Bright Green Living
The morning sun rises over the Atlantic. A cockerel sounds the dawn alarm and wind rustles heavily in the trees, cool relief before the warmth of the day to come. You awake from slumber in an open-top Monglian yurt, a thin veil between you and the outside world. The revelation? It’s Lanzarote, a Canary Island emerging from shabby perceptions to become an increasingly desirable destination.
One could say some are born green, some will achieve a green existence, and some have greenness thrust upon them. Michelle and Tila Braddock stumbled upon it, much as you would a bottle of Ecover alongside Mr Muscle and Flash. When they bought a house in the small town of El Mojon, in the late 1990s, they needed to install electricity in the village, at a cost of €5,000. For the same price, Tila discovered he could invest in a wind turbine, and fuel his house solely on renewable energy.
More than a decade later, and the Braddocks are re-defining the image of an island known for pile ‘em high, sell ‘em cheap package holidays: with a boutique style eco resort in Arietta, a village on the peaceful and unspoiled north east coast. In line with every building on the island, it sits low enough not to interfere with the lunar, volcanic backdrop, the wish of the late artist and ‘mentor’ for the island, Cesar Manrique. Billboards are also banned, even in the island’s capital, Arrecife.
Lanzarote Retreats comprises a pick ‘n’ mix assortment of Mongolian yurts, stone cottages and villas, set within organic farmland. Onions, potatoes and tomatoes are ripe for picking, plus fresh eggs laid by the chickens. A dog called Max and a donkey called Molly add to the experience, which offers a taste of agro, as well as eco, tourism.
I slept in a luxury eco yurt surrounded by its own private terrace. The outdoor covered kitchen would have pleased the most particular of home cooks, and the grass-roofed bathroom had all the comforts of being indoors, with the benefit of showering outside. Round the corner, the kitsch-ly titled ‘Eco Yurt Royale’ is perhaps the best seat in the house. Whilst all the yurts are luxuriously furnished and finished, at 82m squared, with a walled private terrace, day bed and al-fresco dining area, as well as airport transfers and complimentary use of a Toyota Prius to boot, this is well beyond glamping.
When it comes to exploration, whilst tour buses will ship tourists from one well-trodden attraction to another, the beauty of this island is best discovered on your own: the organic farmers’ market on a Sunday, in Mancha Blanca, for fresh local goat cheese and organic knobbly vegetables; the wild, romanticism of Famara beach, which featured in Pedro Almodovar’s 2009 film Broken Embraces; organic white wine made from the Diego grape, with a unique terroir, comes a unique wine-making method, and one bodega in particular produces a sweet pudding wine that graced the wine list at Ferran Adria’s El Bulli.
Yet the lure of Lanzarote is derived as much from the retreat as from the landscape and unparalleled terrain: an unspoiled natural environment that slowly steals you away from your day-to-day reality, rendering time dictated by Apples and Crackberrys as pertaining to another world. Indeed it is in Tila and Michelle’s creation of somewhere that is as sumptuous as it is authentic in which the beauty lies; for all the ticked green boxes, compromise is nowhere to be seen.
For more information, visit www.lanzaroteretreats.com 0034 928 826720
Prices from 420 Euros per week for the Eco Chico Yurt.
