Timanfaya National Park

Click on the photo to view it in large size on black background.

Today a photo from the Timanfaya National Park (Parque Nacional de Timanfaya) on the Lanzarote Island - one of the most amazing places I've ever seen despite it's nothing more than sand, lava rocks and volcanoes. No animals, nothing green.
It was formed by around 100 volcanic eruptions which took place between 1730 and 1736. There was one more eruption which took place a century later - in 1824. Even though now the volcanoes are calm it doesn't need to be that way for ever as this region is still very active. For instance the stones around 10 cm below the ground have temperature of 100 degree centigrade. At 10 meters below the ground the temperature is... 600 degree centigrade! Sounds unbelievable but that's the truth (I had dubious pleasure to test it myself).
When you go through the park you can watch amazing moon-like landscape. What is quite unfortunate is that you can't really walk in this park as it would be very dangerous as there are plenty of hidden traps there (crevasses and holes in the lava rocks especially). Therefore most of the time you will spend in a bus which travels on quite a safe road which was built in the 70's. But still it's an amazing experience and a great place to see. It resembles the Moon so much that first Apollo mission astronauts were shown photos from the Lanzarote Island to familiarize them with what they were to see.

I took this shot from the bust actually when it stopped. As I couldn't use a tripod I shot 3 exposures.

EXIF data:
Camera: Canon 5D MK II
Lens: Canon 24-105 f/4 L IS USM
Focal length: 32 mm
Aperture: f/8.0
Exposure time: 1/40 s ("middle" exposure)
ISO: 125
Number of exposures: 3
E.V. Step: 2 E.V.
Flash used: no
Tripod: no
Filters: circular polarizing filter
Software: Photomatix Pro 4.2.4, Lightroom 4.1, Photoshop CS5

Where was this photo taken:

Show large map