By Ambassador Carlos Cuezva Moreno
Every good trip is much better when improvised. Even more so, it’s a trip traveled by bicycle. In November of 2022, my friend Manuel and I were talking about traveling somewhere taking advantage of a few days off and other holidays in Spain, the country where we live. We had no idea where we’d end up. We just knew we wanted to go. For me, it would be the first vacation since the pandemic. Between work, projects, and other things, I had not had the opportunity to enjoy a few days off for me. In addition, for both Manuel and me, the pace of life had been complicated in recent months, marked by many important decisions that had led to major changes in our lives. We both knew that a trip to anywhere was necessary. We knew that it would be a positive experience for both of us.
It was not in the plans to prepare a bikepacking trip, especially when you are entering winter in the region where you live. At first, the idea was to look for cheap flights to any part of Europe, take a backpack with just enough, and go there as tourists. If we were lucky, we’d find another cheap flight to another city, we could travel there too. So, between searching and searching at Manu’s house sharing a beer, he raised his head and said, “Wait, wait, wait! If we go to Lanzarote with the bicycles and the tent? There are really cheap flights on those days…”
No more thinking was needed.
We got down to work. I started looking at possible tracks and designing some of my own. Lanzarote is the most northeastern of the Canary Islands and due to its lunar appearance shaped by a volcanic landscape, it is one of those places that invites you to get lost on a bicycle. In a few days, we were on our way to the Madrid airport, with two bicycles and the necessary equipment to tour the island in two boxes. We traveled 300 km by car to Madrid, and during the entire trip, it snowed or rained the whole time. We experienced the wonderful sensation of taking a plane with only what you have on us: just a wallet, mobile phone, and camera. Just a couple of hours later a whole new adventure began. We were in Lanzarote, it was a sunny day, and the temperature was 22 degrees.
As always, you have to start with unpacking the bike, assembling everything, and making sure it’s ready to roll. I have to add that for Manu, this would be his first bike trip and bikepacking adventure. He had no previous experience, and hardly any training during the last weeks. It is true that we were not looking to cover infinite distances and crazy terrain, but without a doubt, the extra weight on the bicycle would add to the adventure for him. On the first day, right after arriving, our plan was to ride to Papagayo Beach and camp the first night in the surrounding area. But Lanzarote had other plans for us. The bikes were slow to come out of the airport and it took us a while to assemble them. We must remember that it was winter in Spain and on the islands, we ran out of light around seven in the evening, so we traveled a bit south to Puerto Calero. We decided to have something to eat and continue at night, along a coastal path in search of a place to pitch the tent for the night. As a good baptism of bikepacking for Manuel, there came a time when we had to hike with the bicycle to go down to a beach that seemed the perfect place to sleep.
The sun completely illuminated us at dawn, showing us that we had chosen a great place to spend the night and gave us an incredible awakening. What we didn’t know is that shortly after we started riding that morning, the path we were riding up a mountain disappeared due to a storm, and we ended up rolling through a dry riverbed until it became impossible and we had to hike the bikes with loads, for approximately two and a half kilometers. But as another good friend of mine often says, gravel and bikepacking is an adventure, and this was definitely part of the game. That day we covered the entire southwest and we entered the northern part of the island along paths where navigation, at some point, was quite complicated and entering the first lunar terrain that we crossed on the way to Yaiza. Once there, we began to see a landscape full of contrasts, which would be what awaited us in the next stage, full of unevenness, volcanic peaks, beaches, rivers of solidified lava and an endless number of paths that touched all of our senses.
The next morning, woke early and visited the beach of El Golfo. We rode through an empty stretch of road to get to it, which looked like something out of the movie Jurassic Park. The contrast of the green from the little existing vegetation, the brown and black tones of the volcanic lava, and the intense blue of the ocean made this bike tour incredible. I remember that we hardly spoke during that section, because words were not needed. We just wanted to feel and enjoy the moment. We found the beach empty; we enjoyed it a bit and we continued on our way toward La Geria. This town is famous for its wines, and it is hard to believe that vines can flourish in a landscape like this. But even more amazing is stopping to think about how humans, helped by camels, have modeled the terrain over several hectares, building holes in the ground surrounded by volcanic rock that protects these plants from the wind.
Riding there was one of the most beautiful experiences I’ve had traveling by bike. A few kilometers later, we were immersed in the Timanfaya and Volcanoes National Park. Departing a bit from conventional routes, we found some paths that, although they made the journey longer, and sometimes led us to be exhausted, made it more fun and enriching. We were practically alone, we were looking for that solitude a bit, and we were in no hurry to get anywhere. We would stop when we wanted to have a coffee or explore something on foot, and we would sleep where we thought was a good place to pitch the tent. That day we cycled to Famara after leaving Timanfaya, through a mixture of paths made of beach sand and volcanic gravel. Famara is famous for its huge beach and the quality of its waves for surfers. It is a town with a lot of people, which receives a lot of tourism, but once again we decided to get away from the masses, exchange the restaurant for the gas stove and seek refuge at the end of the walk that continues where the beach ends, under the shelter of its huge cliffs that fall straight into the sea.
The next morning, we had a quick coffee in front of the waves and headed to Teguise along a zigzagging gravel road that also served as breakfast for our legs. Once in Teguise, we took a break to appreciate a real coffee and a good breakfast in one of the bars in the local square. Teguise is a town worth visiting. It has curious architecture, with white walls and an endless number of old doors painted mostly in green. It is a good place to take a walk through its streets and soak up a bit of the local culture.
Our objective that day was to reach Orzola, in the north, and from there take a ferry to cross to the island of La Graciosa. This small island is separated from Lanzarote by a boat trip of just 25 minutes. It only has one little village, and is not very large. In fact, you can tour the island by bike in just a few hours, but we had other plans in La Graciosa. We arrived at noon, and I invited Manuel to eat fresh fish in a local restaurant, since only a few days before starting the trip, I had had my birthday. After the fish and the local beer, we toured most of the island. There are only a couple of main roads, and as always we traveled those less traveled, even those that did not lead anywhere. And going nowhere that day was part of the plan. We followed one of its paths to the end, with the swell of the Atlantic to our right. There was a moment when we stopped, impressed by the size of the waves that broke on volcanic rock beaches. It was a special kind of gift and a natural spectacle.
We camped that night on the southwestern tip of the small island, overlooking the great cliffs of Famara, where we had spent the night before. We were completely alone. We took advantage of the last rays of daylight to walk near the shore, alone with our thoughts. We prepared a dinner in a small circle of stones that some previous traveler had left prepared there, and afterward we got lost in deep conversations about where our species is going, the planet, etc, until night fell completely and a spectacular starry sky was on display before us.
The sunrise to close out the last day of the trip was epic. Again, we had coffee and took a boat back to Lanzarote. What was not so epic was the 45 km that separated us from Arrecife, our destination, with the wind in our faces and our bicycles loaded. Until now, we had been lucky with the wind, but this day, there were moments in which, as Manu said, it began to seem like a bad joke. Finally, we arrived at Arrecife. We enjoyed a shower that we’d been missing after a few days of adventure, as well as a meal, and relaxed the final afternoon before preparing the boxes with the bicycles for the return trip. We talked about what the trip had meant to us, both as traveling friends and solo. We both agreed that during those days, sometimes without realizing it, you see the daily things of your life in a different way and that in all those hours on the bicycle seat, you learn to see more clearly the mistakes that we sometimes commit as people, and we also considered everything that has made us struggle mentally recently.
On that trip, I also realized that I have known Manu since we were children. We grew up together in the same village, and yet those days together, those talks in a tent or on the bike, made me realize that now we were getting to know each other again as adults. Not just each other…we were also getting to know ourselves better. This is one of the parts I like the most about cycling alone, or with friends. That part in which you connect more with yourself, in which you value more, and that helps us become better people.
Only for that reason, I invite you to get out there and start traveling with your bike, because, in addition to getting to know new places and new people, you are going to get to know a part of yourself that you didn’t know yet.
