Date: Apr 21, 2007 4:41 PM
Subject: Saturday, April 21, 2007
Saturday, April 21, 2007
LANZAROTE, CANARY ISLANDS
This is one of the weirdest places we have ever been to. The temperatures stay around 72 degrees. The ocean is cold so there is very little rain even though there are high mountains. They say it is as dry as the Sahara desert. There are miles of hotels, guest houses, restaurants, bars and generally anything a tourist might want. The beaches are long and very deep but it looks like not many go in the water. There are miles of beach lounges. This is mainly a European vacation spot.
We took a tour of the island today. We got up bright and early about noon for a 1:30 tour. It was about 68 degrees out but there was a very strong cold wind. The tour was mainly of the national park of volcanoes. This place is lousy with them. There are over 100 craters and most of the island is a pile of black cinders. The scenery in the park is amazing. Many different kinds of lava flows and lava rock. We went to an area where there is a restaurant cooking on an open pit or hole in the ground. There is no fuel used. The ground is just always hot. If you dig down four or five feet you 
get about 400 degree heat. If you take a shovel and just move a little of the gravel, you get gravel over 100 degrees right at the surface.There were a couple of tubes in holes dug about 4 or 5 feet down. A guy poured a bucket of water in one. You count to 3 and it explodes with bang and a spray like a geyser.
There is a paved path in the park that only buses can use. It is
barely wide enough for the buses and there are continuous turns that a bus can hardly make and sudden ups and downs. Again, the scenery is amazing even if you have to hold on or get thrown out of your seat.The high point was our camel ride. We came upon a man with several herds of camels. Each was equipped with a double chair where two people could ride. One on each side of the camel. As it became our time to get on, the camel herder looks at us and says
wait a minute. He then goes over to these two skinny people sitting on a big camel and tells them to get off. This is where the fun starts. First of all, this must be a problem camel to begin with. His mouth is well covered. He takes one look at Bobbi and I and starts shrieking. He wants his two light weights back.Bobbi and I get on and the complaining gets even louder. One by one the camel guy makes the camels stand up. He gets to ours and the camel refuses to stand. He bangs on it with a stick he carries
and finally the camel does stand up but he is not happy. If the camel herder goes near, the camel tries to bite him. This camel is really pissed. He walks up as close as he can and starts banging the guy ahead of us with his covered mouth. When the herder sees this he hollers at the camel and hits him with his stick. Now the camel starts whacking the camel in front of us with his face. This is one nasty sucker. He keeps turning around and looking at me with a definitely unfriendly look in his eye. I then have to start telling him about how much I like camel skin coats. It really was a 
cool ride and we got to see some beautiful scenery. This was one great tour.Tonight we were supposed to have a BBQ on the pool deck. It was way too windy so they came up with this really stupid idea. They had a buffet set up in the atrium on the 4th floor and people were supposed to get food and go to the Compass Restaurant or up one floor and sit on chairs that had been set up. What a pain. I don’t want to be serving myself for the kind of money I’m paying. I hate
lines of which there are far too many lately.The two specialty restaurants are closed. The Compass Rose was supposed to be the optional restaurant tonight, but because it was now being used for the buffet, the Veranda restaurant on the 11th floor was now the optional restaurant. When we got there we found the menu is not the one advertised on TV. The food was skimpy and the dessert bar had no sugar free. Cute Idea. Save on salaries. Let the dummies serve themselves.
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