As Canary Islands Day approaches, the island’s heart beats stronger. Not out of nostalgia, but out of pride. Out of memory. For that unique way these islands have of teaching you to live with the wind in your face and lava in your blood.
And if there are two islands where the volcanic soul can be felt without filters, it is Fuerteventura and Lanzarote. There, where the earth still creaks in silence and the sea is not just water, but history.
In Fuerteventura, the wind doesn’t bother, it dances. It is that gentle breeze that ruffles your hair and wakes you up, that has shaped the dunes and smells of salt and gofio. The Majoreros know it: to live here is to have an intimate relationship with the light, with the infinite skies, with the calm that can only be understood when you leave the clock behind.
And Lanzarote… Oh, Lanzarote. Black earth and sleeping fire. Of vineyards that grow in ash, like a miracle. Because only here the malvasia tastes like this: sweet, mineral, with that echo of Yaiza and La Geria that tells you without words what it’s like to love this island. To love the Conejeros, who have learned to cultivate beauty where everything seemed sterile.
Diving into its waters is not just a swim, it is a way of being. There are those who do it in the middle of December, with a short-sleeved T-shirt and their skin tanned by a summer that never goes away. And there are those who wait for summer like those who wait for a party, warming up with a light jacket when the thermometer reads 23 degrees Celsius. Because that is what being a Canarian is also about: living in the eternal summer, or longing for it all year round.
In these lands, time is cooked slowly: in wrinkled potatoes, in red mojo that stings more than a farewell, in a Majorero cheese that keeps in its rind the soul of the goats and of those who look after them. And in the banana, of course, because there is nothing more Canarian than enjoying one at its best moment.
This Canary Islands Day is not just a date: it is a feeling. It is knowing you are part of something ancient, volcanic and alive. It is to look at the horizon and know that, although the world turns, we are still standing firm here, like Timanfaya, like the Betancuria massif.
At R2 Hotels, we celebrate this day with the emotion of those who not only work here, but also feel that they belong here. Because being a Canarian is not always inherited: sometimes it is chosen.
Happy Canary Islands Day, Conejero. Happy Canary Islands Day, Majorero. And to all those who love these islands: may the volcano continue to beat inside you.