Today I was up at 7.15am and, an hour later, took Karen a mug of tea in bed.
We pulled back the lounge curtains to discover — surprise, surprise — another cloudy morning, with the forecast suggesting it would remain on the cool side again.
We decided, yet again, to try and make the best of it, although this was beginning to wear thin. Lanzarote is not exactly bursting with cool weather attractions, but normally the weather more than compensates. Blue skies and sunshine make everything look better, and that is especially true here.
Our original plan had been to hire a car today and visit the one attraction on the island we’ve never seen — Jameos del Agua. However, with the questionable weather and no real idea whether Karen would manage the access and walking involved, we devised a Plan B instead.
Plan B was to catch a local bus for a 40-minute trip to Playa Blanca.
So, just before 10am, we walked to the bus stop and only had a short wait before it arrived. The cost was a very reasonable €5.50 for both of us. We quite enjoyed the ride through the surprisingly green countryside, although some of our fellow passengers were considerably less enjoyable company, many managing to be irritating in their own unique way, the common denominator being they were all Irish.
It had been many years since we last visited Playa Blanca, but we vaguely recognised the bus station when we arrived. From there we made our way down to the promenade by the bay, which was already heaving with people. Encouragingly, the sun occasionally looked like it might break through the clouds.
Karen struggled a bit to get going after being cooped up on the bus and was leaning quite heavily on me, which in turn was beginning to make my back complain. We turned left and walked around the bay along the promenade, amazed at the sheer volume of people doing exactly the same thing. At times it felt like leaving a football match.
Eventually we found an acceptable-looking café called Playa Dorada overlooking the beach. We secured a reasonably good table and ordered drinks and a toasted sandwich each. They were both perfectly average, but we stretched the experience out for over an hour because it was actually rather pleasant sitting there.
We had checked the bus times earlier, and Karen suggested we begin the walk back so we wouldn’t have to rush. We arrived about 20 minutes early and joined a small queue.
The scheduled time came… and went.
The queue steadily grew as people arrived for the next scheduled bus, which also didn’t appear. People began to get irritated, and I started to wonder if the buses had simply stopped running altogether. When the information office reopened, Karen — acting on behalf of most of the frustrated crowd — went to ask what was happening. The girl inside shrugged and said she didn’t know when or if the bus would arrive.
I suppose that was technically information.
Both Karen and I struggle to stand in one place for long periods, which didn’t improve matters.
Finally, to a large cheer from the queue, the bus arrived almost an hour late. As we were near the front, we easily got on board. More than half the people waiting did not, which led to considerable moaning. This only intensified at the next two stops when people who had likely been waiting even longer than us — and in much more exposed conditions — were unable to board at all.
Their reactions were rather more vocal, involving language that was considerably bluer than Spanish and some enthusiastic banging on the door to get the driver’s attention. She ignored them completely. I felt sympathy for both sides.
We weren’t entirely sure where to get off back at Puerto Del Carmen due to the one-way system route the bus took but eventually jumped off at what we hoped was the closest stop to the apartment, somewhere near Spar.
We went into Spar to buy toilet rolls.
Naturally, we forgot to buy toilet rolls.
We did, however, buy Karen a Magnum ice cream, which she ate before we returned to the apartment.
After a while sitting inside reading — it already felt too cool to sit outside — we got ready to head out for dinner at Pinocchio’s, where we had arranged to meet Dale and Clare. They had unexpectedly ended up here after world events caused their planned trip to Jordan to be cancelled.
For the evening, I resorted to wearing three layers, which feels faintly ridiculous given that we are just off the coast of Africa. Everyone we passed seemed similarly wrapped up. When we visited last April, Karen had declared it was far too hot at that time of year, which is why we had booked March instead.
Personally, I would very happily take the heat rather than this.
We arrived at Pinocchio’s at exactly the same time as Dale and Clare. Disappointingly for Karen, Dale did not shout “Uncle Karl!” across the street when he saw me as she had predicted.
Dinner was lovely and we had a really good catch-up, hearing about their travels and future plans. We left them around 9.30pm. We had assumed they might head off to the music bars afterwards, but said they were not really their thing and had tried earlier in the week and hadn’t been overly impressed. Instead, they had been back in their rather lovely-sounding apartment by 10.30pm most nights so they could enjoy early mornings on the balcony instead.
Back at our place we watched the penultimate episode of Los Bridgerton, enjoying a welcome cup of tea while doing so.
Before bed, Karen summed up the mood perfectly. She said that if we had a car and could drive home tomorrow, she would probably be thinking about it.
I’m convinced it’s largely the weather — although perhaps we’ve also just slightly grown out of coming here.
The trip to Playa Blanca had been perfectly fine but also confirmed that we were glad to be staying in Puerto del Carmen rather than there. Our feelings would have undoubtably differed if we had been able to walk to the likes of Puerto Calero but the cliff steps would have been a step too far for Karen at the moment.
Unfortunately, the forecast for Saturday — and indeed most of the rest of the month — looks more of the same.
We do feel sorry for people who are here on their only holiday of the year. For us, we keep reminding ourselves that this is just a quick trip between bigger trips… and before Karen becomes the bionic woman.
Of course if we wake to glorious sunshine then for those who remember the song it may be a case of ‘Hello Mother – Hello Father’ by Allan Sherman…..
