Easter Sunday and volcano wine

Easter Sunday in a remote Spanish outpost is just the same as in Britain, only without the obligatory chocolate eggs and without the DIY projects that get abandoned when it’s time to go back to work. The climate doesn’t suit chocolate, so I can understand the thinking behind that. But I saw plenty of evidence today of abandoned DIY projects. Or maybe that’s just the way they want their villages to look.

One location that is anything but a bodge job is Cesar Manrique’s gaff. He was a local architect, artist and visionary who designed the handful of tourist attractions on the island of Lanzarote (not including the volcanoes themselves), and who created for himself a magical home carved out of a section of a volcanic larva field. This house was reminiscent of an early James Bond bad guy’s lair. His designs work organically with the rock, which is ironic because very little organic life actually exists in that larva field. The view from one window is not dissimilar to a lifeless lunar landscape.

Locating Manrique’s house required the use of local road signs. On this small island it is clearly assumed that everyone knows their way around, thus avoiding the need for logical and comprehensive signage. Every car journey here to date has involved numerous extensive detours, sometimes all the way round an entire volcano or two, before finding somewhere to turn around and try a different route. It’s all part of the fun of visiting places like this. The roads are smooth and there is plenty of public art in the middle of the roundabouts. But providing road signs for tourists is considered superfluous. At least I can enjoy a kinetic rotating statue whilst circumnavigating a ring road for the tenth time.

Lunch today involved a bottle of the local rosé wine, made from vines grown in volcanic ash on the slopes of the fire mountains. It was good stuff. So good, in fact, that I passed out in the afternoon and didn’t get much novel editing done. I managed to finish the section where Matt is at the British Embassy in Paris, which now includes the added details and factual accuracy gained from Google Street View yesterday. After a couple of pages I went down to listen to a Scottish one man band singing by the poolside. And after a couple of his songs I went back inside again.