Timanfaya

Another view of the Timanfaya (pronounced tee-man-fire) National Park and the volcanoes. The foreground is part of the lava field.

When the volcanic activity produced this landscape in the 1730's, the rising volcanoes destroyed several villages and were called the Montañas del Fuego or Fire Mountains. More than 100 volcanoes rose up, covering more than 50 square kilometres. Both terrifying and wondrous.

The last eruptions took place in 1824, but to prove how 'recent' it all is, there is a restaurant where steaks are cooked on a grid over a hole in the ground, from natural heat. You can feel the heat just walking over the ground, and if you put a handful of brushwood in a scooped out hollow, it will catch alight. The power of the earth.