This is the first time we went somewhere after I got my motorbike license, so “why not rent a bike and explore the whole island by riding together” we thought. Now, looking back, I’d say it was a bit sketchy because I had not have enough experience riding in mountains before but, in the end, it went well, I was very careful and didn’t try to ride above my abilities.

Arriving

We arrived on the 20th of December, 2018 and the weather was beautiful.

We chose to stay at Plaza Azul in Puerto del Carmen. The place was very nice, had a pool, English breakfasts and a lovely Englishman who cooked them for us every morning.

Before arriving to Lanzarote we reserved a lovely Honda CB500X not far from the place we stayed at called Lanzarote Moto Rental & Travel. The motorbike rent place had a variety of gear for rent as well, so we didn’t have to take our helmets with us this time and just rented them and some other gear there. However, by no means I’d recommend that: their helmets turned out to be quite old, didn’t look reliable and the ones that fit us were not even cleaned (I could not see much through the visor before I cleaned it myself). General advice: take your own motorbike gear with you whenever you’re going to rent a bike on a trip, it’s not worth to compromise your safety.

Day 1

So, the route is planned, the bike is prepared. First ever motorbike ride in mountains, here we go!

First impressions about the little Honda CB500X: even with the passenger, I never had a lack of power. Unless you go autobahn/highway speeds (> 110 km/h), it’s totally enough for a calm pleasant exploration trip. Also, it’s a quite comfortable bike, no complains there.

The goal of our first day was to reach the most northern point of the island and visit some attraction points on our way back, such as:

• Jameos del Agua
• Cueva de Los Verdes
• Jardín de Cactus

Jameos del Agua

To be completely honest with you, I was not impressed by Jameos del Agua and we didn’t stay there long. It was good that we decided to start with this place though, because if it was our last point it would be even a disappointment. I see how it could be a nice place to have some food there but we were not hungry at that point, hence didn’t find that place particularly interesting. There is a good story behind it though.

Cueva de Los Verdes

This place, on the other hand, was quite interesting. We took a tour through the long caves and the experience was great. I’d say it requires some level of fitness though: there was not much air in the cave and sometimes we had quite difficult passes. Just a fair warning. The views were great, so were the stories from the guide.

Jardín de Cactus

And, finally, The Cactus Garden. And what a beautiful place it was, look at this view!

The picture does not really show the scale, don’t be fooled, some of the cactuses are giant:

There is also a windmill on the top of the hill in the garden and also a cafe with decent desserts.

And this place concluded our first day of riding on Lanzarote.

Day 2

The plan for the second day was to see the volcanic landscapes in Montañas del Fuego.

This was our route for the second day:

Montañas del Fuego

When we reached the volcanos, we faced this security point where we had to wait for quite a while:

To my disappointment, it was not allowed to ride/drive through the mountains on your own, so we had to park our Honda and to take the special touristic bus. Later I understood why: the roads in these mountains are straight crazy. I could not believe that the bus driver had so much skill to squeeze his bus into those narrow corners. It seemed truly impossible. This was quite a roller coaster on that bus but it was a lot of fun and the views were amazing. It was my first time to see volcanos in person and I felt like I visited another planet.

And there is a bonus! Turns out there is a restaurant where they claim to cook their food on top of the volcano with its natural heat 🤯. Excuse me, what?! Yep, you read it right. Not sure, it’s 100% true though, but the “volcanic chicken” was on the menu and tasted very good.

Day 3

This time we just decided to ride through the places on the eastern side of the island, where we had not been yet and then visit Mirador del Río which is a highest viewing point in the North of the island.

So, the route this time was:

On our way there we also made a few stops at small museums and interesting spots. Even discovered a nudist beach by accident (no pictures made 😀). Nice views, chill atmosphere, looks like this part of the island is not touristic and people just live there.

When we finally reached Mirador del Río it turned out that we had made a planning mistake. It was absolutely impossible to park our motorbike because of the very strong wind there, it would just fall on its side. So, we could not get inside the actual building and had to move on.

Well, riding in such strong wind on an extremely narrow road was not fun either. Did I mention that I had just received my motorbike license at that point 😀? This was a terrifying experience and a real test to my riding abilities. Imagine you have a cliff just a meter to the right from you and you’re riding a motorbike in extremely windy conditions, what makes it even worse, you have to stop time to time and let go the incoming traffic because the road is a one-way road in some places. Anyone who knows how to ride a motorbike knows that when you’re moving the bike is more stable, standing still is even worse.

So, please don’t mind the lack of pictures at that place, not much we could do about that 🙂.

We survived that wind and got back safe but very tired.

What else?

We successfully returned our motorbike the day after and then explored some local surroundings on foot. The weather got worse and it was not that beautiful anymore. We got lucky to finish our riding trips before that. This place is great, chill, has some very interesting spots but I’d say you can do everything in 4-5 days there. The food was great everywhere we’ve been to on Lanzarote. I might come again to go cycling and perhaps will spot even more details about this island, who knows.