Map of Montana del Fuego, Timanfaya National Park, Lanzarote Lanzarote, Canary Islands:

Montana del Fuego, Timanfaya National Park, Lanzarote
This National Park is an area of volcanic activity in the south of Lanzarote. At first glimpse it seems totally barren: just a mass of twisted landscape. However, a few tenacious lichens and small, hardy bushes have managed to gain a hold on this unforgiving terrain. The black and grey lava fields surround 36 volcanoes. Most of these last erupted between 1730 and 1736. The mountains are amazing to look at. Many resemble a boiled egg, which has had its top chopped off.

You can drive your car up to one of the mountain tops, Islote de Hilario. Here, there is a gift shop and restaurant, El Diablo (The Devil). The food is actually cooked by the heat of the volcano, which rises up at 300 degrees centigrade. At some places nearby, the ground is too hot to walk on! National Park Guides regularly show you just how hot it is. They throw a bush into a hole in the ground, which bursts into flames, they give you a handful of stones from only a few centimetres deep to hold in your hands (many have to drop it immediately!) and then they pour a little water down a hole in the ground. Steam then gushes skywards and gives everyone the fright of their lives! Very impressive.

To see much of the National Park, you must take a guided tour on a tour bus. The cost of this is included in your fee to drive into the area.

At the foot of Timanfaya is a corral where hundreds of camels (well, dromedaries, actually) wait to take tourists for a 10 minute ride up the steep unstable side of the volcano. Each camel takes two passengers, one on each side. Any unevenness in weight between the two is evened out by the use of sandbags!