Fuerteventura, The Canary Islands, España.
We took the early ferry from Lanzarote half an hour across to Corralejo, and within ten minutes of arriving we decided that we like the island of Fuerteventura much more. There are colorful buildings, actual flowers and trees, and interesting sights.
We are staying at the southern tip of the island, in Morro Jabel. We have an apartment at the Garden & Sea Boutique Lodging, a well thought out, spacious place with an entire wall of windows that open to Jandia Beach below.
The island is about 110 KM top to bottom, about an hour and a half drive, so we decided to take our time and see some of the sights along the way. That way we could spend the next few days on the beach.
Fuerteventura is famous for its beaches. Some near the cities are crowded, others are nearly empty, kilometers of golden sand.
On our way south to Morro Jabel we stopped first at the village of La Oliva, where there is an old church and some traditional adobe houses with exposed rocks. We continued to see these type of rock and adobe houses as we traveled.
From there we headed towards Antigua. We are driving in the center of the island, and there are old windmills everywhere, kind of like the ones we saw in the south of Spain near Cabo de Gato, or like the ones in the Greek Islands. First we saw one out in the distance, then two more together, then they were everywhere.
In Antigua we could see the Moroccan influence in some of the buildings, and parts of the village (and we saw that everywhere we went). No the overt, very ornate Moroccan Islamic scrollwork influence, but more of the stacking of houses in the village, and the general layout of things.
Though it is Spanish, the island is only 100 KM off the coast of Morocco. Think about that: I could drive to Morocco faster than I can drive end to end on this island.
Except for the water part. But still…
Did I mention the colors of so many flowers?
This was the capital of the island until 1834. Now it is just a nice village in which to slow down and hang out.
There is an interesting thing here in Betancuria, one of the old water raising devices, to bring water up out of the wells. They are called “Noria” and the Muslims brought the device over from Persia during the conquests. They were used up until about the 1950s in the villages here. Some were powered by animals, some by hand. The ropes were made from palm fibers, the water buckets of brass, and the parts from local wood.
We stopped to eat at Bodegón Don Carmelo, serving traditional food either tapas size or portion size. It is located right across from the kids’ park called Margarita.
And this is where I finally was able to order the traditional goat stew, which was just OK. Too much fat, bone and gristle, and not enough meat. I discovered I really like Mojo sauce. The red and green Mojo sauces, to be specific. Especially the green Mojo on the goat cheese covered local potatoes. And true to meals here, the house wine was excellent, local, and fair priced.
The Canarian wrinkly potatoes are called “papas arrugadas” and they are a traditional dish, eaten as a starter or side dish. We call them “baby potatoes” in the US. They are boiled in sea salt until the water evaporates, then served with either “mojo rojo” made of olive oil, garlic, paprika and chili or “mojo verde” made of olive oil and coriander.
Gail had a plate of the local goat cheeses.
We headed further south, out to the coast.
Pozo Negro is a cute little village on the beach, kind of reminding me of the fishing villages on Milos, Greece, with little white rock and adobe houses, trimmed in blue, in a row along the black pebble beach. There is a bar and the Flip Flops Café, and as far as I could see the only thing to do here was sit in the sun or swim.
There is a long promenade, or walkway along the beach that extends from the town center several kilometers up past the lighthouse. Cool sculptures line the walkway, and there are odd looking black-shimmery green heron-like birds with long dagger beaks digging in the grass (worms?) and smaller white egret type birds flying and strutting around.
We had trouble finding a place to eat, because though it is Tuesday, it is another Virgen del Carmen Holiday.
Sheesh.
I am getting pretty tired of this Mary Carmen Virgen.
Every time we hit one of these celebrations it seems everything shuts down so the town can go get drunk and shoot off fireworks.
Eventually we found a place, and the dinner was good but unremarkable. The shrimps in orange sauce were good, however.
I did laundry early one morning. This was a great new place, where the washing machine is pre-loaded with soap. All you do is add euros and press the button.
The machine literally plays a song to you when the load is done. I almost wanted to spend five euros to hear it again. A cheery little Irish tune, here in the “Little Ireland of The Canary Islands.”
It is called El Baifo Loco S.L.U. To find it google map it, then when you are at the shopping center go to the bottom floor.
The wind never really lets up, so it is nice to have a patio to sit on in the mornings, sheltered from the breeze.
I like it here because finally it is beautiful, things are close and we can relax.
For more information about Fuerteventura, go here and here.
For information on Morro Jabel, look here.
We spent one whole day on our local beach, Jandia, relaxing on the sunbeds under an umbrella. It was supposed to cost us €13,50 but I did not have exact change and the guy stomped off in a huff, never to return.
Whatever.
We got drinks with the money we saved.
After a while we went up to the room to read before heading along the promenade into town for a great tapas dinner at La Bodega de Jandia.
I wrote a separate blog post about this place, and we returned there two nights later for a second go-round.
First we went to the Faro Punta de Jandia, the lighthouse at the southernmost point of the island. It is about 21 kilometers out of Morro Jable on a winding dirt road.
The lighthouse is pretty old and built out of lava rock. There is a small village out there called El Caleton, maybe. It is a tired place, right on the water, with three bar-cafés, two rows of low connected houses, and a huge “trailer park” type area, except the trailers are sheds, vehicles, trailers and miscellaneous other places cobbled together into some sort of depressing housing.
It must be free to live there.
We stopped in at one café for coffee as it was cool, windy and overcast.
We backtracked about 8 kilometers to catch the turn to the Playa de Cofete.
You have to drive up over a pass in the mountains to get here, and the gap is so narrow that the wind whistles through it with such force that I could literally lean back and lay on the wind.
The view down from here along the coast reminds me of the view off the Point Reyes Headlands, looking along the long beach.
See? Here we are at the "Point Reyes of Spain."
Gag me.
Anyway, it was fun to sit in the car and watch people try to close their car doors. When I was outside, it was so windy that three of four photos had my fingers in as I gripped the camera.
Depending on who you read, this beach is 11, 14 or 20 kilometers long.
Here is the thing: it is one long, wide, fucking amazing golden-sand beach, isolated out on the Jandia Peninsula.
You have to drive over 20 kilometers of narrow dirt road to get there, so it keeps the crowd size really low. In fact, after walking about ten minutes form the parking lot you are really alone on the beach.
Unfortunately it was overcast and very windy. I was on the edge of being cold, and Gail was bundled up in her down coat. So swimming was out.
We just walked a couple miles up and back, enjoying the beauty of it.
Really, the beach seems endless. I would love to come here on a warm day and just walk it.
The beach is backed by a mountain range so it is very scenic. At the north end the mountains eventually force the beach into the ocean.
After the beach, we stopped in the village of Cofete to eat at the only show in town. It is a little cafe, serving maybe fifteen items like goat, fish and potatoes. On the wall inside, among photos and autographs, is a goat identification chart.
We ordered two plates of "fresh fish of the day,”and it was fresh and very good.
Going back along the winding roads we saw many goats loose up on the mountains. So it is here in Fuerteventura that we finally found and ate the mythical Canarian Goat.
This beach extends probably 4.5 kilometers, but connects (sort of) with the next beach up, and the next for about a ten kilometer stretch of sand.
So we walked and walked on this overcast, cool morning, starting in front of our apartment by lifeguard stand T-1, heading north in the soft sand as the waves washed up and over our feet, past T-3 by the lighthouse, maybe one mile up the beach by now.
The crowds near the town itself have thinned, most families hanging out in the first section of beach where the surf and sailing lessons are, and the bars run the umbrella and sun bed businesses. By T-3 you are into the more 20 to 60 crowd, topless women and speedo men reading, playing poc-poc, swimming or gathered in groups talking. By T-4 people are tanning au naturel among the others, everybody just minding their own business, and the beach is opening up with more sand and less pockets of tanning beds, fewer lifeguard stations.
When you hit T-5 you are almost alone.
The lighthouse dominates all, it it the landmark, the touch stone on our wandering.
An endless beach for an endless summer.
The temperatures here are the same year round, making it an ideal winter vacation destination for the cold northern Europeans.
We wandered back to the snack stand by T-4 and had a snack of french fries with red mojo dip, and mussels cooked in mojo sauce. We decided to have Sangrias, but I should have had an Aperol Spritz on this cloudy day.
We did a little shopping at the SPAR Market and returned to our apartment to laze around reading for a few hours before returning to dinner at La Bodega de Jandia.
The Island wines all carry the designation Vino de las Islas Canarias. I am currently drinking a Listán Negro from one island, but I don’t know which one.
North of us, on the west coast is a town called Gran Tarajal. The road off the main highway leading out to Gran Tarajal was lined with palm trees. In fact, the more we drove around, it seemed that there are groves of palms being cultivated here and there, and again we are surprised at how “green” and “flowery” this island is in comparison with Lanzarote.
Gran Tarajal is a neat, clean town, with one way streets, and a little hill with colorful buildings running up it. There is a nice, soft black sand beach that makes a sweeping curve between jagged cliffs to the left and flat rocks and tide pools on the right, towards the harbor. The beach is backed by a wide, clean, colorfully paved promenade with restaurants and stores. The town is large enough to support several other restaurants and stores off in the streets, as well as services and banks.
We topped in the main square in the town, back off the waterfront, for a coffee. There is a cool Seahorse Fountain, grassy areas surrounded by trees and flowers, and benches to sit on. It is all backed by a yellow church on one side and some sort of white municipal hall on the other. The white building has a modern bell tower, with four clocks, one facing each direction.
There is a public park along the water that is all painted with red and white polka dots! The benches, lamp posts, trash cans, everything. It is a dog-friendly park.
But the really cool, outstanding thing about Gran Tarajal is the public art. There seem to be sculptures everywhere along the promenade (and this seems to be a theme in the island as a whole, I realize). Even Neptune is done up a totally new way. Near the very modern harbor office there is the skeleton of a Cuvier’s common beaked whale.
There are colorful murals painted on the sides of buildings, and I don’t mean just one, I mean every third building has some quirky thing painted on it. Was saw probably thirty, and I know we missed just as many, because as we drove into and out of the town we saw several others, hidden away. They are cleverly distributed, designed to make you walk through the entire town looking for more.
There is a performing arts center, wide open with a stage all set, and it looked like musicals were held as well.
Gran Tarajal exudes more charm per square meter than any of the other places we have been on this trip so far.
I could spend a day or two here, easy.
The town is kind of in two parts, the older part is white buildings climbing up a very small hill, fronted by a short two block promenade with restaurants. The sea front here is rocky; flat black lava with tidepools and a sea wall extending out on the left. The promenade itself is colorfully paved and is lined with palm trees; one statue of a guy and a kid looks out to the water.
There is a long sweeping black beach off to the side, backed by the “newer” part of town that seems to consist of a resort, golf course, and municipal pool, basketball courts and a few shops.
This is still a traditional fishing village, and it reminded me of Salema, Portugal, with two or three streets of low, white, connected houses, most with colorful doors. The fishermen use a public power winch and cable to haul their boats up onto the sand where they sit on blocks, and the sign on the rock building indicates that it wasn’t all that long ago that they were using mules to do it instead.
Ajuy has a smaller, black pebble beach at the bottom of a steep hill, Playas de Pajara Beach. There are half circles of lava rocks stacked as wind breaks for people who want to sun; it reminds me of the way they protect the grapes on Lanzarote.
In the short two by three block area coming down the hill from the parking there are at least five restaurants, all serving fresh fish.
They have a great statue of a very happy fisherman gutting a very unhappy fish!
There used to be a lime industry here, and so a few old kilns and buildings are scattered, in ruins now.
The big thing here are the massive sea caves in the base of the cliffs. There are two on either end of the beach, and a paved trail on the right leads you over the hill and up-coast a ways to see the really big ones. The black rock has fossil shells in it, and it is layered with white and tan rock. We took the hike up and over to visit the caves, and it was free!
It is colorful here, it's quirky, and the beaches are great. I really like Fuerteventura.
In hindsight, here is how I would do this part of the trip differently:
We would fly into and stay on Fuerteventura for the nine days. It would be easy to take up the time exploring and going to the beach.
Then, for one day we would take our car on the early morning ferry over to Lanzarote, tour vineyards and perhaps the volcano, then return on the late ferry.
But you don’t know until you go see for yourself.