LANZAROTE, THE FIRST CANARY ISLAND TO BE SETTLED

The Grandma arrives to Arrecife, Lanzarote

Today, The Grandma and her friends have arrived to Arrecife, the capital and main city of Lanzarote. They are going to visit this wonderful island, the last visit in their travel around the Canary Islands.

Lanzarote is an amazing place for nature lovers and the friends are going to visit the most spectacular places and enjoy the local cuisine. They are very happy with this experience but sad because it is going to end soon.

During the travel from Fuerteventura to Lanzarote, The Grandma has studied a new lesson of her Intermediate Language Practice manual (Grammar 34).

More information: Articles 1

Lanzarote is the northernmost and easternmost island of the autonomous Canary Islands in the Atlantic Ocean. It is located approximately 125 kilometres off the north coast of Africa and 1,000 kilometres from the Iberian Peninsula. Covering 845.94 square kilometres, Lanzarote is the fourth-largest of the islands in the archipelago. In the centre-west of the island is Timanfaya National Park, one of its main attractions. The capital is Arrecife.

The first recorded name for the island, given by Italian-Majorcan cartographer Angelino Dulcert, was Insula de Lanzarotus Marocelus, after the Genoese navigator Lancelotto Malocello, from which the modern name is derived. The island's name in the native language was Tyterogaka or Tytheroygaka, which may mean one that is all ochre, referring to the island's predominant colour.

Claire Fontaine & the local plants, Lanzarote

Lanzarote is located 11 kilometres north-east of Fuerteventura and just over 1 kilometre from Graciosa. The dimensions of the island are 60 kilometres from north to south and 25 kilometres from west to east. Lanzarote has 213 kilometres of coastline, of which 10 kilometres are sand, 16.5 kilometres are beach, and the remainder is rocky.

Its landscape includes the mountain ranges of Famara (671 metres) in the north and Ajaches (608 metres) to the south. South of the Famara massif is the El Jable desert, which separates Famara and Montañas del Fuego. The highest peak is Peñas del Chache, rising to 670 metres above sea level. The Tunnel of Atlantis, the largest underwater volcanic tunnel in the world, is part of the Cueva de los Verdes lava tube.

More information: Turismo Lanzarote

Often called the Island of Eternal Spring, Lanzarote has a subtropical-desert climate according to the Köppen climatic classification. The small amount of precipitation is mainly concentrated in the winter. Rainfall during summer is a rare phenomenon and several summers are completely dry without any precipitation. On average the island receives approximately 16 days of precipitation between December and February. Sometimes, the hot sirocco wind prevails, causing dry and dusty conditions across the island. Average precipitation in June and August is less than 0.5 millimetres. It closely borders on a tropical climate, with winter means of 18 °C and summer means of 25 °C.

Lanzarote is the northernmost and easternmost island of the Canary Islands and has a volcanic origin. It was born through fiery eruptions and has solidified lava streams as well as extravagant rock formations.

Joseph de Ca'th Lon & local plants, Lanzarote

The island emerged about 15 million years ago as product of the Canary hotspot. The island, along with others, emerged after the breakup of the African and the American continental plates. The greatest recorded eruptions occurred between 1730 and 1736 in the area now designated Timanfaya National Park.

There are five hundred different kinds of plants on the island, of which 17 species are endemic. These plants have adapted to the relative scarcity of water in the same way as succulents. They include the Canary Island date palm (Phoenix canariensis), which is found in damper areas of the north, the Canary Island pine (Pinus canariensis), ferns, and wild olive trees (Olea europaea). Laurisilva trees, which once covered the highest parts of Risco de Famara, are rarely found today. After winter rainfall, the vegetation comes to a colourful bloom between February and March.

The vineyards of La Gería, Lanzarote DO wine region, are a protected area. Single vines are planted in pits 4–5 metres wide and 2–3 metres deep, with small stone walls around each pit. This agricultural technique is designed to harvest rainfall and overnight dew and to protect the plants from the winds.

More information: Hello Canary Islands

There are 180 different species of lichen-forming fungi. These survive in the suitable areas like rock surfaces, and promote weathering.

Apart from the native bats and the mammals which accompanied humans to the island, including the dromedary, which was used for agriculture and is now a tourist attraction, there are few vertebrate species on Lanzarote. These include birds, such as falcons, and reptiles.

Tina Picotes visits Arrecfife, Lanzarote

Some interesting endemic animals are the Gallotia lizards and the blind Munidopsis polymorpha crabs found in the Jameos del Agua lagoon, which was formed by a volcanic eruption.

The island is also home to one of two surviving populations of the threatened Canarian Egyptian vulture.

The official natural symbols associated with Lanzarote are Munidopsis polymorpha (Blind crab) and Euphorbia balsamifera (Tabaiba dulce).

Lanzarote is believed to have been the first Canary Island to be settled. The Phoenicians may have visited or settled there, though no material evidence survives. The first known record came from Roman author Pliny the Elder in the encyclopaedia Naturalis Historia on an expedition to the Canary Islands.

More information: Lanzarote Guide

The names of the islands, then called Insulae Fortunatae or the Fortunate Isles, were recorded as Junonia (Fuerteventura), Canaria (Gran Canaria), Ninguaria (Tenerife), Junonia Major (La Palma), Pluvialia (El Hierro), and Capraria (La Gomera).

Lanzarote and Fuerteventura, the two easternmost Canary Islands, were only mentioned as the archipelago of the purple islands. The Roman poet Lucan and the Greek astronomer and geographer Ptolemy gave their precise locations. It was settled by the Majos tribe of the Guanches. After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, the Canary Islands were ignored until 999, when the Arabs arrived at the island which they dubbed al-Djezir al-Khalida, among other names.

Tonyi Tamaki visits Arrecife, Lanzarote

In 1336, a ship arrived from Lisbon under the guidance of Genoese navigator Lancelotto Malocello, who used the alias Lanzarote da Framqua. A fort was later built in the area of Montaña de Guanapay near today's Teguise.

Castilian slaving expeditions in 1385 and 1393 seized hundreds of Guanches and sold them in Spain, initiating the slave trade in the islands. French explorer Jean de Béthencourt arrived in 1402, heading a private expedition under Castilian auspices. Bethencourt first visited the south of Lanzarote at Playas de Papagayo, and the French overran the island within a matter of months. The island lacked mountains and gorges to serve as hideouts for the remaining Guanche population, and so many Guanches were taken away as slaves that only 300 Guanche men were said to have remained.

At the southern end of the Yaiza municipality, the first European settlement in the Canary Islands appeared in 1402 in the area known as El Rubicón, where the conquest of the Archipelago began. In this place, the Cathedral of Saint Martial of Limoges was built. The cathedral was destroyed by English pirates in the 16th century. A diocese was moved in 1483 to Las Palmas de Gran Canaria (Roman Catholic Diocese of Canarias).

More information: Lonely Planet

In 1404, the Castilians, with the support of the King of Castile, came and fought the local Guanches, who were further decimated. The islands of Fuerteventura and El Hierro were later similarly conquered. In 1477, a decision by the royal council of Castile confirmed a grant of Lanzarote and Fuerteventura, with the smaller islands of Ferro and Gomera to the Castilian nobles Herrera, who held their fief until the end of the 18th century.

In 1585, the Ottoman admiral Murat Reis temporarily seized Lanzarote. In the 17th century, pirates raided the island and took 1,000 inhabitants into slavery in Cueva de los Verdes.

Jordi Santanyí visits Lanzarote

From 1730 to 1736, the island was hit by a series of volcanic eruptions, producing 32 new volcanoes in a stretch of 18 kilometres. The priest of Yaiza, Don Andrés Lorenzo Curbelo, documented the eruption in detail until 1731. Lava covered a quarter of the island's surface, including the most fertile soil and 11 villages.

100 smaller volcanoes were located in the area called Montañas del Fuego, the Mountains of Fire. In 1768, drought affected the deforested island, and winter rains did not fall. Much of the population was forced to emigrate to Cuba and the Americas, including a group which formed a significant addition to the Spanish settlers in Texas at San Antonio de Bexar in 1731.

Another volcanic eruption occurred within the range of Tiagua in 1824, which was less violent than the major eruption between 1730 and 1736.

In 1927, Lanzarote and Fuerteventura became part of the province of Las Palmas. Several archaeological expeditions have uncovered the prehistoric settlement at the archaeologic site of El Bebedero in the village of Teguise. In one of those expeditions, by a team from the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria and a team from the University of Zaragoza, yielded about 100 Roman potsherds, nine pieces of metal, and one piece of glass. The artefacts were found in strata dated between the 1st and 4th centuries. They show that Romans did trade with the Canarians, though there is no evidence of settlements.

The island has a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve protected site status. UNESCO has threatened to revoke Lanzarote's Biosphere Reserve status, if the developments are not respecting local needs and are impacting on the environment.

More information: The Telegraph

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