Otro Mundo. The Old House
There was a valley we had driven past dozens of times.
From the road, there wasn't much to see.
An old wooden sign.
A dirt track disappearing around a bend.
Nothing that would normally make you stop the car.
Still, every time we drove past, we found ourselves wondering where that road might lead.
One Sunday, we finally decided to find out.
We parked the car, took Tarzan with us and started walking.
Lanzarote has a habit of rewarding those who are curious.
The valley opened slowly.
At first, it was simply another pleasant walk.
Dry grass moving gently in the wind.
Old stone walls crossing forgotten fields.
Then the landscape began to change.
The familiar black lava slowly gave way to deep reds and warm ochres.
Layer after layer of rock appeared before us, revealing colours we had never expected to find on Lanzarote.
Deep ravines cut through the valley.
Every bend revealed another view.
More than once we simply stopped.
Looked around.
Smiled.
It hardly felt like the island we thought we already knew.
That feeling has accompanied us many times over the years.
Some of our favourite places on Lanzarote began exactly the same way.
A road we had driven past for years.
A path we had never followed.
A little curiosity.
The island has never disappointed us.
At the very end of the valley stood an old house.
Or rather...
what remained of one.
From a distance it looked like many other abandoned buildings scattered across the island.
Nothing extraordinary.
As we walked closer, everything became strangely quiet.
The roof had disappeared long ago.
The doors were gone.
The windows had vanished.
The rooms were open to the sky.
Time had taken almost everything away.
We stepped inside.
Slowly.
One room after another.
Trying to imagine what this place had once been.
Where was the kitchen?
Which room did the children sleep in?
Who stood in this doorway every morning before walking out to another day's work?
At some point we stopped looking at the house.
We started thinking about the people.
Who built it?
Who carried every one of these stones?
Who planted the palm tree that still stands nearby?
Who closed this door for the last time?
We don't know.
Perhaps nobody remembers anymore.
Standing inside those walls, another thought quietly appeared.
Life on Lanzarote was never the romantic story we sometimes imagine today.
There was no running water.
Every drop of rain had to be collected in the aljibe.
Whatever the sky gave had to last.
For drinking.
For cooking.
For washing.
For the animals.
For life itself.
I never leave home without a bottle of water.
On a warm day I finish it without giving it a second thought.
Standing beside that old cistern, I realised I had never asked myself a very simple question.
How much water did they carry with them?
How much was enough for an entire day in the fields?
Enough for themselves.
Enough for their children.
Enough for the animals waiting back home.
I have no idea.
If we run out of water today, we simply buy another bottle.
They couldn't.
Then another question came.
How did they bear the heat?
The thirst?
The wind?
What made them wake up every morning and begin again?
They weren't stronger than we are.
They weren't less thirsty.
They weren't less tired.
Yet somehow they kept going.
Day after day.
Year after year.
The landscapes of Lanzarote are breathtaking. The lives lived within them rarely were.
We left the valley as quietly as we had entered it.
Tarzan was already waiting further down the path, ready to continue.
As for us...
we left with something far more valuable than another beautiful walk.
Perhaps the greatest discoveries on Lanzarote aren't waiting at the end of a guidebook.
They are waiting behind an ordinary road...
inside an abandoned house...
or in the stories of people who have spent their lives on this island.
We simply have to keep our eyes — and our ears — open.
