The Cruise: Day 7, Lanzarote

I was spared another day at sea by our arrival on Lanzarote, in the Canary Islands. Lanzarote is the easternmost member of the Spanish chain of islands, and is more or less a giant chunk of volcanic wasteland. Violently formed pumice and ocean cooled magma are in abundance, but vegetation and other forms of natural life are not. Even the defunct farms I trolled past were for harvesting salt from the sea rather than food from the land. Apparently there are some aloe vera farms and vineyards on the island, but one would need to rent a car or hire a tour for the privilege, so there was no chance I would see any life.

Even the town seemed to be devoid of human activity. We had arrived on a weekend, and during siesta, so there were more tumbleweeds than there were open businesses. So I had to make do with walking around a tiny island fortress, and looking at a tiny harbour of even tinier boats. Why did they keep bringing us to these ports where there was nothing to do? Was it so we wouldn’t accidentally have an amazing time and then the boredom of the cruise would seem that much worse? I waited in town until an hour before, the hour before the final all aboard. I was absolutely petrified of being abandoned on an island in the Atlantic and ruining my no-flying, cheap, year-long circumnavigation because I had accidentally set my watch wrong.

Later that night, I was once again subjected to a litany of reasons why my dinner mates were the greatest people on earth. After a series of more boasts of how their offspring are supremely impressing, we learned they also happened to be ambassadors of race relations. They mentioned the story of a waiter on-board, Wayne, who had recognized them from a previous cruise. After mentioning that Wayne was African American (despite not being American), in a way that the words “African American” rolled off their tongues very carefully to show us they were using accepted politically correct terminology, they let us know that he must have remembered them because of how they treat people like him. “They don’t like to be treated like slaves,” people like Wayne, “but we don’t do that, we talk to them, they like that.” Yes, this bit of information was also imparted with the same insufferable closed eyes of smugness.

I quickly retired and sealed myself in the library to avoid the chances of having to be subjected to any more conversations. I did find some peace and quiet except for the periodic thudding of a hardcover against the floor. The old man sharing the library with me had developed a perfect system of reading a few sentences, passing out, dropping the book to the floor, being shocked awake by the impact, and then starting the whole process over again.