Surf & Volcanoes at Lanzarote

I just spent one week at Lanzarote in the Canary Islands to learn surfing, do some sightseeing and take some pictures.

It was my first surf experience and I managed to ride some waves at the end of the week (no, it's not me on the picture above, my waves were smaller) and loved the feeling. Once up on the board, it reminded me of snowboard but even more intense and more lively as I have to adapt to the wave, its shape, its speed and direction.
However I was also surprised by the amount of paddling which was required, I must have paddled 10 minutes against the waves for every 10 seconds up on the board. But every one of these 10 seconds was worth it :)

If you want to learn surfing at Lanzarote, I recommend Volcano Surf School. Sabine and Seb are very friendly, passionate about surf and Nico is a great teacher. Tell'em hi from me!

Just before going to Lanzarote, I bought a new zoom lens: a Nikon 70-300mm /4.5 AF-S VR which was great to shoot surfers and birds. Unfortunately I did not have a lot of time to get used to it and learnt on the fly how to use it properly. The surfer picture above is one of the last I took when I finally started to get a handle on the lens.

Lanzarote's landscape is spectacular with many volcanoes of different heights and shapes.
The volcano below was the main location of the greatest recorded eruptions which occurred between 1730 and 1736:

The wineyards are also spectacular: they are buried in the volcanic soil and protected from the wind by small stone walls:

This week was lots of fun, lots of sport and lots of good food and wine!
I made some good new friends and I am looking forward to surfing again. Next time won't come soon enough!