Sandos Papagayo Resort in Playa Blanca Lanzarote
The Cole Clan took a rather eventful trip to Lanzarote this year for our family holiday and I thought I would do what any great tourist does…. I would force my holiday snaps on everyone I see. I will try to keep the number under a million – and I promise not to bore you with too many random landscapes (that is a lie) and at least you can count yourself lucky I don’t have a slide projector at my disposal or you would be in for real trouble. Most of my photos were taken when we got up early in the morning to watch the sun rise every day (I am bad at having a lie in – even on holiday) so I hope you enjoy all the beautiful light on offer…
Matt wanted to know why it is that you never see photos taken inside the plane and I told him it was probably because it was so cramped you couldn’t be bothered. He reckoned it was because all the photos would look like this….
So instead Matt concentrated on taking a few out the window as the sun set. In true holiday fashion our flight ran late – but the bonus was getting to see the sun set over the whole island as we approached.
From the beach outside of our hotel, we had the most stunning views of Fuerteventura. Before the Canaries belonged to Spain they were once known as the ‘Purple Islands’ and you could totally see why.
We spent every evening watching the sun set over the balcony and every night it was a little bit different. Some nights it was so very blue and other nights it was so pink you could see the magenta light reflect off your skin.
We even took a night time stroll on the volcanic beach outside our hotel and I decided to play with a little long exposure. Those lights in the distance over the water are Fuerteventura.
There is a tradition of writing names on the beaches in the various colours of volcanic rock and it was so amazing to wake up in the morning and see how things had changed.
It was exactly as idyllic as it looks. Every night a different coloured rainbow of light.
We would get up every morning at 7 am for a walk as the sun rose and a few mornings we were joined by this little lady whom we named ‘Lanzarote Kitty’. She would follow us over the volanic dunes meowing away and waiting to be stroked.
We had two day trips to Playa Blanca – one time spending our time on a little quiet beach and the second time at the busier Dorada Beach where we were able to paddle out through the crystal clear waters. I was stung by a jellyfish in the open water – YIPES. No… no one wee’d on my leg but a splash of vodka helped tremendously. Oh… and it cleaned out the sting too.
I never get tired of the dizzy sensation you get when you walk on shore.
Every morning on our sunrise walks we would go over the volcanic dunes towards the hidden Papagayo Beach which would be utterly quiet and still. It is a bit of a hair raising walk down the dunes (at least for someone who gets a bit of vertigo like me!) but we found our way down and kinda pretended the beach was all ours forever.
Sometimes the morning clouds would hang so low they looked like the volcano was erupting.
When I was a little baby (very little – maybe a year old) my grandmother gave me a stuffed kitty named Sammy. (aka – Sammy Cat and Samuel)
Sammy joins us wherever we travel all over the UK and beyond and as Sammy is quite an old cat, we like to take plenty of photos of Sammy so he can remember his travels later.
The light was low and strong – perfect for some shenanigans.
Then, we decided Samuel needed his own castle so we got to building ‘Un Castillo Grande para Un Gato Loco’.
As all good kings do, Sammy Cat left the building of the Castle to his minions.
After a few hours and one siege from an enthusiastic husky who ran over and began ‘helping’ us build the castle we ended up with a rather impressive monument. We were even given a plastic dinosaur to sit atop the castle volcano by a friendly passing naturist jogger.
If you ever go to Papagayo Beach…. do let us know how our castle is doing. We are sure it will still be there.