For centuries, even after the Spanish conquest, it was believed that the islands were the uppermost peaks of the lost continent of Atlantis of which Plato wrote in his "Timeos and Critias".

Atlantis was a very large island located beyond the Pillars of Hercules (what we now call the Strait of Gibraltar) and it was inhabited by the Atlanteans of semi-divine origins. Atlantis was immensely wealthy and its inhabitants were the most advanced people of the world that in time degenerated becoming complacent and greedy. Zeus decided to punish them and in the course of a single night volcanoes and tidal waves destroyed the big island in a disaster of cosmic proportions. According to the myth, only the islands of Azores, Madeira, Canaries and Cape Verde remain from Atlantis in the sea that took its name from this legendary civilization: the Atlantic Ocean.

Atlanteans monuments?: a central characteristic of the Atlantean empire was the use of a mixture of red, black and white stones. This extraordinary combination, most probably of volcanic origin, can be found all over the Canaries. On Lanzarote, the Guanches built long, conic pillar-like monuments in red, black and white stone. Due to seismic activity on the islands all except one collapsed. This remaining monument can be visited in Zonzamas near Arrecife.

There is a mysterious haze surrounding the natives of the Canary Islands whose culture is now extinct. Who were these islanders and where did they come from? Fact is that their presence on these islands was a strange anomaly given their position near the African continent: they were tall, had a light skin colour and often blonde hair. They were called Guanches and came from North Africa, originating from the same stock as the Berbers of the Atlas Mountains.

Certainly the Guanches had to arrive via the Ocean but when the Europeans set foot on Canary grounds they found a Neolithic culture based on shepherding and limited agriculture that completely lacked the basic principles of navigation - the islands were in fact cut off from one another-.

Some claim that the Canary Islands are the uppermost peaks of the lost continent of Atlantis and that the Guanches were the descendants from the last survivors of the sunken civilization.

You might think that the islands are named after the canary songbirds, but according to Roman naturalist Plinius, such is not the case. Plinius wrote that Juba, king of Mauritania and vassal of Rome in the I century B.C. sent an expedition to explore the African coast and its proximate islands, the legendary Fortunate Isles which were in the Dark Ocean beyond the Columns of Hercules (the Strait of Gibraltar).

In one of these islands they found a multitude of fearsomely huge canines and therefore named it Canaria from the Latin word can, canis (dog).

Native to the New World, Cochineal was used by the Aztecs for carmine dyeing and was brought to Europe in the sixteenth century following the Spanish conquest. The parasitic insect leads a stationary existence and feeds on the leaves of prickly pear cacti that are expressly grown for its cultivation in Lanzarote´s northern villages of Mala and Guatiza.

The plant was introduced from Mexico in the middle of the 19th century to supply the European textile industry with dyes and was the mainstay of the island’s economy until the market collapsed with the introduction of synthetic colourings.

Due to its non-toxicity it is still widely used for a range of products including lipsticks, sweets, toothpaste and, of course, Campari.

In the early 1900s salt was a booming industry on the island as it was exported all over the world to preserve fish and meat. When freezing facilities became widespread, demand for salt rapidly declined and many of the island’s salt pans turned into silent reminders of former glories. Only one survived, the Salinas del Janubio; this salt pan located on the southern tip of the island has turned into a tourist attraction and keeps on producing a considerable amount of salt.

In Lanzarote, salt still plays a major role in the religious festival of Corpus Christi that takes place in June. Traditionally this festivity is celebrated all over Spain by decorating the streets with carpets made of colourful flowers. Due to the scarcity of such plants, the ingenious islanders dyed huge quantity of salt various bright colours and used this locally abundant product to create impressive street patterns.