Lanzarote, an Island of Surprises

As I write this, Lanzarote and the Canary Islands are in the middle of a calima...a Saharan dust storm. It’s mid-day but the sky is very overcast with a muddy brown hue. The Sahara Desert, 125 km to the east of us, had its sand kicked up in a huge windstorm and the fine particles of reddish brown dust have blown over here to obscure the sun and cover all surfaces with a thorough layer of grit. Canarians tell their children that calimas occur when Africans are cleaning their house and beating their carpets.

David and I have been on this volcanic island since early December. We came here for the heat (haven’t seen it much), the dry weather (same thing) and to spend some time reading on the beaches in the sun (ditto). However, Lanzarote, much like the rest of Europe, is experiencing one its wettest, coolest winters ever. One old-timer said that it has not rained this much in 67 years. Of course, he said this in Spanish and we don’t understand Spanish. Maybe he just said he was 67 years old. Or he has 67 children.

Despite the weather, we are really enjoying our time here. Only 60 km by 25 km with its narrowest point 7 km across, Lanzarote is small but has an enormous diversity in plants, especially so with the recent rains. The North end of the island is very green with valleys of palm trees and fields of wild spring flowers. The south end of the island, more of the touristy side, was arid brown and desert-like when we first arrived, but the rains have teased out hints of greenery from the soil.

Viniculture is unique here. Farming practices must protect plants from the wind and capture precious moisture. The island’s sandy soil itself won’t support too many crops. Instead, the soil is covered in a top layer of black volcanic lapilli. Lapilli, also called picon, ranges in size from a few millimetres to 2 or 3 centimetres across. Very porous, it acts like mulch, keeping weeds at bay and collecting moisture from the dew at night to drip it down to the roots. Individual grape vines are planted in their own crater, about 1.5 m across and about a metre deep. The roots are in the soil but the vine is pruned to stay low to the ground and rest on a thick layer of picon. Surrounding each crater is a zoca, a semi-circular rock wall to protect the plant from wind. Harvesting the grapes has to be done by hand by reaching down into each crater. And the result? Delicious!

I have also enjoyed hiking on the island with Canary Trekking (www.canarytrekking.com). One day, we explored Les Volcanes National Park where we climbed over lava flows and onto lava lakes, wandered along jameos (a volcano tube whose roof has collapsed), peered down into craters and searched for olivinia, the green semi-precious stones found in volcanic rock.

My favourite hike combined brilliant sun with crystal clear skies, fields of colourful wildflowers, and breathtaking scenery along the cliffs (didn’t realize that heights gave me the heebie-jeebies!)

Fantastico!

Ergonomics in Europe

Design with the human requirement in mind is something Leslie had to think about at work before we left for Europe. For those of you that didn’t know, Leslie worked for The Neil Squire Foundation where she helped spinal cord injured adults adapt to the work place or at least home work stations. For example sip and puff straws could be used to control a computer for a victim of paralysis. She also did private consultations for RBC helping employees fit their particular environment without causing or aggravating physical problems. This may have involved rearranging a work station to alleviate lower back pain rather than increase lumbar support. She also helped me adapt to my work environment with vocal coaching. She often gently but firmly nudged me to “Go to your work place and adapt.”

So you can see, ergonomics is a complex, often psychological business. Leslie anticipated leaving this behind for at least a year.

Now, as I type at this work station I have almost forgotten what my point was. The reason for my forgetfulness is I have bumped my head so many times in Europe that my short term memory is worse than when I left. I have hit my head in every possible way imaginable. It started in France where the stairs were often an inconsistent height and tread length. The uneven stairs would precipitate a lurching gait which was part gorilla or Quasimodo like. The lurch would gain in intensity in direct proportion to the length of the staircase. Just as my knuckles dragged the ground, a low ceiling or archway would suddenly come out of nowhere and bop me in the noggin.

In Ojen, Spain, moving between the five floors of our casa was also a highly risky manoeuvre with uneven stairs and low ceilings. I would try to empathize with the 17 century designers of our abodes as they had no building codes or straight timber and likely were short in stature from poor nutrition but after the fourth bump I could have personally wacked the builder’s head with a crêpe pan.

Taps continue to present a particular challenge both intellectual and physical. Standing in the shower shivering in my birthday suit on a chilly spring day in France, I stared at an arrangement of levers and taps that should require some sort of licensing procedure to operate. With a random series of movements I established a trickle of water. The shower became colder which in turn caused me to rotate faster. A pivoting lever, more like an on-off switch, was cleverly placed at the height of my bottom by a French plumber with a fiendish sense of humour. My ass struck the lever which caused an instantaneous increase in temperature that was dangerous. The only option was to protect my tender nether region with my hands as I used my head as a battering ram to open the shower door. I believe after millions of years of evolution heads are not supposed to be used in such a manner. We seem to stay in a country just long enough to figure out the idiosyncrasies of its plumbing before moving on to the vagaries of another system.

After all that you would think we could do with a rest but even that isn’t easy. I came to dread Leslie saying “David, could you help me with this?” If she was standing by the fold-out couch, this usually meant she was going to have a little nap, usually after a trying session with set of taps or puzzling over which side of the road to drive on. There is nothing intuitive about opening most fold-out couches in Europe. It is a pure combatative sport, requiring strength, athleticism and, above all, tenacity. We became very competitive about it; Leslie says it’s “us versus them.”

Our first opponent was feisty small Italian sofa-bed, stylish and white in colour, but black in disposition. It fought out of a small studio rental in Manarola, on the Cinque Terre. It punched well above its weight class utilizing some classic jujitsu moves as well. After some gentle coaxing we could get it to a half up or down position where it would stubbornly remain. Staring intently at its complicated mechanism had no apparent effect. Leslie, full of aggression, would suddenly throw herself at the upright portion as I steadied the horizontal section. This was a booby trap as it would then toss me skyward in such a manner that I would inevitably bump my head. A flurry of activity would follow, brutal in its intensity. The Italian sofa-bed would finally submit but we had no idea how we had accomplished it.

The Spanish sofa-beds are strong but can usually be opened by careful logical moves only with the threat of violence and only with occasional temperamental flare-ups. The French sofa-beds seem to know there are two of us that will gang up on it. They are very stubborn but stylish, unlikely to give at all, but afraid of outright violence. They are not beyond squeaking loudly when put into a position they don’t want to be in. The French sofa-beds never have instructions in English nor would they accept them even if they did.

I try to follow clear instructions. Give me an easily understood highway sign and I will do my darndest to comply, with the exception of speed limit of course. Well designed road signs are part of ergonomics as they help us steer hurtling 2000 kg blocks of metal through urban mazes and rural racetracks.

We share the road with Russians, Canadians, Brits, Americans, Norwegians etc., none of whom have the slightest idea where they are going or how to read a foreign country’s signs. Most of them are looking at the scenery anyway, not the signs.

In many European countries, signs would be better described as weather vanes as they seem to point in random directions dictated by weather or folly. The sign often points firmly between the several options at an intersection, leaving you to gamble. Trying to determine the direction signs are pointing while negotiating a roundabout with a vehicle two inches off your rear bumper, on the wrong side of the road while your wife is pointing out scenic views off to left, is a bit of a challenge.

We tried to look for some sort of pattern. For example, an arrow pointing towards the heavens seems to mean continue straight ahead. Then the arrow mysteriously moves to a horizontal position. This would seem to imply right or left turn, but no, this appears to mean they ran out of screws that hold the arrow in the upright position.Fortunately, most European vehicles get excellent gas mileage; this is out of necessity as you constantly have to backtrack because of wrong turns.

France is in the process of changing their road name designations, A, E, N followed by a number or whatever, pfffftt!. No maps seem to correlate with the sign designation or they change in midstream. The French and Italians cope with these little inequities with a shrug and/or a few hand gestures. However Canadians, Germans and Swiss are near suicidal with Ergonomic Inequity Disease (or E.I.D.) by the end of a short drive. Leslie and I have yet to experience northern European signage because we were limited in our travel due to an embarrassing emotional breakdown caused by an acute case of E.I.D.at the Czech Republic’s border after a day traversing several countries.

All this blogging has triggered my post traumatic stress syndrome so I going to “sign” out and have a glass of Lanzarote wine.