Alejandro Hernández, a reader of La Voz, highlights the diversity that Lanzarote offers to visitors, emphasizing its numerous contrasts and attractions. "Lanzarote is an oasis of land in the sea, it is a viewpoint to the imagination, it is the shelter where you can rest, to continue dreaming," he says. This is the tour he takes of the possibilities offered by the island and the account of his experience on it:
"Last year I had the opportunity to visit Lanzarote, within the framework of the IV Forum on Agroecology and Biodiversity, which was held in the municipality of Haría; I took the opportunity to extend my stay for two weeks, and this is the minimum necessary time, recommended, to be able to enjoy the numerous contrasts, and attractions, that the island of Los Volcanes offers to visitors, from the busy urban center of Arrecife, with a coming and going of tourists as evidenced by the planes that rumble in the sky when 'entering and leaving'.
Lanzarote is an oasis of land in the sea, it is a viewpoint to the imagination, it is the shelter where you can rest, to continue dreaming, unimaginable forms, it is the black of the picón, dotted with green, and call it cinnamon or brown, it is the ochre of a mountain in the distance, it is a white like a reflection of the sun, it is a play of light and shadows by day, which changes like the lava that flowed, and now, still hot, it is a stone wall that protects the vineyard from the wind; wind that moves toys in the harmony of a composition of surprise and ingenuity, of the old and the modern.
It is where the blue of the sky allows you to look further, to abstraction.
Where the mountains are like sinuous waves that at sunset give utopias on the horizon, next to shadows of palm trees and lights of stars.
Lanzarote is the mimicry of what came and what was, it is identity and multiculturalism, where there is room for one more experience, where a new project is to be developed, where to materialize a sketch elaborated in the last century, with ideas that transcend in time, it is an exhibition of art and nature all of it, it is the balance of the imperfect, a showcase full of what is useful for the body, it is the simplicity of the extravagant, it is an undated amphora, water that quenches the thirst of curiosity, it is the fertile garden that gives birth to life "without ceasing", home of stories yet to be lived, where the immobile comes and goes, and the inert comes to life, where the tiny keeps a treasure, it is a spiral in growth, it is like a tapestry by Don Manuel Millares, like an "impossible" duo by Rosana and Luis Morera that is about to happen, food for the immortal letters of Saramago giving off compassion and truth.
It is a setting of a thousand and one nights, it is the flower of a cactus in its climax, poem by Don Rafael Alberti dedicated. The distance of the roques and the view to La Graciosa, is the flight of a flock of birds over the cultivation of prickly pears, are the clouds that escape less in the north, in Haría, where everything has been retained, the mist between the needles of the pines or in the cisterns of the houses, and the time in the clock, of the house of Don César Manrique, that humanist genius, who without a doubt, was born to show the Canary Islands to its inhabitants and the world; and Lanzarote must not forget its legacy, and remember, who sculpted a painting, did the unthinkable, combined the natural and artificial creating "the model" to follow, to preserve that World Biosphere Reserve, which is culture and recreation, music by the sea or in a natural amphitheater, sculptures that stumble upon the walker, traditional and unpublished architecture, next to the Gran Hotel de Arrecife, surrounded by white sand and falúas, the perishable footprint of the tourist, terraces of onions and 'sweet potatoes', Salinas de Janubio, vineyards that draw the landscape, roads to rediscover, and walks that are diluted in the gaze, ruins to restore, petanque and Canarian wrestling, fishing with a rod;…
To take care of unnecessary luxury and consumerism, of rubble and unbridled construction, of silenced struggles, Lanzarote must be one hundred and fifty thousand souls in unison, with cooperation and overcoming, demanding renewable energies, efficient public transport, quality and cheap water, better connections with the rest of the islands, giving the same 'treatment' to all the residents of the archipelago, since it should be a right and an obligation, to visit it at least once in a lifetime..."
