It is now a tradition that if our flight is early in the morning, we stay in a hotel close to the airport the night before. When we fly from Cardiff this is usually the Travelodge just outside the airport. We then usually have a fried breakfast in the airport to help pass the time whilst we wait to board our flight.
We flew with TUI from Cardiff airport to Lanzarote and stayed in Hotel Rio Playa in Playa Blanca on the southern tip of the island.
I would not recommend the hotel. The rooms are all ground floor bungalows spread out across the grounds. This would be fine apart from they reuse the sewage to water the gardens, which means there is a bad smell and occasional puddles of sewage that need to be walked through. Yes, this did lead to Abi being pretty ill on one of the days.
Playa Blanca
Our hotel was a short walk from Playa Blanca which is a small but pleasant resort with lots of shops, restaurants, bars, a golden sandy beach and a marina.
Day trip to Fuerteventura
Our friends Chris & Lesley Warren own an apartment in Corralejo, Fuerteventura and they happened to be out there during our holiday. We took the ferry from Playa Blanca to Fuerteventura where they picked us up from the ferry port and gave us a good tour of the north of the island.
On obvious difference between Lanzarote and Fuerteventura is the colour of the buildings. Whilst both islands paint their buildings predominantly white, Lanzarote typically matches this with a mid to dark green, whereas on Fuerteventura it’s a mid blue.
Aqualava Waterpark
Directly opposite our hotel was a small waterpark, sadly I would not recommend this either. It is very expensive, very small, there are very few things for anyone under 1.2m and the kids splashzone has a bucket that absolutely drenches you and scared Abi off completely from wanting to go anywhere near the splash area. They also search your bags on the way in and confiscate and food or drink. Needless to say the on site cafe has a poor selection of overpriced junk food.
I hired a car for one day and headed off to explore the island with my camera. I particular enjoyed visiting the old town of Teguise up in the mountains. I drove right to the most northerly tip where you can see across to to La Graciosa.
I also visited Mirador del Charco de Los Clicos, which looks an amazing green in the photos I saw online, but sadly the day I visited the water level was low and just a murky brown.
On the flight home, we were the last to leave the aeroplane and the pilot invited Abi into the cockpit.
