Barranco de la Poceta or Ravine of the Well, I thought this one was quite tough, it’s a good 3 – 4 hours with photo, water and sandwich breaks and you are climbing to some extent or other nearly all the way. That said, it was so worth it. Chose to make it an A – B walk leaving cars either end and for us it was the right decision. Elected to make it an ascent as opposed to a descent (my knees are better going up than down).
Directions
On the LZ-30 just south of Teguise, take the LZ-402 for Famara. After 6.5km or so, parked where the LZ-402 meets with the LZ-403 dirt track. This allowed for a gentle stroll before starting the main ascent.
Click on the map image above to open a Google map of the area in a new tab.
The Walk
So it starts off gently enough along the old dirt road LZ-403 towards Famara. You pass one or two houses and small holdings and then come to the corner of the Famara Bungalows. Here there are a number of old water storage ruins left over from when the Risco de Famara aquifer was tapped to provide water for Arrecife.
Here the walk begins it’s ascent, initially it is a dirt track that services a few houses and small holdings. There is a particularly charming shack set back in almost a little oasis. There are a few old ruined Aljibes to find on the route up and just after the little oasis but before the small holding. There is the remains of the old water extraction galleries.
After the small holding and the last house on the right the road becomes a path, but still well marked and good under foot.
About 250m after some switch backs you come to the last old aljibe on the left. Here the path appears to split, but it doesn’t matter which you take, they join again 10 minutes further on. The path is now narrower with steeper sections, but the views both up and back down the barranco are worth every step.
After the two path sections re-join, the path takes a turn in to a large fold in the mountain, a mini barranco in it’s own right. It’s a little tricky here, you have two options. Step across the baranco and follow a sometimes difficult to see path marked with occasional stone cairns. The alternative is to scramble up the barranco a little until the path reappears on the left.
Barranco de la Poceta – History
To read more on the history of water on Lanzarote you can checkout the following sites:
These sites are obviously in Spanish, so if it helps I have made an attempt to summarise the salient historical events in the History section.