Hi, I’m Andrew, and I don’t know if you know this about me, but I’m… a bit of a planner. I’ve been known – on occasion – to orchestrate a two-week trip or two down to the hour. I guess it’s the Virgo in me. But sometimes, no matter how hard I work ahead of time to ensure everything goes smoothly, sometimes things don’t go *exactly* the way I intended. Sometimes it’s your car breaking down in the middle of the Ugandan savanna, miles from the nearest ranger outpost. And sometimes it’s realizing you MIGHT NOT HAVE AS GOOD A HANDLE ON DRIVING A MANUAL AS YOU THOUGHT. This story involves the latter. In Lanzarote, nearly everything went wrong. But as I’ve learned throughout my travels, when things go wrong, attitude is everything.
Lanzawhere!?
Lanzarote (owned by Spain) is part of the Canary Islands off the coast of Morocco. I’d honestly never heard of it, either. But while planning our trip to Madrid, my girlfriend and I were exploring options like visiting Spain’s Mediterranean coast when we stumbled upon ridiculously cheap flights to the volcanic island. We’re talking $45 round trip on Ryan Air. Sooooo we jumped. We decided to stay for two FULL days before flying back to Madrid to finish off our ten days in Spain, so we landed in the evening, would stay three nights, and head out the morning of the “fourth” day. In reality, we really just had the two days in Lanzarote to explore.
From the moment we landed on the island, everything that could go wrong, did.
The Camper Van
The idea was, to be fair, a great one. Why book an AirBnB and a rental car when you could just book a camper van and get a mobile two-for-one? No-brainer, right?? Well… the sticking point was that all the camper van options were manuals, and yours truly has never really competently driven a manual. But we booked it months in advance, and I was certain I could learn it well enough by the time we touched down in Spain. I practiced on a couple of friends’ cars and watched dozens of YouTube videos. The owner of the van also assured me that it was a really easy manual to drive because of its age.
Narrator voice: But it was not a really easy manual to drive
When the host’s girlfriend picked us up at the airport, she stalled it three times before getting it running. An ominous start. But we got out of the airport, back to their neighborhood, and she handed over the keys. It was already 11 pm, but we only needed to drive about 4 minutes to the spot we’d be parking it for the night. Piece of cake.
The next couple of hours were some of the most frustrating I’ve ever experienced in all my travels.
“Easy to Drive”
Right off the bat, I’ll take responsibility for the fact that I was unprepared. I didn’t have enough experience in driving manuals to be trying to drive this thing on actual roads, and we were lucky it was so late at night. There weren’t many other cars out, so all my stalling wasn’t that big a deal. But it wasn’t *JUST* my inexperience. The shifter would stick constantly, making shifting nearly impossible. And… as far as I’m aware, manuals aren’t supposed to need gas to start. This one did. So that meant every time I tried to turn it on, I had to apply GAS while also pressing in the clutch, while HOPING I didn’t ZOOM forward too much. It was insane. And after an hour attempting to get 4 miles, we pulled into a parking lot by a beach to reassess.
Except… this beach didn’t have a public restroom like we’d been told. It’s one thing to sleep in a van. It’s a whole ‘NOTHER thing to sleep in a van and not have access to a restroom. So despite the fact that I wanted NO PART of driving this thing anymore that night, we got back in and attempted to make our way to another beachside parking location, a whopping seven minutes away.
Seven Minutes in Heaven Hell
Seven minutes became another hour of misery. I even pulled into the wrong side street with no outlet at one point – meaning I’d have to reverse all the way back down a narrow street with minimal visibility in a vehicle I was incompetent with. Not even a little stressful. Eyeroll.
BUT. FINALLY. We made it. There were bathrooms. And they were locked. Sweet wounded Jesus. But that was it. I was done. We were done. This was life now. We peed in a corner behind a wall on the beach and called it a night.
The van wasn’t a viable transportation option at this point. Sure, we could sleep in it (it was SUPER freakin’ cute inside!) but it wasn’t going to get us around the island. We were at a bit of a loss. So we decided to give up for the evening, sleep on it, and figure things out in the morning. BUT SERIOUSLY IT WAS SO CUTE. Just… useless.
We Gotta Find Some Wheels
When we woke up, the search for Wi-Fi was on. I gotta tell y’all, finding Wi-Fi in Spain (and especially in Lanzarote) is maddeningly difficult. It’s WAY easier in the US, Canada, and yeah – even freakin’ Senegal or Rwanda. Get it together, Europe. Lord have mercy. Fortunately, eventually, we found a spot to grab some cheap and delicious breakfast, and they had Wi-Fi.
I did some research and found about 3 or 4 car rental agencies within walking distance. Perfect. Except that they all had manuals. Not a single rental company I talked to had an available automatic. Again, Europe, GET IT TOGETHER IT’S THE 21ST CENTURY. Ugh. But we didn’t give up hope quite yet. Since these rental companies were close by, we figured we’d walk over and just pop into every single one we saw on the off-chance that one of them would have an automatic available. And there were a couple on Google Maps that we hadn’t been able to reach out to electronically. There was still a slim chance we’d find something.
Luck Finds A Way
Door after door, we were greeted with “no automatics” from the friendly receptionists. Our spirits were waning. But finally, miraculously, we wandered into an agency where a friendly old man told us he did have ONE little automatic available for the next two days.
Halle-freakin-lujah.
Downside: it was going to cost us 90 Euros… which… was rough, given that we’d already spent so much on a useless camper van. Upside: we’d finally have wheels and get to enjoy our time on Lanzarote. At that point, it was either spend the money or be stranded and miss out on the most adventurous part of our Spain trip. It was a no-brainer.
But then, it got even better.
As we were sitting there, the little old man excused himself and went outside for a moment. He came back in and said, “do you want a convertible? Same price?”. Lara and I looked at each other and instantly said that yes, obviously we would like that very much. We followed the man outside and came face to face with our new ride – a new Fiat Spyder Abarth. Not just a convertible, but a straight-up Top Gear-style sports car complete with sexy red trim. I think the grin on my face could be seen from space. Oh. HELL. Yes.
I could live with paying the 90 Euro for THIS beauty.
We hopped in the car and drove back to our… uh… van. When we arrived, we pulled up alongside and got out to admire our newly acquired FLEET. Camper van? CHECK. Convertible sports car? CHECK! And we laughed for ten minutes straight at the ridiculousness of this situation. Two Americans in the Canary Islands who can’t drive stick spending their nights in an immobile camper van in a parking lot while cruising the island in a mini supercar during the day. THAT’S TRAVEL MOJO, Y’ALL. Weird shit happens. But if you embrace it, keep yourself from getting too frustrated, and learn to ride the wave the ocean gives ya, that weird can end up being pretty damn fun.
Zoom Zoom
For the next two days, we zipped from one side of the island to the other and did just about everything you can possibly do on Lanzarote. We visited the volcano and National Park, we drove across a lunar landscape, we hit the coast and ate incredible fresh seafood. We drove up into the clouds and stood on the edge of the world, and afterward even did a little surfing! On Lanzarote, life is slow, costs are low, and if you play your cards right and don’t learn to drive a manual properly ahead of time, you can even spend your nights in a van down by the ocean! What a magical place.
Here’s a snapshot of some of the amazing things we saw and did on Lanzarote:
Every Good Story Has a Moral
And I already alluded to it. Just go with the flow, y’all. Something’s going to go wrong on every single trip you take. Every single adventure is gonna have a wrinkle. Sometimes they may be minor inconveniences, and sometimes you almost break down crying in an old Ford Transit Van at 1 am because you LEGITIMATELY cannot drive it and have almost gotten into 47 accidents with entirely immobile objects on the side of the street and feel like you’ve ruined the trip. Sometimes shit hits the fan a little bit. AND THAT’S OKAY! Because then, pretty much always, if you keep a level head and roll with the punches and treat the folks around you with kindness, you walk out the other side with a metaphorical Fiat Spyder Abarth.
Or sometimes, like, an actual Fiat Spyder Abarth.
THAT’S #TravelMojo y’all.
⬇️ Pin It! ⬇️
