The Radio Lanzarote-Onda Cero Micro-story Contest, in its eleventh edition dedicated to the Tourist Centers, continues to receive stories.
The deadline to participate in the contest will be open until August 31. Until that day, those interested can send their stories to the email concursorelatos@lanzarotemedia.net, with a maximum length of 100 words, including the title if it has one.
On this occasion, participants must tell a real or imagined experience that occurred in some corner of the Tourist Centers that for them is full of magic. Each author can send a maximum of five stories, which can be signed with a pseudonym, although they must always indicate a name and a contact telephone number.
The stories will be read in the "Reading on the Radio" space of Radio Lanzarote (90.7), and published in La Voz de Lanzarote. Both the publication and the reading will be subject to the space and time availability of both media.
The contest's decision, which will be made public in the second half of September, will be the responsibility of a jury made up of journalists from Radio Lanzarote-Onda Cero and La Voz de Lanzarote, who will choose three winning stories and seven finalists.
The winner will receive a prize of a weekend for two people with accommodation and breakfast at the Hotel Natura Palace, a 4-star plus establishment. The second prize will be a dinner for two people at the Castillo de San José and the third prize one of the unusual experiences for two people from the Centers of Art, Culture and Tourism of the Cabildo. All prizes are for adults.
Magic Cycles
Year 2011, I wake up in front of a gaze that combines the sun, the moon and the stars.
Green eyes as clear as a beautiful, colorful and warm spring at dawn.
A magical sunrise inside the ancient crater of a volcano that hides a beautiful green water lagoon.
The north wind ripples the ocean, an ocean that squanders snow with its waves and that breaks furiously on the volcanic rocks of the beach.
All this magical environment sealed in your eyes, where a calm sea settles and stops in which I like to swim when I look at them.
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I entered the Jameos del Agua, a small group of girls were watching me.
You are who I was looking for.
- What brings you here? - she asks.
- I'm in love - I reply.
She watches me as I notice her slight smile.
- How complicated! - she exclaims.
- Were you writing? - I ask.
- Not for now. I have no reason to.
- Tell me about her - she says.
- I met her and I felt it, I was burning. That invisible power that traps you, entangling you. It's so simple, I need you so I don't go crazy.
- But she doesn't feel the same way.
We remain silent.
When will the punishment of your memory end?
In the cactus garden
I go with my prince charming to the Cactus Garden.
From dawn, northern lights give color to the sky.
The earth burns, a suffocating heat houses the entire garden.
We walk and an infinity of plants and cacti
Invade our gaze.
We have lunch, and as the afternoon goes by, birds and insects
are kept for the next day; we go down to the
lagoon and observe the face of César Manrique
reflected next to small fish that swim in the area
just as the sun sets behind the mill,
the stars and lights shine in the night.
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And so, in the manner of dreams, it may be that what I tell you is not strictly in the correct order and, perhaps, not even what happened. Meanwhile, the leaves will continue to fall, like the hours we lost sitting, waiting for a table that was not occupied.
9:00 p.m., Los Jameos del Agua, quiet afternoon.
After two hours sitting contemplating the empty restaurant, unable to bear the hunger any longer and faced with the new refusal to give us dinner, we left that now gloomy place, once the proud bright star of the north, to the hordes of invading tourism…
Air
Diana is trapped. People crowd the museum and voices thicken the air. Diana suffocates and puts her back against the stone wall. Someone presses against her arm. Then she pushes and runs. Lost, she climbs some stairs that narrow. They darken until it is not possible to go back. She has no breath left. Suddenly, the steps end and there is the moon over the reef. Diana approaches the edge of the roof. The sea wind ruffles her hair. She raises her arms, she is going to take flight... and she breathes.
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There are places with magic, with that special charm that makes each visit seem like the first time... Years go by and I go back into the depths of the earth, where the lava frozen in time accompanies me every step of the way. Words that tell the story, whispers of those who discover this wonder underground, laughter of children, flashes wanting to capture the moment and the silence inviting us to enjoy that instant... None of that distracts me from the present moment. We stop, and suddenly a stone is thrown into the void and... I travel back in time, I return to 1998.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder
They went unnoticed. Their beauty was ignored by humans. The lack of leaves, the scarcity of flowers and the excess of thorns was not understood. Until one day someone knew how to value that vegetation as part of a context, where life made its way between lava and volcanic ash. How to make them appreciated? he thought. "I will create a place where they can be admired, visible, understood," he said to himself. A garden where they can be themselves, without expectations, without judgments, just be... be cacti. There I will celebrate it.
Sleeping life
They are not just any mountains, lava and ash emanated from their interior for years. In its slow, leisurely course, it designed a unique, overwhelming landscape, an environment that at times makes you forget where you are, and transports you to another planet or even to the moon. You have not been there, but you sense that the picture up there must be very similar to this. And every time you go back into this postcard drawn by fire, you understand how small we are before the immensity of nature itself. Life still sleeps beneath your feet.
Ma Legend
Place of true love cross the dark plains of Timanfaya under the violent embrace of the trade winds that seem to want to keep the truths secret. In ancient times, sailors said that walking hidden paths near the volcano thinking about the one they loved, if they felt the need to love, Timanfaya, the man, would show himself.
Reddish mountains in silence and flames, mysterious simplicity that traps the heart, ancestral sensations that history keeps, lunar landscapes dying on nearby coasts. Timanfaya, crying for his beloved walking towards scorching flames. Andrés thought, of the legend of the sailors while he waited for Sonia.
Reunion
She was walking down the hallway of the institute when she received the call. It had been many years since she had spoken to him. After several conversations, she was able to see that something was still beating in their hearts. She returns to her island, to which she always promised to return. That night, sitting at the table of the Los Jameos del Agua restaurant, they could see in their eyes how the flame of love that they both felt as young people was still alive. It is at that moment when they decide that this is their place and that from now on they will live together for the rest of their lives.
I love you...
He was left alone, his partner had left.
He drove to Los Hervideros, walked pretending to fill his lungs with the sea air.
That's when he sees a woman trying unsuccessfully to take a selfie.
Without thinking, he captures a spectacular photo.
She looks surprised. He embarrassedly approaches to apologize.
The girl's smile illuminates his wounded heart, he asks her to send him the photo.
Months go by and he doesn't forget the stranger he feels love for.
He met her the day he lost his mother, to whom he never said "I love you".
Carpe Diem.
"Barefoot in the sand
We had just landed in La Graciosa. We had barely set foot on the dock when our son, dressed only in his swimsuit, thin and tanned body in the sun, from the beaches of Lanzarote days before this excursion, walked barefoot and shirtless through the sandy streets of the town.
He appeared to be a native of the place, barely three years old, he seemed to have been walking through those alleys for centuries.
It was only the beginning of our visit and we were already breathing an air full of adventures. Being aware that we would never forget it, no matter how many lives passed."
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The devil was burning with anger. How was it possible? He had dedicated a lot of effort creating for his vacation destination, an inhospitable spot erupting Timanfaya in the year 1730, with its tongues of fire devastating entire towns, its skies covered in ash and consequent famines so that now it was a must-see paradise in Lanzarote. Nothing less than a beloved natural park throughout the Canary Islands. With almost two million visits per year...arggg. The hot spots and persistent volcanic activity? Well, they are the fits of rage of our "poor" devil... Arggg.
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"Your betrayal cannot go unpunished. I will not kill you. You have dishonored my queen and your king. You will be exiled and you will live until the end of your days as a hermit on a remote island that will be named after you. That is my punishment." sentenced King Arthur. And so it happened. Whims of fate, Camelot and King Arthur are now nothing more than a legend, and Lanzarote, on the other hand, is a whole island.
The blackbird
The blackbird sang its last songs of summer perched on a plum tree, observing the colors of thyme and rockrose, when it inadvertently entered the wind cave, a cavity formed 27,000 years ago, in the Pico Viejo volcano, located next to Teide in Tenerife.
Curious, he wanted to discover new territories where to build a nest but the screams of the wind stunned him and, when the echo returned his song, he fell in love with his own trills, and never left the cave again, looking for himself.
Viewpoint.
I returned as every year to the same place as always, and there, breathing deeply and letting the strong wind tangle my hair, came the memories of those times.
Tears of emotion fell down my face looking at the island of La Graciosa, so small but so alive rocked by the waves....and I toasted with a glass of wine for the friends who are no longer here. Those that once a year we went to the Mirador del Río and we stayed observing in silence the imperturbable greatness of the cliff.
What a good place to recharge your batteries!
To you friends, I raise my glass.
"Poor Devil (from Timanfaya)
You were born from misfortune, with the fury of the earth. Your beloved buried under the rock, made your madness surface.
It must have been a happy day, the greatest of your life. Your girlfriend, radiant in white, looked into your eyes. Hers glassy with joy, yours accompanied her happiness.
You didn't want to wait any longer to kiss her, but misfortune made its presence felt. She disappeared forever, you were marked for eternity.
Your rage and despair fueled your immortality, so as not to stop seeking revenge, five-pointed forge in hand, in the bowels of the earth."
Fabric postcards.
White curtains wave like sand and draw the path of silhouettes between dark figures searching for their end. Waves of sand that break on their stone shores like giants hidden between shadows and lights of suggestive colors. And on their generous smiles, small flashing blue sparkles illuminate the atmosphere of happiness. Serene music floods their absences with melancholy in the immense enchanted tube.
The waves continue, the currents continue and the paths continue. And the lights come and go and the immobile and perpetual giants witness the passage of time.
Untitled
Of course, we went down the delicious, wide, winding and suggestive spiral staircase, convinced that when talking to the maître d' everything would be clarified, it would only have been a mistake. Besides, it's only seven in the afternoon and most people wouldn't arrive to dine at Los Jameos until nine.
"It will only be a quick dinner, we'll leave the table free before an hour," we told a waiter.
Soon the distant voice of the maître d' reached us -Well, I'll see what I can do, sit over there (pointing to a distant bench) -were his words before accommodating us... in the wait...
Innocence
He always tells me that I am too innocent, that I don't get it; let's say that he is one of those who always goes ahead, paving the way, while I stay behind, observe and meditate: you could say that my ideas are cooked over low heat. And that's how it happened in that underground passage called "Cueva De Los Verdes", he went ahead of the group and those seconds of advantage prevented him from contemplating the wonder of the abyss of the cave: the water was still waving. I arrived with the group, we were speechless and amazed to discover the deception: Blessed innocence!.
Timanfaya
A beautiful landscape, what is the image? in most cases a green valley surrounded by majestic mountains and crossed by a river of crystalline waters; or perhaps a very long beach flanked by palm trees, nothing to do with this waving of ashen hills and craters; however we look spellbound at the changing palette of colors that the wind, the sun and the clouds draw at will: nickel green, coppery red, yellowish gray and the intense black of cold lava. The narrator with an overwhelming voice tells us about the birth of this beautiful creature: Timanfaya!.
Timanfaya
A beautiful landscape, what is the image? in most cases a green valley surrounded by majestic mountains and crossed by a river of crystalline waters; or perhaps a very long beach flanked by palm trees, nothing to do with this waving of ashen hills and craters; however we look spellbound at the changing palette of colors that the wind, the sun and the clouds draw at will: nickel green, coppery red, yellowish gray and the intense black of cold lava. The narrator with an overwhelming voice tells us about the birth of this beautiful creature: Timanfaya!.
From Nadia to no one, in a trash can
After enjoying the beautiful views of the Mirador and with ice cream in hand, she didn't know where to hide the hundreds of euros from the approved, in a towel and without pockets, she put the bill between the paper cone and the cone because she never ate it.
We got in the car and headed for Los Jameos. Summer songs, emotional hums and the happiness of the atmosphere made that when we got off, we left that loot in that trash can. In this Berlin neighborhood, it is just another tourist center, the 100 euro trash can.
Timanfaya
-Grandma, why are we stopping?
-Because we are going to sit for a while at the foot of the mountain.
Are you tired?
-No, I just want to feel the magic that surrounds us. Close your eyes and delight your soul.
And that's what I did. I always listened to my grandmother, however crazy her ideas might seem. I closed my eyes, took her hand and, little by little, my body relaxed. I began to feel the heat of the earth and the cool breeze on my skin; to hear the croaking of crows; to merge with the landscape; to be part of Timanfaya.
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