Lanzarote

The 5 hour tour to The Fire Mountain and The  Timanfaya National Park was a joy and a nightmare.The joy was what I saw, the nightmare how I saw it.
In 1730's volcanoes in the Timanfaya area erupted for six years creating luna-like terrain from the lava flow - the caves and blowholes and lava beds.

At Islote De Hilario the immense heat still below the surface (between 400 and 600 degrees) was demonstrated,wood was ignited and steam produced just by the power of this heat.

At  Janubio there is a  salt pit crater where vegetables are grown in fields of lava pallets and grapes are cultivated in cinder pits.

At aloe vera farm at Yalza  we had  a short talk and various products could be bought in their shop.My favourite stop was at El Golfo, the lake formed in a crater, it is green and it oves its colour to a type of algae.

I have been to 89 countries, sometimes in precarious situations,  but mostly my safety was in my hands, here it was in the hands of  the bus driver. Negotiating the roads is not for the faint hearted. One mistake and the bus falls 1000 meters or more.