We came in from the airport after a hellish journey, arriving just as the sun was setting. Black, pointed peaks wreathed the road and my son asked if there were any volcanoes in Lanzarote. ‘I don’t know about that,’ I chuckled, charmed by his belief that all geological features must be those found in picture books. A Google search, however, revealed that Lanzarote not only has a very famous active volcano, it owes its entire landscape to volcanic activity and is ‘known around the world as the Island of Volcanoes.’
We, my wife’s parents, siblings and their kids, were staying at a very swish resort near Playa Blanca, a megalithic warren of square white buildings that sprawled down to the sea. My first thought was that it was a far cry from the caravan parks and campsites I remembered from my own childhood, almost all of which were in Ireland, and roughly as exotic as holidaying on a traffic island, albeit one with donkey rides.
