Story
The story of Timanfaya National Park
This is the only national park in Spain made entirely of geology – a landscape of volcanic soil, covering 51.07 square kilometres in the south-west of Lanzarote. Most of it was created by one of the greatest recorded eruptions, which began on 1 September 1730 at the Caldera de Los Cuervos and ended on 16 April 1736 – nearly six years of fire. The last eruptions here took place in 1824. The volcano is still alive underground: just 13 metres below the surface the temperature reaches 100 to 600 °C.
Water poured into a hole in the ground shoots back out as steam almost instantly. The park's symbol is El Diablo, a devil figure designed by César Manrique. To protect its fragile plants and animals, access is strictly controlled; visitors tour the lava fields by coach on a road otherwise closed to the public.
Watch the steam, then take the coach through the Mountains of Fire.
This story is compiled from Wikipedia and other open sources; dates and numbers are checked against the source. The text is shared under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence. Source ↗
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More highlights in Lanzarote
- Jardín de CactusThe Jardín de Cactus is a cactus garden on the island of Lanzarote in the Canary Islands.
- Mirador del RíoMirador del Río is a viewpoint on an approximately 475-metre-high (1,560 ft) escarpment called Batería del Río in the north of the Canarian island of Lanzarote.
- La GeriaLa Geria is a protected area in the centre of Lanzarote, on the edge of Timanfaya National Park, and the largest wine-growing area of the Canary Islands.
- Hermitage of Los DoloresNuestra Señora de los Dolores, or the Ermita de los Dolores, is a church at Mancha Blanca near Timanfaya National Park, completed in 1862 in classic Canarian style.
- Janubio Salt FlatsSalinas de Janubio are salt flats in Lanzarote of the Canary Islands. It is about 9 kilometres (5.6 mi) north of Playa Blanca. In 1730, lava from volcano eruptions formed the walls of a natural lagoon.
- TeguiseTeguise, also known in Spanish as La Villa de Teguise, is a village in the municipality of Teguise in the north-central part of the island of Lanzarote in Las Palmas province in the Canary Islands.