Green Bananas

Green bananas - ©iStockphoto.com/lepas2004

The Green Banana Guide is an interesting concept for visitors to Lanzarote.

For a single fee (currently £14.99) you receive a Green Banana Discount Card, giving you between 5% and 20% discount at a variety of outlets on the island.  These can be viewed on an interactive map and are also listed in the printed guide to the island.

At Double Six Fish and Chips in Puerto del Carmen, for example, you receive 10% off your bill.

If used often, the card is likely to cover its own cost fairly soon, as it can be used multiple times at the same establishment and the discount is applied to the bill for the entire party, not just the card owner.

For those who visit the island more than once a year, there is even an annual offer available.

However, even though it sounds like it could be good value for money, there are some discrepancies on the website that unsettle me.

[Read more…]

Low-energy housing – a thing of the past?

I was thinking the other day about how many electrical appliances run, even when they are not “directly” in use.
I don’t mean simple things like a television on standby, but things that in a sense need power, such as a video recorder or radio-alarm clock.
However much I attempt to reduce my power consumption (or “carbon footprint”), eg. by using bio-fuels or switching to renewable power sources, things still run on electricity.
Take the humble telephone.  In the old days they used power from the phone line.  These days I use a telephone exchange and cordless phones – all of which require power to run that is not supplied down the phone line.  And I can’t turn them off, in case someone rings!
Thinking back to my childhood in the 1970s, I worked out that our house used almost no energy at night whatsoever.  There was no video recorder waiting to record, no answerphone waiting for a call.  Heating was provided for by a coal-burning boiler, which went out at night and had to be re-lit in the morning.  My alarm clock had to be wound up before I went to sleep!
I am pretty sure that the only thing in the house consuming any power at night was the fridge!
Why can things not be so simple today?  Our modern society is so reliant on electricity, that instead of finding ways to consume less, we seem to be looking for better ways of producing it.
How about looking into ways of saving it instead?

El Golfo and the green lagoon

El Golfo is situated at the south-west end of the island. Itself a small fishing village, it has one big attraction – the volcano crater with the green lagoon.

The crater in itself is fascinating enough – parking at the shop and restaurant just outside the village, you walk along a narrow path with a handrail on one side and the rock face on the other until you reach a natural viewing platform.

At this point you are in the crater – only half of it is missing, wash away by the Atlantic ocean.

Looking landwards the remaining side of the volcano towers above you, black and red layers of dried lava and other rocks make for a stunning view. It is not hard to imagine the power that this volcano once had.

But that is not all – down below is the green lagoon, a naturally formed pool of water that shines bright green. The effect is caused by minerals left over from the volcano’s active days. The water flows in from the ocean by an underground channel and mixes with these minerals to give it it’s green colour.

On the way back to the car park you can pick up a piece of green rock for a reasonable price from one of the collectors’ tables – often unmanned with just a collecting tin to put your money in.

For more elaborate souvenirs there is the shop at the car park, as well as Teguise market.

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