After the Lanzarote International Marathon: Timanfaya and La Geria
The Route: Costa Teguise → Montañas del Fuego (Timanfaya) → La Geria → Costa Teguise Logistics: Hire car or organised coach tour. No public bus reaches the Montañas del Fuego. About 40 minutes each way from Costa Teguise. Marathon Month: December Duration: Day trip
Costa Teguise ──(about 40 mins by car)──> Montañas del Fuego ──(about 15 mins)──> La Geria ──(about 30 mins)──> Costa Teguise
The Lanzarote International Marathon runs along the island's east coast, the tame side. Inland, on the west, is the landscape that makes Lanzarote look like nowhere else: a hundred or so volcanic cones and some 200 square kilometres of lava that poured out between 1730 and 1736 and buried a dozen villages. The best of it is seen from a coach seat, which makes Timanfaya the ideal day out on marathon legs.
December in Timanfaya is mild and usually dry, in the low twenties by day, though the lava fields can be windy and the air cooler inland than on the coast. The visitor centre is busy from mid-morning, when coach tours arrive; getting there for opening at 09:30 means a shorter queue for the park coach.
The Montañas del Fuego, the heart of the national park, can only be reached by car or with a tour, and visitors must park at the Islote de Hilario visitor centre. From Costa Teguise, drive west via Tahíche and San Bartolomé towards Yaiza; allow about 40 minutes. Organised tours pick up from the main resorts.
The Montañas del Fuego
Entry is €30 for adults and covers the Ruta de los Volcanes, a coach tour of about 14 km through the lava fields on a road closed to private traffic. Visitors stay in their seats; the coach stops at viewpoints over craters, lava tubes and fields of cinder in shades of black, red and ochre, with a commentary in several languages. It takes about 35 minutes. The last departure is at 15:45.
At the visitor centre, rangers show how hot the ground still is a few metres down: brushwood pushed into a hole bursts into flame, and water poured into a pipe comes back as a jet of steam. El Diablo, the restaurant designed by César Manrique on the site, grills meat and fish over a well that uses the volcano's heat. The whole visit involves very little walking, on level paved ground.
On the road up to the park, at the Echadero de los Camellos, camel rides cross the slopes of the volcanoes. They are short and involve being lifted and lowered on a moving animal; tired quads may prefer to watch.
La Geria
The road south-east from Timanfaya towards Uga and Masdache runs through La Geria, the island's wine country. Farmers here dig each vine into its own pit in the layer of volcanic ash, down to the soil beneath, and protect it from the wind with a low semicircular wall of lava stones. Thousands of these hollows cover the hillsides in rows. The effect is extraordinary and has no parallel on mainland Spain.
Several bodegas along the road open for tastings. El Grifo, founded in 1775, is one of the oldest wineries in the Canary Islands and has a small wine museum. Malvasía volcánica is the local white grape, made dry or sweet. The bodegas are on level ground by the road. If driving, one person tastes and one does not.
The return
From La Geria the road back to Costa Teguise runs east via San Bartolomé, about 30 minutes. Check the bodegas' opening hours before setting out, as some close early or on certain days in winter.