AI is an incredible tool – for example, I was able to upload reams of information about the history of Tenerife to it, and in seconds, it was able to digest it, give me a timeline of events, create an audio version so I can listen to the key points, and even turn the data into bullet points I can use in a presentation. In less than 10 minutes, it did work that would have taken me at least a couple of hours. That’s the real strength of AI, doing the heavy lifting on larger projects.
In the news
The Territorial Plan for Lanzarote has been released. This is the document that The Cabildo publishes, showing what their plans are for land use in the coming years, so it’s a good indication of likely future projects. This years includes a new “Legal” area north of Arrecife, a new sports centre for the capital, a campsite for Famara, a possible university campus, a new hospital and large areas for housing in Arrecife. We’ll keep you posted as the actual projects start to appear.
I’m looking forward to the new rental E Bikes arriving in Arrecife. I love the idea of being able to park up, and hire an E bike to get around to the various parts of Arrecife when I’m there.
Good news from Madrid – Congress has approved the new “fast track” process to evict squatters. It will mean squatters can be evicted in as little as 15 days, whereas now, it can take two years!
The viral video of the poor TUI cabin crew member shouting at some disruptive passengers on a flight from London to Lanzarote, was a shocker – search on You Tube if you haven’t seen it. A group of passengers were racially abusing a British family of Iranian origin, and the Captain arranged for police to meet the aircraft to escort them safely through the airport. It’s disgusting behavior and I wish the police had turned the disruptive group around and sent them straight home.
The big news this week was the 12 point plan announced by the PM, Pedro Sanchez, to help with the housing crisis here in Spain. There are a number of excellent ideas, including tax incentives to owners to long term, rather than holiday-let their properties, guarantees on rent payments, grants to restore derelict properties and more public building of affordable homes. The headline that caught everyone’s attention, though, was the one suggesting a 100% tax on non-EU, non-residents, buying properties here. The British papers have already turned this into “British to pay double for dream holiday homes in Spain.” Of course, this isn’t just The British, it affects anyone from outside the EU. Under EU freedom of movement rules, Spain can’t impose this tax on buyers from within the union. But I also think many people have misinterpreted what was said. My belief, at the time of writing, is that the tax element of the purchase will increase by 100%, which isn’t the same thing at all. I’ll let you know if I’m right in due course, but bear in mind, this all has to go through congress, and is likely to have many changes made to it before it all becomes law. And of course, despite what some of the press are saying, this doesn’t “dash the dreams of people wanting to retire in Spain,” because as soon as they become residents here, any new tax will no longer apply.
That’s all for this week. Our daughter Lucy, who lives in northern Spain, is heading to the island this weekend for a few days, so we’re looking forward to hearing all her news and spending some time with her.
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