The forecast was for strong winds today, and getting stronger as the day progressed. Although Fritz hinted that he thought it might be possible to fly today, we wrote it off when it seemed to pick up a lot over breakfast. We drove past the south coast and didn’t see anyone flying, but then again, the palm trees seemed to be doubled over.

We headed over to the north side of the Timanfaya national park to do the hike recommended by the information centre. The Montaña Blanca trail took us on a rocky path through a lava field into the crater of a little volcano. We then walked along a better path to Montaña Blanca, while we looked for the path up to the crater. We eventually found it, but the wind was getting stronger. We spoke to a German couple at the bottom of the sloping path and they told us that the wind on the edge of the crater was really strong, so much so that they had been scared walking down and had relied on their walking sticks to keep themselves balanced. They suggested we take our glasses off as both of them had nearly lost theirs. We decided to walk up part way and see. As we climbed higher, the gusts got stronger and stronger, blowing down little rocks and making us crouch down, to keep steady. Another group of Germans came down the hill and reported conditions where it was difficult to stay steady on your feet and one said she was nearly pushed over by the wind.

We had a lengthy discussion about how sensible it would be to carry on. The forecast was for increasing winds in the middle of the day and I was already concerned about the conditions half way up, never mind in the dip of the crater, where there was a strong venturi effect. In the end we decided there’s a difference between doing something dangerous and just being foolhardy, so turned back and walked back down. We were really disappointed though not to see the crater.

As we walked back along the bottom of the volcano, I estimate the gusts to have been about 45 – 50mph and occasionally we were bent forward walking into the wind. It was hard going. Once back round the volcano we spotted another path (which hadn’t been on our map) and eventually found the way up. The path up took us through the pyroclastic flow between the two volcanoes and you got to see the swirling mass of broken lava up close. The path here was much more sheltered and the wind wasn’t an issue until we got to the rim, where we sat down to admire the view. It was getting on by this time and we decided it was time to head back. Our walk took over four hours in total and we decided to head back to the coast in search of a sandwich via La Geria, Lanzarote’s wine growing region. It is a deep black landscape of man-made hollows, some with protective walls built around them, to protect the vines from the incessant wind. As I stopped to take a picture, I had to hold onto the car door to stop it being blow open violently and I had to walk nearly diagonally to be able to walk into the wind.

A couple of kilometers later, we could see the backside of the flying site of Macher and to our complete and utter amazement, there were hang gliders flying! I couldn’t believe that the conditions could either be so different, or that they would be so crazy. With much head shaking and tutting, we drove down to Playa Quemada to see if we could get something to eat and a beer when even more amazingly, we saw paragliders in the air. Admittedly, they were taking off about 30 or 40m AMSL, and it still seemed strong, but four of them managed to get a short flight before darkness. Incredible.

We had been following the air traffic control strike on the news and internet, but it seemed like the government’s intervention would work and we would be able to get our flights home no problem. Geoff had a skype chat with our pilot friend Roger, who had had to divert to Marseille, and was stuck there while his passengers were bused to Girona. Asked if he thought the military coming in would solve the problem he said “Sure, if they use enough ammunition”. The air traffic controllers here really didn’t make any friends this weekend, particularly when it was revealed that their average salary is 350,000 euros.

See photos of today.

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