El Golfo has a beautiful, wild magical air. Its black beach is backed by a half-exposed volcanic crater forming a geological amphitheater in different textures and tones of rock in shades of yellow, green, ochre, red, and black. In center stage is a stunning emerald-green lagoon, just meters from the shore.

Direct access to the beach is restricted on one side as sea erosion threatens falling rocks. At the foot of the crater wall is Lago Verde, a half-moon-shaped striking green lagoon filled with volcanic minerals and micro-organisms that are believed to be unique in this lake. The beach of black volcanic pebbles, where you can look for specimens of the semi-precious olivine, superficially separates the sharply contrasting lagoon from the blue waters of the Atlantic Ocean, but in reality, they are connected through underground passageways.

El Golfo formed some two million years ago after a dramatic hydro-magmatic eruption. These typically cause much more violent explosions when the hot lava and ash (pyroclasts) come into contact with the cold sea. This type of eruption also explains the stratified deposits on the amphitheater walls with their yellowish-greenish color and whimsical, even surrealistic shapes. The outer slope of the cone was covered by the dark ash from another volcanic crater that formed some 400 meters away and was actually part of the 18th-century Timanfaya eruptions.

This beach is also the setting of the classic 20th Century Fox film, ‘One Million Years B.C’ (1965), starring Rachel Welch alongside prehistoric humans and dinosaurs. The film was a huge boost for Lanzarote’s image as an up-and-coming tourist destination. Much more recently, it was the beach where a furtive kiss inspired the story Pedro Almodóvar turned into the film ‘Broken Embraces’ which premiered in 2009 in Lanzarote.

According to the Internet