Category Archives: Spain

Hasta La Vista

Lanzarote, a long weekend

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Timanfaya!We visited Lanzarote again, this time with two families: five (5!) children and three adults. On the first day, right after arriving, we picked up the rental car and immediately started sightseeing. Our first stop was Mirador del Mar, with a beautiful view of the nearby island of La Graciosa. After that, we continued to the Cueva Verde, an enjoyable tour through a lava tunnel. Next we visited Jameos del Agua, a partially collapsed lava tube that’s home to many tiny blind white crabs found only on Lanzarote. The whole site was transformed into something special by the local artist and architect César Manrique. Finally, we headed to our villa, checked out the pool, and found two geocaches along the path near the little beach.

On the second day we drove to the center of the island, to the Timanfaya volcano. We had to wait in line for 90 minutes, but after that we could hop straight onto a bus for a stunning tour through the volcanic landscape. After visiting the volcano, we stopped to see some impressive rock formations, deep cracks in the terrain, a perfect spot for a few great photos.

La Graciosa!On the third day we went to the island of La Graciosa, which we had already seen from the viewpoint on our first day. A half-hour boat ride took us there. We bought some sandwiches and rented bikes for a long ride across the island. Getting lost was impossible: there’s only one clear route. At one of the beaches, Alex and I found some salt. It looked surprisingly clean, so I took a little with me to experiment with later. We returned on the last boat of the day and headed back to the villa.

On the final day we took it easy. Checked out, drove to the airport, and headed home. A tiring but wonderful little trip.

Timanfaya – Volcanic moonscape, long queue, and humans

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Another fun adventure, and surely a thing to remember for quite a while. We went to visit Timanfaya in Lanzarote. There were a lot of tourists, so we had to wait in line, in our car for 90 minutes. Most of the time the car didn’t move, and we just waited. A few times we got out of the car to stretch our legs. At one point I stepped next to the road into the vulcanic rocky surroundings. A person working to manage the line came by and warned us the were not allowed to step om the barren rock, so I stepped back on the road. I didn’t argue, but I did feel it was a bit absurd to protect such a dead place.

The guy went on to manage traffic, and a few minutes later my son called me. He had taken a picture with his phone and was zooming and scrolling. Something was there. A piece of pink in the dark black volcanic surroundings. I took a picture myself, to get a better look, and there it was. A girl had wondered a few hunderd meters into the vulcanic surrounding to hunker down and leave a poop. A typical case of when you have to go, you have to go.

We were laughing because of the previous comments about my step seemed even more rediculous now.

Tenerife & Emilia

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Miguel, Alex’s godfather and Alan’s pan-godfather, has a conference where he was invited to give a talk. He’s attended conferences all over the world before, but this time it’s in Tenerife. Nice and close, so it’s perfect for us to make a weekend trip. We’ll take the car and the ferry over on Saturday, and head back Sunday evening. Super easy. The only thing we will miss is Alan’s football match, but I think we can make it up by all the fun activities we planned.

The plan
We will take the ferry so we can take our car on Saturday morning. The plan for Saturday is to visit a fun adventure park. Afterwards, we’ll explore the little village nearby the forest where we booked a room, find a restaurant, and maybe even grab a geocache. On Sunday, if the weather allows, we might go up to the highest point in Spain: El Teide. Then it’s back home again.

The actual adventure
Rainbows everywhere!Oh no, a big storm was on its way… Emilia. Many public and semi-public activities were cancelled. The forecast for Saturday was high waves (up to 12 meters!) and strong winds. Not the best situation for a boat trip to Tenerife, but so be it. We had the first boat on Saturday. Also the last, because after that all trips were cancelled. It was an interesting crossing.

The forest adventure was first postponed and then cancelled. Mount Teide was off limits because of some snowfall. So we went for some alternatives: visited a few ancient pyramids, stopped at some viewpoints, found a beautiful geocache, explored the Museum of Science, enjoyed some lovely meals, brought Miguel to the airport, and then took the boat calmly back home. Despite the cancellation of almost all our plans, we fortunately still enjoyed the weekend getaway.

Sinterklaas

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Barbacan!Every year, Sinterklaas visits the Hotel Barbacan in Maspalomas, in the south of the island. The hotel is a favorite destination for many Dutch guests, and maybe that is why they have fully embraced Dutch traditions. Sinterklaas comes by for all the Dutch children staying at the hotel, but Dutch residents of Gran Canaria are also welcome, and sometimes even receive a personal invitation.

We have been going almost every year, for nearly fourteen years now. Each time, the Sint arrives in his convertible, sometimes accompanied by a lively band, and always surrounded by plenty of Pieten. Afterward, the celebration moves indoors, where every child receives a small gift directly from the Sint, interspersed with musical performances and, of course, lots of sweet treats to nibble on.

It was fun, but we can clearly notice that the kids are getting bigger. Maybe this was the last time we visited the Sint, or maybe just one year more. We don’t know yet, but it feels like the end to this tradition is getting nearer.

Barranco de los Carnicalos – Ravine of the Kestrels

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A fun and easy route. After parking on the small parking area at the beginning of the route you simply follow the water to the final destination of the trail, a lovely little waterfall. Along the way, you walk about three kilometers there and three kilometers back. The path is narrow, winding under tunnels of reeds and over slim walls. At some spots you need to be a bit careful! You’ll often need to jump across the water. Halfway through, there are a few beautiful spots for a picnic (so dont forget to bring some food and drinks). If the weather is nice, you can even take a quick dip in the water.

El Chuleton

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A chuletón is a large ribeye steak with the bone still in. These steaks are massive—over a kilo—and meant to be shared. In Spain, going out for a chuletón is much more than just dining out. It’s a social event, something to enjoy together with friends. Since the beginning of this year, ‘the guys’, Dani, Diego, and I have been going to El Chuleton from time to time. We’re all in the same boat, with kids around the same age (which is also how we know each other). The children go/went to the same school. They play soccer together, attend the same volleyball class, and we’re members of the same swimming club. We spend quite a few weekends together.

Chuleton!About once a month, we follow the same ritual. We leave from the square near where we all live and drive to the restaurant. We start with a beer and choose a huge cut of meat, anywhere between one and two kilos. The steak is prepared, and then served to us with a hot stone so we can do the final touches ourselves. Naturally, it’s accompanied by a good bottle of red wine. Then it’s time to eat and above all, to enjoy. We always go on Thursdays, because there’s always space and we don’t need to book or wait.

Finally, a coffee to wrap things up, and that’s it again. We usually spend around 50/60 euros per person, but oh, it’s worth every cent. Sometimes we talk about trying a different restaurant, just to see what the chuletón is like elsewhere. But we haven’t dared to make the switch yet, and we stick to our trusted tradition at ‘our’ restaurant. I suspect the atmosphere and quality we’ve found at El Chuleton would be hard to beat, and that changing locations would almost certainly be a letdown.

Fuerteventura

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The English used to send criminals and unwanted individuals to Australia. The Russians sent their troublesome people to Siberia. Spain also had its own place for unwanted residents and they were given a one-way ticket to Fuerteventura. It’s quite understandable that Fuerteventura was chosen as a destination for undesirable individuals. The entire island consists mainly of sand and rocks, with only the occasional plant and a clear lack of water. It’s bone dry everywhere.

Nowadays, people go to Fuerteventura voluntarily. We’ve actually been there twice before, and this time was just as enjoyable. We visited some of the enormous beaches, charming villages, and took a fun excursion to a small island (Isla de Lobos) to explore and discover it.

Blackout

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Blackout!Miguel told me this wild, but true story about his day during the Spanish blackout a couple of month ago (April 28, 2025) that took over 10 hours to fix.

Blackout
It hits without warning. In the middle of the day, sun blazing, and suddenly the city plunges into darkness. At first, you think it’s just a normal outage, you experienced one of those a couple of years ago, and it took only a few minutes for things to return to normal. Then an hour passes. Still no power. The head of your department walks in to tell everyone they can go home.

You step outside and into chaos. The blackout isn’t just in your building, it’s everywhere. Subways have stopped cold. People are spilling out of underground stations, using their phones like torches. Traffic lights are dead, intersections jammed with cars and confused pedestrians. Buses aren’t running. Trams are frozen. The city feels like it’s holding its breath.

You look at your phone. The flashlight works, but that’s about it. No calls. No messages. No maps. Anything that requires a signal or a connection is gone.

Luckily, you live in the city. A brisk walk should get you home. As you start moving, a strange realization creeps in: you don’t actually know how to get there. You’ve always relied on public transport and your navigation app. The streets blur together without it. You stare at an old paper map someone hands you, but it’s just lines and symbols. Useless.

Then, a stroke of luck. An older colleague from the office overhears you. You tell him your address, and he nods, pointing you in the right direction with the kind of confidence that only comes from decades of walking the city. You follow his directions, uncertain at first. But as you get closer, landmarks begin to look familiar, a corner café, a mural on a wall, the curve of a street you’ve passed a hundred times but never really noticed.

And then… home.

You take the stairs to your apartment, again using your phone as a flashlight. The fridge is silent. The freezer is holding on for now. You sit in the dark living room, surrounded by quiet, and realize how much you’ve depended on invisible systems, and how quickly they can vanish.

Camping and filming – Lessons learned

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Camping, llanos de la pez!Well, my first video that was basically centered around me got me quite a bit of comments. It also taught me quite a bit. First the lessons I learned myself:

– Batteries. Lots of video means you need some way to charge a battery, or have a replacement ready. In the two days camping I spend the battery of my good camera the first day. My phone was empty around noon the second day, and the two gopro clones I had did last a bit longer, but had a terrible image and sound quality.
– Interaction. It was difficult to film people I did not know. It felt like I would invade their privacy, so I did not film anything while I talked to others. People in our group also showed some restraint when appearing, so I also kept these interactions to a minimum. The result was a movie where I am almost the only person to appear.
– Clean. The video needs to be ‘cleaner’. I don’t know the correct word, but a lot of my sentences end in gibberish no-one can understand. I need to speak clearer. Some parts of the video show the ground, or my feet, or my shirt, and are not focused correctly. I needed to keep some of these parts to avoid breaking the monologue I was having.
– Information. I need a bit more of background information, so I have something to say when there is a dull moment.
– Editing. Cutting away boring parts is not so easy. I was talking a lot, and sometimes I had to leave bad parts to not cut my sentence in half. Sometimes I had to remove big clips, because I repeated things I had already said. Shorter sentences and a small pause before changing topic might help a lot to do the editing afterwards.

My family also had some comments. Quite a lot of comments actually, but most are covered my the issues I found myself.

– Focus. There is no clear goal for the movie. I was told nobody would be interested in seeing only me talk (and drink). It the focus is a family movie we see to little family. If the focus is transmitting interesting facts, I need to include more information.
– No interaction. The same as I already stated, but my family told me it was not all on me. The participants to the video should participate more, without being scared of the camera. This will probably be hard to achieve, because I told everyone I would be making a video, and everybody thought it was a good idea, but still almost nobody wanted to be filmed.

Conclusion: I liked filming and thought the video was not so bad, and maybe even a bit funny, but after all the criticism I have changed my mind. It is not a good video, and it would take a lot of effort to make it better. Will there be a next video… I´m not sure. We don’t normally go camping, so maybe I can make a video when we do something more often, and I need something to talk about. I’ll see, but for now my motivation is a bit low.

Camping – Llanos de la pez

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About two years ago we discovered two YouTubers that really inspired us. First ‘Bald and bankrupt‘, who made really great videos, like the one I like most, where he visits an off limits Russian production facility to the one of their last space shuttle like rockets. The ‘Buran’.

The other YouTuber is ‘Kurt Caz‘ with lots of good videos, but the one I like best is where he visited a family in the middle of nowhere, they invited him to some food, and he then did a fundraiser for the family in Haiti, and returned later to give them some money. The family uses the money to buy a motorcycle, to help them with a better future.

We went camping recently at a site called ‘Llanos de la Pez‘, in the middle of Gran Canaria, and tried to make our own video, inspired by these two great YouTubers. See for yourself how it turned out!

The educational aspects of the video, that maybe remain a bit in the background:
– We are camping in a forest that is representative to Gran Canaria a few hundred years ago
– At that time the entire island was covered with forest/trees
– Roque nublo is the place where the original inhabitants (the guanches) used to meet, to discuss important issues
Maybe the video is a bit over the top, but we laughed really a lot during the production, so even if it is not the best video, we can only be happy with the result.

If you want to go camping yourself, then here are some more info and guidelines for your stay. Ask for permission to camp and spend the night. Walking routes available in the area.