It seemed like a good idea at the time of booking the flights but in theory it was a somewhat procrastinated and drawn out route to get to LA, which is the true start to the next 5months of my adventures. Still I somehow left Sal, found myself in Lanzarote, then Barcelona and I must admit to enjoying myself immensely under the care of my good friends Struja Picka and his better half Anita.
Struja was very kind to collect me from Lanzarote´s tiny little airport somewhat bleary eyed after yet another night hanging out drinking tea whilst airport camping this time in Gran Canaria. 'Coffee´ Struja thoughtfully asked.......'Ooo yes wonderful idea' says I, not yet aware that he's decided to take his first trip to the capital of Arceife thus not surprisingly it resulted in driving round in circles before realising that the unsociable hour of 8am was far too early for the Spanish to even consider that thing called work. So after failing we took the joint decision to resort to Plan B and head back to the mansion in the hills of Los Valles which was to be my home for 3days. It came complete with my own 2 bedroomed annex, personal huge terrace for my morning yoga, sauna, swimming pool and large Brazilian style BBQ. Yes I did definalty make the most of this and I must say yoga on the terrace gently warmed by the morning sun followed by a quick stop in a personal sauna before coffee and fresh Spanish orange juice is not a bad way to start the day or indeed to prepare oneself for an epic adventure.
After discovering this fantastic villa which Struja had deemed worthy for me, I was introduced to the fellow house occupants and the executive decision was taken to all squeeze aboard their little hire car and head South to check out a lovely little beach down there. As with all these things along the way we were just a little side tracked by a 'Museum' which we all thought would be uncultured to drive on past. Well I should mention it was a Bodega Museum and for those of you not clued in here that basically means winery museum. Thus on my first early afternoon in Lanzarote I found myself slurping some surprisingly good local wine (sorry mis-typed that I meant professionally tasting). Furthermore it turned out that the lovely beach had an even lovelier bar at the top of the cliff so I can testify that the Pina Coladas were exceptional but I have no idea what the sand was like!!
That´s pretty much how my trip to Lanzarote progressed, basically we drank a lot! Day 2 we went North along some nice small Spanish roads surrounded by lovely quaint traditional villas which reminded me a little of Greece. Had some good Tapas by the sea and checked out the view from the highest point on Lanzarote. Day 3 Struja and I thought we´d not go drinking and wanted to hike around 'los montanas de fuego' as he unlike I had never seen a volcanic crater before. Our master plan was somewhat hampered by the Lanzarote authorities trying to fine us 3000Euros for attempting to undertake that sinful, extremely well known environmentally damaging thing called 'walking' before insisting that we must take the car and then the coach tour around the national park in order to preserve it.......hmmmm interesting concept!! Still at least it keeps all the fat tourists happy and as for us well I refused to get on the bus with said fat tourists so instead YEP you guessed it, went off wine tasting again!
Talking of the fatties I'm delighted to say we succesfully managed to avoid the hideous tourist towns and I actually thought that 'Lanzagrotty' was not so bad. Basically a really really large version of Sal mixed with Fogo.
So all done we left Lanzarote behind under the joyous transportation known as Ryan Air or otherwise referred to as Rip Off Cluster Fuck airlines. You can all guess how much fun that was!! Fortunately Anita was there to meet us at BCN airport and in order to take the pain out of the day we some how ended up drinking 2 bottles of Cava over a midnight dinner (The Spanish really are unbelievable with their eating hours), followed up with a couple of cocktails just to be sure we´d done the job properly. Sunday was a slow write off but Monday I did actually make it into Barcelona city for yet more drinking and tapas eating, this time Cava tasting to be more sophisticated!!
I must thank Struja and Anita for looking after me wonderfully and kicking out their Airbnb guests so I could have a bed.......Thanks guys you rock :-)
Next up California.........LA to start with so watch this space ;-)
