Lanzarote, Fuerteventura

A film by Christian Stiefenhofer
© 2013 / 43 min (German) / HD / 16:9 / Stereo

In Lanzarote, countless volcanic eruptions have formed a bizarre lunar landscape. Extracting food from the karstic, dry soil is a great challenge for the residents. And yet they even manage to produce wine. They grow vines on porous volcanic rock under the protection of thousands of small hollows that act as water reservoirs. In agriculture, camels used to be used as pack animals. Sindo Morales worked with the animals in the fields as a child. Today he is breeding them. Every morning he leads thirty to forty camels across the volcanic landscape to the mountains of fire, "where they carry tourists on their humps through the national park.
 
Lanzarote, the "black pearl" in the Atlantic, is a source of inspiration for many. The Lanzarote artist and architect César Manrique realized pioneering projects on "his" island, such as the Mirador del Rio restaurant, where the landscape and the building seem to flow into one another. The potter Aquilino Rodriguez creates his own clay from the unique volcanic earth that he collects on forays into the mountains. So every object from his oven contains a piece of Lanzarote.
 
Only 15 kilometers south of Lanzarote is Fuerteventura, a magnet for water sports enthusiasts from all over the world, who find ideal conditions in the countless small bays of the north coast. The surfer Luis de Dios has found his home here, and on Fuerteventura his sport has become a way of life. In order to preserve his paradise, Luis regularly frees the beaches he surfs from rubbish - and turns them into art.
 
The inhabitants of Fuerteventura have been using the seemingly never-ending wind that surfers love for a long time: Hundreds of windmills are evidence of this, but only three are still in operation today. The Tiscamanita mill has been in the care of Jorge Padilla for 18 years. Every morning he sets sail for the "unruly beast", as he calls his windmill. Because according to the law, the islanders can have their grain milled by him at any time for free.
 
The many shades of brown on the island are reminiscent of a North African desert landscape. In fact, there are miles of sandy areas here, such as the El Jable shifting dune, but the preservation of which is in danger. The young environmental scientist Yanira Arocha has made it her mission to save the dune in order to preserve a unique piece of Fuerteventura for future generations.