Lanzarote 22.-29.01.2011...: What a week…!!!

If you go to Lanzarote you expect good weather, warm sun, low winds and a deasent sun burn on your nose.

Well, I can tell you I didn’t get anything of that!

On arrival we had cloudy weather and moderate winds. So far, so good. The night to Sunday was as if someone had forgotten to close a tap up in heaven: it rained so hard that water even came into my house… straight through the main entrance door..!!! It had not rained like that in years. Obviously I had come to Lanza to make some K’s on my bike. I went out on Sunday and did some 4 hours in the middle of very strange scenery: water, no…: floods all over. The roads where rivers and I was thinking to buy a fishing rod to catch some fish in the middle of the road.

TV and the newspapers where full of warnings about floods and hard winds awaited for the next days.

“Who cares” I thought and went out every day with my bike. What a stupid idea. Imagine you are on a flat road and you have a head wind for 30 km and you are already breaking off the cranks of you bike… and only going 14 km/h….! (we had 90 km/h winds at the peak) Uaaaahhhh. You really think about selling your bike and even putting money on top.

Anyway: I survived all this and collected lot’s of K’s on the bike, had lot’s of goose bumps, got totally wet, froze to death and had lot’s of “conejeros” (name for the people living on Lanzarote) shaking there heads on how stupid a guy can be.

Calmer day: the paragliders were out / the island green

I did some swimming as well. I had to go with a wet suit as the pool was cold. Only one day permitted me to swim without. So I did my swim test and achieved my monthly goal… Yeah!!!

I also did my running home work and managed my 15 k in 56 minutes. On Friday I did 180 k’s on the bike and accomplished my set average.

After the storm: peace over the clouds going home

All in all it was a fantastic and thrilling week. I had very nice company in my house in Tahiche and have hopefully inspired some more people to come to this extraordinary island. Big “THANKS” to Kim (U R A star!) and “Hi” to Boris. Sorry we did not make it for a coffee.

Hasta pronto familia…