Calima! When Calima is in town, the temperature can get up to ten degrees hotter, and it can be hard to breathe if you're working too much outside.
People here have adapted well to the environment mostly by avoiding the difficult parts. Because we're still a part of Spain, siesta (or a mid-day nap) is a big part of the culture. That means that during the hottest part of the day (about 2:00 p.m -5:00 p.m.) people are mostly indoors eating and resting.
We're also really close to the other islands in the archipelago, where the climate can be quite different. Lanzarote, the island just north of us, is also very dry, but many of the other islands have more temperate or mild climates. This means that even though we're a desert, where growing food can be challenging, some of the other islands aren't. We can get produce shipped from those islands, as well as from the peninsula, to help us eat.
As I mentioned above, the main challenge living here is how dry the land is. Although the beach is nice, as you move inwards the island becomes rockier and more mountainous. It isn't particularly good for farming, and building cities or towns where it's hard to build roads is even less likely. As a result, most of the big towns are located on the perimeter or edge of the island.
