Images from a sudden Springtime
Lanzarote is covered in volcanic ash and scree.
The eruptions 270 odd years ago were relatively gentle with no pressure build ups or explosions (boo,) just a rain of ash (aaah,) and very fluid lava (eeek.) The jagged lava fields are called El Malpais (yet another place called The Bad Country,) and will ruin the sturdiest boots in minutes.
Farmers protect their fig trees and grape vines with porous walls to break up the wind, and cover the fertile soil in a 15cm layer of ash (stone mulching.) This captures the night dew from the incessant, moist Northerly Alysios winds and prevents evaporation during the nine months of drought.
Round domes of succulents stay low against the wind.
When the clouds roll in around October, the island begins to green up. You can just see volcano tops peeking out of the sea of clouds.
The growing season is short but intense. Corn, chickpeas, lentils and sweet potato (as well as more mundane veg) are planted and harvested before the end of March. (I'm probably wrong about when they harvest some of these things, as the fields nearby have recently been stripped of sweet potato which only seem to have been planted last Sunday...)
The grasses are first to flower. Just beginning around now.
Then the dandylions in mid Feb.
Tiny bulbs hidden in the sandy dust all year long sprout into perfect bouquets, only two inches across.
Then suddenly there isnl't a patch of bare soil anywhere.
Spring sproings!! (And good photographers step out of their own shadow...)
Then by the end of March, everything has shrivelled up and blown away, leaving just dry earth and wind blown sand from the Sahara desert, only 50km Eastwards. And it is sun, sun, sun, until the first tourist-dampening cloudbursts in late Autumn. The only thing to do is go discover a black sand beach and collect green, sea polished flecks of semi-precious olivine.
