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It is landed in Arrecife and one is transferred to the most eastern end of Lanzarote . You take a small boat, further east, and after a short 20 minute ride, you reach the past. The Las Chinijas archipelago is reached, formed by tiny islands that emerged from the volcanic upheavals that shook the planet millions of years ago.

Large eruptions that gave rise to small islands. La Graciosa, Alegranza, Montaña Clara, the Roque del Este and the Roque del Oeste; wonderful volcanic materials scattered in the Atlantic vastness of the African coast. Ash, salt, water and sand. Smooth reddish elevations. Brown and ocher in endless combinations. The wind and sun are the most common residents of these islands, but there are migratory birds that stop and nest in the smaller islands.

LA GRACIOSA

It is the largest and the only inhabited of this almost unknown group of islands declared a natural park in 1986. Its nearly 500 inhabitants are concentrated in Caleta del Sebo. Imagine an old fishing village with white houses, blue windows, multi-colored boats and postcard people really living. A wonderfully anachronistic place; an impossible survivor of the Spanish coast of the 40s or 50s.

Silence that does not go unnoticed, unpaved streets and characters dressed in costumes that in other places have long remained to remember nostalgia for other times. Individuals who have left stale photos and walk through the minimalist setting of this old coastal town.

Unpaved street in Caleta del Sebo.

Here the days go by without haste. Wrinkled potatoes, mojo picón accompanying old women, cabrillas, samas, bocinegras, alfonsiños ..., and other local fish that satisfy palates and stomachs. Simple and natural gastronomy for an uncomplicated existence. The urgency here is an incomprehensible perversion of human behavior that only seems to affect certain outsiders.

STARS, THOSE OF HEAVEN

In La Graciosa you only see stars at night, never on hotel or restaurant plates. The level of its hotel offer is as modest as that of its orographic profile (the island has its highest elevation at 275 meters and its highest hotel category at the height of the pension ).

But here it comes to be fine. Only what is missing is missing: there is no noise, there are almost no people, there is no media pressure, there are no distances, there is no rush, there is almost nothing and, fortunately, it is possible that it will continue without being in the near future. The tourist development will not be easy in La Graciosa since its consideration of a natural park and the will of its own neighbors have made the building land only be assigned, and with rigorous limitations, to young natives of the island who want to continue living and working on it.

Some apartments, two pensions and certain private houses constitute the scarce inventory of tourist places that the island offers; something that favors the shortage of temporary residents and benefits the quiet anonymity, so much to the liking of the politicians who have been seen there, from Adolfo Suárez to Joaquín Almunia.

FISHERMAN REFUGE

In La Graciosa you have to go to Pedro Barba, a fishing village abandoned years ago and recently converted into a luxury for certain privileged people who, in their day, knew how to see that the modest homes of the seaman could be magnificent refuges for the men of the master and haste.

If what you want is to enjoy a day or a good time on the beach , you will have a choice; In addition, all the beaches and coves are quiet and delicious: De la Cocina or Montaña Amarilla, Playa del Salado, De Las Conchas, La Francesa, La Laja, Caleta de Arriba ...

In La Graciosa a bicycle will take you anywhere and curiosity will make you crown the three or four tired and worn out volcanoes that brought up the island when the land was still young and hot. Now they remain on the ground as old cutaneous signs, reminiscent of the youthful acne of past impetus and telluric vigores.

Here everything is limited and familiar. You eat at Enriqueta's pension or El Girasol's and you have dinner at the Taberna Marinera or La Caletilla. The bruise of the fall is healed by the nun from the dispensary, and Miguel, in addition to giving you the buns in the morning, can bring you to Alagranza in his old transformed boat, a speedboat from the navy, in a peaceful and tired pleasure boat .

Volcanoes mark the orography of the islands.

JOY AND THE MINOR CHINIJAS

Alegranza is not far, but getting there can sometimes be difficult. In addition to talking to Miguel, you have to find out how the shearwater is , an emblematic bird of these islands and superprotected by the environmental authorities. If it is not a critical time in its life cycle, nor is it its nesting season, the bird will not be a problem and only the approval of the island owner will be needed.

Ah! And it is important that the northeast wind does not blow so that the maneuver to win the steep and wild shore is not more like a command operation than a simple sport landing. If all these requirements are finally brought together, you will have a desert island to enjoy all day.

Alegranza is made up of two volcanoes that decided to unite their flows and give rise to a long wonder of lava fields and large stone flakes. From the top of the largest and oldest caldera on the island, the waves of the sea can be heard striking and hitting the eroded outer base of the volcano's bottom, making it rumble like an immense drum whose sound amplifies the vertical walls of the crater.

If the northeast does not convert the operation to embark on a marine rescue, one may approach Roque del Oeste and Montaña Clara, sanctuaries of the iconic bird of this area and closed to any visit other than ornithologists.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

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