Arrecife...

We woke up early this morning. I got my stuff together and headed off down the promenade. It was about a fifteen minute walk and it was beautiful outside. The walkway ran alongside the ocean and the sun was shining brightly. Towards the end of walkway, as you get into town, a beach sits in the cove. This beach is directly in the center of town and all the shops/restaurants have a wonderful view of the ocean.
I get to Hotel Lancelot (our meeting point for the week) and Chris is already hooked up on the internet. Tong has arrived and Chris and I have café con leche as we wait on the others…some of Sharon Johnson’s coffee cake would have been good about then as we had not eatten dinner last night because of the large lunch that we had…I think our stomachs have gotten used to this 2 pm lunchtime and 10 pm (or later) dinner. Raphael shows up and he informs us that we will have to be up early tomorrow and dressed in formal attire to meet the government folks. Catherine will be interviewed for the TV station and for the newspapers… (Because she hablas the most Espanol). Bert, Carla and Alfredo arrive and we head off to the Desalinization plant for the morning.
We arrive at the plant and meet Antonio, the plant manager for the past 31 years, who is going to be our tour guide for the day. The process of cleaning all the water for the entire island is controlled from this area plus one more plant in the North of the island. He explained to us the process by which they take the salt water and run it through a membrane, a couple of filters and then out to the public through pipelines. The water is still not potable but can be used for showers, agriculture, etc. The entire process was very unique…and Carla enjoyed it the most because it was all engineering type work…I wandered around and look at all the safety hazards and human resources postings (Steve Giles and Wayne Punch probably should make a trip over and speak with Antonio about some of the things that I saw).
After the tour of the desalinization process, we headed over to a famous artist’s former house. Cesar Manrique was born on the island and spent most of his life here. All the famous artwork/architecture on the island is his. As we pull up to the house, we notice all these amazing “wind toys.” Manrique designed these large sculptures that are all functional to move with the wind and they are placed throughout the estate. Raphael speaks with some people and arranges a special tour of the complex for us. We walk up and are in awe. In the front area (before the entry gate) we see a vast yard of what looks like dried up lava. There are plants growing everywhere and most are protected by stone walls like what we saw in the wine fields earlier this week. We walk inside and the tour guide, Alfredo, begins to tell us about the history of the house and the ideas of Cesar Manrique. The first part was very interesting because we learned about the house itself but then Alfredo decided that instead of talking more about the house, he wanted to share his socialist views about the world…He began by saying that Manrique was very concerned about Lanzarote and development of Mother Earth, etc etc but then he turned it into his idea that the government wants tourism and it is wrong for Lanzarote and wrong for the world…We actually had this discussion in the car earlier this week…Catherine was talking about how beautiful the land was and I was talking about how much money could be made from development of the land. The conversation went around in circles for a few hours but I was finally proven right.
Back to the house…Manrique decided that he would build his house on top of a volcanic river. Most people thought he was crazy…and while he might have been crazy, the house is amazing. We walked into the open room and there is a whole in the floor with a guard rail and a tree growing up to the second floor. The tour guide (not talking socialism anymore) explains to us that there were several lava bubbles in the ground and Manrique turned them into magnificent rooms. We walk outside and there are beautiful views of the island but nothing is green outside the estate because it is all a lava river. We find his studio which overlooks the lava river and the volcano can be seen in the background. Several pieces of artwork are hung around the rooms and since Manrique’s death in the early nineties; this place has become a shrine to him. Alfredo then tells us that since we are special guest, we get to go behind the scenes where normal visitors are not permitted. He walks us through a closed off area into the…….bathroom. The artist believed that one spends most of their time in the bathroom, so it should be very open and colorful. The room was filled with plants and had an opening to the back portion of the estate. Arturo gave us a demonstration of the proper use.We then headed back out to go downstairs to see the bubble rooms. There are three bubbles rooms and each has its own color. Each also has an opening at the top that either opens to the house or to the sky. The tour moves on to the outdoor area and this is like nothing we have seen before. There is a large pool that has a waterfall dropping into it. There is a large open pit barbeque grill and a great opening for seating and relaxing. We think that Manrique was either quite the entertainer or quite the ladies man...in my mind, he was both. We walk back around to another area where there is a gallery of artwork. Most of the artwork in this room is from the 70s – late 80s and the most interesting pieces in the gallery was art that he had tried to visualize the people trapped in the liquid hot magma (cue the Dr Evil/Austin Powers voice) as the volcano erupted. We walk back to the outside and the final part of the tour is to visit the restrooms and then the gift store.
We leave this wonderful and historic place and head downtown to Ginory. This is a tapas bar and we are having lunch here before we get a tour of Arrecife. Raphael tells the waiter something in Spanish (he spoke way to fast for me to understand) and a few minutes later, beer (locally made Dorada), wine and seafood starting piling on the table. Don’t you just love it when that happens? We have some great lunch and great conversation…MaryBelle (Catherine loves her name), Raphael’s wife, shows up and joins us during her siesta and helps us eat the mound of calamari, fish, some kind of shrimp with garlic and pamas frites.
We then head back out so that Raphael can give us a tour of Arrecife. We learn that the name of the town means “reef” and it was named this because this island is protected by the reef in the ocean and this would keep pirate ships out in olden days. We walk further into town and visit a Roman Catholic Church. The church was very intricately designed and was built about 150 years ago. After visiting the church, we walked around to the commercial center of the town where all of the shopping is located. We were told yesterday that needed to find all white clothes because we would be going to a white party on Friday evening. So we find a bank and exchange some money and head in search of something white…what is the rule about wearing white clothes after Labor Day? We end up in a place called Ferrer and I find some clothes that make me look like Enrique Iglesias (ladies, I am taken). After everyone has bought clothes, we head to Spanish class.
The team that visited Greenville from the Canary Islands has arranged to teach us Spanish on each of the island (each person was from a different island). Today is Spanish lessons with Professor Alfredo (yes, everyone over here is named Alfredo). We go to the top of the highest hotel in the city. There are regulations in place that will only allow houses/hotels to be a certain height…This one somehow got by those regulations and we are glad that they did because the view is spectacular. We enjoy some Sangria and fresh olives (I thought I hated olives but these were amazing) and then begin the lessons. Alfredo actually helped some of us understand some key terms and I feel better about some of the Spanish because of the lesson. Chris found out that the top of the hotel had wi-fi and hooked up to the internet and Tong talked to Tom on SKYPE. Don’t you love technology? The lesson finished and we all headed back down to gather our bags and head out for dinner.
Catherine, Carla, Alfredo and I ended up at a place called La Cerveceria con Estrella Galicio. We had some beers and sat around and enjoyed some wonderful conversation with a great view of the beach and the moonlight. I ordered what I thought was a hamburger (there was no fish on the menu) but it came out as cooked ham, a salad and French fries. The food was great but my confidence in Spanish went way down…Alfredo said it was a mistake that any American would make. We enjoyed a few more beers and called it an early night (11 pm) because we all had to pack our stuff…We leave our first host families tomorrow and head to District Conference.
I bid everyone Buenas Noches and head back on my stroll along the promenade to casa de Ventura.
I still can't believe that we have only been here three days...