As we had a rental car we were not bound to excursions organised by our tour operator so we had the freedom to explore the island on our own rate and combine different excursions. The first trip we made was to the Jardin de Cactus, created by the island’s main architect César Manrique. This is a garden which has over more than 1000 types op cactuses from over the entire planet. It’s a beautiful thing to see all these kinds of cactuses which you couldn’t imagine they existed.

As I mentioned before César Manrique is the main architect of the island Lanzarote and his architectural ideas were used as a standard all over the island. We visited his home where he used to live until his fatal car accident in 1992 and I must say that his home was impressive. This house was build on and even through a coagulated lava field as you can see in the following images.

Another trip we made was to the Timanfaya National Park whis is a large area mainly populated with coagulated lava and craters from volcano eruptions. This was impressive to see but personally I wasn’t very keen on the mandatory bus tour. Tourists cannot explore this area on their own so you need to take a bus tour which only stops at certain times but doesn’t let you leave the bus. This same day we also went to El Golfo which is a crater and laguna located in the west of Lanzarote. Personally this was one of my Lanzarote-favorites as you can see in the next images. I could stand there all day just to watch the water move and clank to the rocks.

After these trips we decided to go on another kind of tour of Lanzarote; the wine-tour. La Geria is a zone of vineyards in the centre of Lanzarote and has 7 bodega’s where you can taste some wines, created in these vineyards. Out of these 7 bodega’s, 6 are located within a zone of 500 metres and we checked afterwards to notice that it took us about 3 hours to get past of this zone. But in the meanwhile we had tasted a lot of different wines La Geria has to offer. I’m not a wine connoisseur but I tasted a lot of difference between the wines and I loved it .

On our last day of trips we went to Jameos Del Agua which is a small cave known for its white blind crabs. Personally this was somewhat of a disappointment. It is a small dark cave, you can see the very tiny crabs but after 5 minutes you have seen it all and the museum attached to this place is in my opinion only built to justify the 8 euros entry fee. Afterwards we headed to Cueva de los Verdes which is a cave of approximately 6 to 7 kilometers built by a large lava-stream underneath the island. This is very impressive to see but the most impressive part of the day came later on as we visited the Mirador Del Rio, a viewpoint in the very north of Lanzarote. The view up there is amazing but in this case images speak louder than words.

Previous information was only the nature-part of our holiday but you cannot go to spain without eating some tapas and in our case, a lot of tapas. We visited tapas bars every day and we can say that we found some very good ones. My favorites were Bodega, located in the center of Puerto Del Carmen (Calle del Roque Nublo 5, to be more specific) and a small one in the center of Yaïza (I’m not sure but I believe it was called La Terracita).

Other than this we also enjoyed the weather which was averaged to a bit more than 20 degrees during our stay of a week. For me it was awkward to walk between christmas decoration wearing sunglasses and a t-shirt.

If you want to see more images than provided in this article you can always check the entire collection at http://www.dimitri.eu/gallery2/v/lanzarote/.

The last days in Mexico were the days of relaxing and snorkeling at the beach. We still made one excursion to Isla Mujeres which is a small Island from about 8 km in length and 1 km in width. We explored this island by golfcart which is the best and coolest way to travel there.

I won’t bother you with a rather long post but I will just point you to the large amount of photos that were taken during this trip. These photos can be viewed by going to my gallery.

Have fun.

The first one is the Mayan culture which is still alive among the Mexican people. I have noticed this while visiting some of the ancient beauty that was left by the Mayan people. I visited Chichen Itza, which is one of the seven wonders of the world, and I must say that it is truly amazing to see how the Mayans were able to build such a fantastic city.
Later that day we visited the city Valladolid which is an authentic Mexican city without tourist-based buildings and restaurants so we were able to eat some real Mexican food.

Today`s program had some more animals in it as we first visited Coba as an ancient Mayan site in the jungle (we could now climb a big temple,  which isn’t allowed in Chichen Itza) and later on we went to the nearest lake for a meet and greet with some wild crocodiles.
Later on we went to Punta Laguna to see some other animals in their natural habitat. Punta Laguna is a nature reserve in the jungle which isn’t well known by tourists. Within this reserve we saw spider-monkeys, woodpeckers, bats and other animals. This was truly amazing.

Between these excursion days we got to know another part of the Mexican culture, being the night life. Playa del Carmen has some great spots to go out, drink and meet new people. I went to Señor Frogs and Dubai Club but I am sure that there are more to come.

I will close this post by telling you that I arrived in my second hotel yesterday which has luxury written all over it; from the bellboy who parks our car, over the venetion gondola and the pool bar, to the jacuzzi in the room.

Adios

Off course there were times when I wasn’t drinking tequila and this was when I was just enjoying the beautiful beach with the clear blue water which changes colours every time a ray of sun touches it.

This day we visited the city Tulum and more specific it’s wonderful Mayan site. It was wonderful to see the pieces of ancient art which were the houses the Mayan people of the Yacatan area lived in. This site also has a marvelous beach which I can’t describe, you will have to wait for the pictures.

Later that day we went to visit one of the cenotes (a limestone sinkhole filled with water) near our hotel but yet again, it’s beauty cannot be described in words.

I will conclude this post but I will keep you posted within a few days.

These 11 hours were killed by watching tv-episodes on my iPhone (no thank you, French dubbed version of Sex and the city), listening to music, reading and taking small trips to the toilet.

After checking out at the airport we put away our sweaters and traded them in for our sunglasses. We went to search our rental car (dodge atos) which took us to our hotel Sandos Playacar. Due to our Thomas Cook connections we received a junior suite (yes it has a jacuzzi) where a bottle of champagne was waiting to be opened.

This bottle of champagne, a few cocktails and a buffet ended our first day at Paradise.

Enjoy me.