Day 5

Lanzarote
(Canary Islands)

This place was a surprise. It felt as if a veil was lifted off my senses. Everything was bright and clear and crisp. The eagerness to jump into my trekking shoes, finding only a handful of people (seven all together!) were participating to this particular tour in the heart of the Timanfaya volcanic park.
Nothing cleans your mind better than a walk in a desert. And a splendid desert it was.
The apparent desolation of the seemingly never ending lava field gave way to the awe of a more careful examination. Not only the landscape was beautifully changing everywhere I looked; life was showing itself in the most basic ways.
Lichens of at least 3 different complexity were slowly, delicately but steadily mutating the black and reddish rock into a garden. All the raw forces of nature at work there. It was like walking on a primeval world on the eve of a great changing.

The harsh land turning into a paradise. These two b&W pictures are but a pale reminiscence of the real beauty they try to capture.

Finally, let me indulge in this distant cousin of Uluru. Yes, after having been before the original in Australia, this one is really not impressing. But when I saw it I liked it so much that I "officially" renamed this place 'my little Australia'. ;-)