Today we went to Mirador Del Rio and César Manrique Cactus Gardens. It was a long drive to the other end of the island but held promises of a floating island and spectacular views.
Mirador Del Rio
So it’s cloudy… and we’re high up into the mountains and, unfortunately, the top of the mountain we’re on is shrouded in mist and cloud. But wow what a view (when we could see it). NOTE: The picture on the right is one I found on the internet and should have been what we saw. It was a VERY long way down (it was also a long way up from the other end). Fortunately there were barriers.
There was a nice coffee shop where we had a, err, coffee (Laura had a hot chocolate actually). We waited and hoped that the cloud was pass, it didn’t but a few more photos were taken. Once we’d finished, I asked for the bill in my best Spanish “La cuenta por favor” and must have sounded like a native as he rolled off some more Spanish and I had no idea what he said… “Sorry that was all of my Spanish” so he asked me what we had in English. 
There were a few sculptures courtesy of the islands seemingly single only ever artist to have graced Lanzarote, César Manrique.
We visited the gift shop and I managed to get, another, fridge magnet the same sort of shape as a book mark. What I didn’t think to take a picture of was the Swiss Post mail box in the gift shop. I was a bit disappointed as that would go down well at work.
César Manrique Cactus Gardens
Laura had wanted to take a picture of a prickly pear, so in the way back, we stopped off at the César Manrique Cactus Gardens. We were treated to a trip inside too. WOW I didn’t know there were that many catci long ones; phallic ones; small round ones; prickly ones; soft ones. Just sooo many varieties.
It was very hot in there too, the gardens were all enclosed behind a very tall wall, acting as a sun trap. It also meant that the wind didn’t affect the area.
The toilets has amusing images to identify who went were…
There was a gargoyle sculpture for the water fall which was fun.
And a VERY large fly on the window
Oh and in the gift shop, I found another Swiss Post letter box so got photos this time, as well as photo’s of the stamps. This confused the poor girl, working in the gift shop, as no one had ever taken a picture of the letter box before.
