Walking on frozen lava (Lanzarote, Spain)

New boyfriend and I had gone out to Lanzarote for our first Xmas together.

    Being Swiss, he was very keen on doing lots of walking.  I'd packed a new pair of Korean-made gym shoes for that because they were light.

    For our ten days there, we spent:

* the first three days in a hired car (to get us from the airport to the southern end of the island where our rented chalet was, then to get to scenic spots that couldn't be reached by public transport without a hassle); 

* the middle three days on foot exploring the local area around the rented chalet (lots of Scandinavians there); 

and 

* the last three in a hired car (to cover more of the island we didn't manage to in the first three days, and to get us to the airport at the end).

    For the middle three days, we were walking across volcanic landscape, which was a novelty for both of us.

    Michael the Swiss was particularly taken by the lava flows that terminated in a sharp drop when they reached the sea and got frozen in their tracks, and couldn't resist climbing down to swim in the hollows with the sea water crashing onto the walls of frozen lava.

    Back from the Xmas break, I was walking home from the Tube station on a wet day when I felt my feet getting wetter and wetter on the way.  Examined the soles of the gym shoes (the new ones I'd taken out to Lanzarote) when I got back and found them riddled with slits, which was the cause of the seepage.

    The volcanic landscape we'd traversed on those three days on foot had pierced the soles of the brand new gym shoes like I'd been walking over ground that was strewn with knife blades!

(Lanzarote, 1987 / London, 1988)

See also Uninvited dinner guests:  https://piccola-chinita.blogspot.com/2024/12/uninvited-dinner-guests-lanzarote.html