Day 3 Great Walk Lanzarote - La Graciosa: Las Malvas Beach - Muñique
8h 30min (5h 50min in movement) 24,5km +780m/-600m
After a night of bivouac on the beautiful beach of Las Malvas, see previous day Hiking Route Lanzarote – La Graciosa: DAY 2
We woke up a bit sore. Despite this, we rest as much as we can and since we have had a cloudless night, when we could not sleep we opened our eyes to see the stars, which is always very beautiful.
We get up at 7:00 am, still dark (the sun rises at 7:40 am) but it is already beginning to get light. We pack our gear, have breakfast some rolls with jam and some bananas and a little water, not much because we have to ration it till Mancha Blanca town, and we start to walk.
First image of the day, with the sun rising over the horizon
We leave the beach and go up to the parking lot where there is a bin where we throw our garbage. Here we take a long and easy dirt track, we have the landscape of the Malpaís and Corona Blanca Volcano on the horizon, which looks big and very beautiful.
Views from the dirt track, with teh volcanoes surrounded by the badland
We keep walking and after a while we come to a crossroads where we turn right, later, about 1h, we see a sign that indicates the road to Corona Blanca Volcano through the ‘islets path’, but as we are not sure we take the path of the left, which we have marked on the GPS and we continue along the track making a curve and cutting another and so on until we reach the base of the Corona Blanca Volcano, at 10 am.
Road to Caldera Blanca or ‘los islotes’ road.
Road to Caldera Blanca or ‘los islotes’ road.
From the base of the Caldera Blanca, we go up to the right in an anti-clockwise direction along a path with quite a slope and some loose stones but it is not a big deal, actually we are lucky since the descent on the opposite side is much smoother and if we weredown this path (by where we have climbed) it would have been a bit more complicated.
Also to say that the views of the Corona coming from Las Malvas beach are beautiful, it is spectacular to see the Corona standing out from the volcanic badlands with all its splendor, on the other hand, the views of the Corona coming from Mancha Blanca (by the normal route, day excursion) are not as beautiful or spectacular and there is also another crater that covers the Corona quite a bit, losing the limelight, so we fully recommend this route.
Starting to climb the Corona Blanca, with views of the badlands and the ‘islets’
Going up to Corona Blanca, with views of the badlands and the Timanfaya NP
We are going up to the Corona, and we reach the highest point in about half an hour.
Views from above, just at the end of the climb, to the entire Corona Blanca Crater. With 1.2km in diameter, the largest in Lanzarote
Views from above, just at the end of the climb, to the badlands surrounding the ‘islets’
There is no one, what a luck! we take photos and enjoy the views; we can see the whole landscape of yesterday walk; Hacha Grande, the viewpoint of Femés in the distance, and the entire Timanfaya National Park with all its craters, it is impressive! It is also very impressive to see the Corona crater itself, with 1.2 km in diameter, it is the largest in Lanzarote !!!
Highest point of Corona Blanca
Views from the highest point of Corona Blanca
We keep going surrounding the crater is impressive and we go down to take the path of the islets (going up and down taking photos takes 1h:30′).
Going around the crater, to go down the other side, towards Mancha Blanca
On this road to Mancha Blanca we find different explanatory posters about the characteristics and volcanic geology of the area, it is very interesting, actually it is a marked itinerary of the Timanfaya National Park. We go through some more badland sections and now it is already very warm since the wind does not blow much and we do not have any clouds.
Badland section before reaching Mancha Blanca
Around 12:30 p.m. we arrived at Mancha Blanca where we stopped at the supermarket where we buy water and the supermarket personnel recommended us to go to the bar “los cuervos” which is the only one open nearby (it is Monday and many restaurants here close on Monday and Tuesday).
So, we headed there and ordered chickpeas stew (a kind of stew with pork, chorizo and vegetables) and two loin sandwiches with cheese, so good! also this bar is very authentic it is full of locals.
Los cuervos bar terrace
Hermitage of the Doroles, in front of the bar ‘los cuervos’
After resting here for an hour, we resume our walk, we take the LZ-46 road for a moment and we turn left to take a more secondary road that goes through vineyards and along the base of the Tinajo crater.
Secondary road between vineyards, at the foot of the Tinajo volcano
In less than an hour we take a dirt track to the left to go up to it and in about 20 minutes we are already at the top. From here we have very good views of Corona Blanca, Famara and El Jable desert and the Famara cliff and we even see the island of La Graciosa.
Views from Tinajo Volcano
Tinajo crater views
Curious views of the fields and vineyards, with ‘rofe’, from the Tinajo crater
We go down the same path that we went up, and we continue on the road for a while but it is going well since there isn’t almost travel.
In about half an hour we take a dirt road to the left that crosses the LZ-20 road and we continue along this path that goes around the Timbaiba mountain. Here we see a kestrel on a light pole that later will fly very close to us and stay on one side of the path. How beautiful! Later we also see other birds such as herons and hoopoes very closely, this makes us very happy.
Krestel close to the road
Hoopoes in Muñique surroundings
And so, walking between crops, we arrived at Muñique, at Joy House, at 5:00 p.m. in the afternoon. We rest, we make our dinner with the food, that we previously left when we arrived on the island, and we to sleep in a big bed!
‘Welcome sign to Joy House’
Room in the surfer Joy House
Very satisfied with today’s day, we are going to sleep early to recover from our fatigue!
Continue reading our adventure in the Travesia Lanzarote – La Graciosa: DÍA 4
