I am currently sat in Arrecife airport after enjoying a short break away to Lanzarote with Sandra.
As you’d expect, the weather was not ‘full on sunshine’ but we did manage to top up our tans a little bit. We had booked an apartment in Arrecife, which was board only and looked out over the sea and harbour, it was beautiful.
On Thursday, we noticed people preparing stages around the area. One over a bridge at a restaurant, one outside the front of our apartment and one around the corner, about 750m away. I looked up ‘events’ in Arrecife, online and found out there was a music festival on the Friday night at all three places – fantastic! You could see the frantic building of stages, speakers and bars on Thursday and the finishing touches on the Friday, day time.
At around 6pm you could hear drums and sound testing going on and at around 7pm the band at the restaurant started playing. We walked over the bridge and saw the band, on the island in the middle of the swimming pool, making, what I’d describe as, painful noises. The festival, as it turned out was a heavy metal ‘shouty’ experience. We watched people (From our balcony by now) go from the first venue, follow a ‘roving’ sound kit and a singer, over to the second stage (Right outside our apartment) where a new band started screaming and shouting. Finally they moved to the last venue, around the corner, where the third band continued the theme.
It was hilarious and, fortunately, finished relatively early. We had decided to go to a restaurant for something to eat, further away where the noise didn’t travel, and by the time we’d eaten and had a couple of beers it was all over. There were ‘happy’ people everywhere having enjoyed their festival, danced and sang all evening, although I hadn’t understood one word of it, they had fun and we had ‘an experience’ we will remember.
One of the evenings we went to a Chinese restaurant and, as always, ordered too much. The food was lovely but there was so much left over and we didn’t want to waste it, so we asked the lady to box it up for us and to put a couple of plastic forks in. We then walked to the centre of town, where we’d seen a homeless man previously, and delivered him a takeaway. He was so grateful, it made us pleased we’d made the effort instead of just leaving the restaurant empty handed.
It also made us reflect on how much we waste at home, that could be put to good use. Sandra has now decided that once a week she will check the ‘use by dates’ and deliver some meals to someone that would need food. This is work in progress as we need to check the legalities, in case she poisons someone, but we will find a way of doing something positive in our local area to make a small difference to someone’s life.
Small gestures can make a difference and I know, the guy on the street, had a feast and we made him smile that evening.
It made us realise and appreciate what we do have and, what sometimes, we take for granted.
I have just been informed that easyJet have downsized our plane so I might be staying in Lanzarote a couple of more days!