Hiring a car

One thing popular amongst visitors to Lanzarote is to hire a car for the day to see more of the island than just the resort that they are staying it.  Of course, once you are in your hotel room or appartment there is not much chance to compare prices other than the local offers.

That maybe OK for a day trip, but what about if you want to hire a car for the whole duration of your stay?

General advice (in Germany, at least) would be to book a car with a major hire company before you go, thus getting a better price and possibly even a discount if you happen to belong to an automobile club that has an arrangement with the car hire company, than you may get by just turning up at the airport and trying to hire a car there.

However, experience has shown that this advice may not always be correct.  In the days of the World Wide Web, is it possible to hire a car with a Lanzarote-based agency and get a better deal than you might do at home?

To find out, I tried to book a hire car from Arrecife Airport – a small class “B” one with air conditioning – for the last week in August, and was offered the following prices:

ADAC (German equivalent to the AA) offered me a 5-door Seat Ibiza for 185EUR including insurance, tax and unlimited mileage.

Sixt did not have Lanzarote or Arrecife in their list of hire-points for Spain.

Hertz offered me 5-door Opel Astra for 321EUR, or 260EUR if I paid immediately.

Expedia had a 4-door VW Polo (via EuropCar) for 209EUR in their system.

Then I turned to a local site – the German sounding AutoReisen.es who are specialised in car rental on the Canary Islands have a website in 4 languages.  Their offer, including tax, insurance, unlimited mileage, a child seat, an additional driver and no cancellation charge for a 5-door Fiat Punto was 132EUR!

So yes, it is possible to get a good deal by booking directly with island-based companies.  As with everything, you should compare with offers from companies in your own country, but I was unable to find a better deal for the dates and car type that I was looking for.

Just one question remains: what do you do with the unlimited mileage on an island this size?

Having a Gamble

If you we to ask me where the next casino capital of the world was going to be, the last place I’d think of would probably be Bolivia.

And yet, an item on the BBC News website paints a somewhat different light on the subject.

It turns out to be down to Russian investors in the country, looking for somewhere to put their money once casinos in their own country become more restricted later this year.

So where do you build a casino in Bolivia and who is likely to visit it?  Looking at the pictures on the news item, I could just about image such neon-lighted structures in Santa Cruz, but one casino operator is apparently due to open an outlet in El Alto!

Who is going to go to a casino in El Alto?  It’s the poorest part of La Paz, where the airport is located.  When I last visited we were even warned not go to there unaccompanied, especially on foot, because of the dangers of being attacked on the way to or from it!

So will there rich Bolivians from the around La Paz being taken in high-security limousines to well-guarded casinos on the outskirts of the city?

Late-night links

Here are the news stories that have interested me this evening:
Facebook users suffer viral surge
I don’t like accepting new Facebook applications at the best of times.  Now I’ll be even more careful!
CIA destroyed 92 interview tapes
News about how the CIA treated interview tapes or terror suspects
University quiz team disqualified
The “University Challenge” winners have been disqualified because one member of the team was no longer a student.

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