Sun, sand, water & forests mixed with a sprinkling of a test of our patience

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Early this month we hopped on a plane and headed over to the Canary Islands for 10 days. They are a group of Spanish islands, but are off the coast of southern Morocco. We visited three separate islands while there; Fuerteventura, Gran Canaria, and Tenerife.

Fuerteventura
My friend Stephan had recently moved to Fuerteventura and opened his house to us to stay at during the 3 1/2days we were there. Though Fuerteventura is a bit more remote and not as frequented by tourists, this was our favorite island! Upon our arrival, we met with Stephan (who was at work), picked up our rental car and set out to start the explorations! We drove north along the coast until we reached the sand dunes. They end where the ocean begins. I think we read somewhere that the sand blows over from the Sahara Desert. Quite impressive since Fuerteventura is about 62 miles from the African coast. We spent the rest of the day at Playa del Castillo near the small town of El Cotillo. Here, we wandered for what seemed like miles, watched a naked juggler, and relaxed to the sun setting.

The next day we ventured to Ajuy; a small town with black sand beaches, hiked up along the cliffline which lead us to a cave. Probably not the safest place to be without something protecting our skulls, but oh well! We spent the rest of the day back at Playa del Castillo and then ended the night drinking wine with our friend.

We decided to enjoy the next morning at the secluded beach near the dunes. It was cloudy and sooooo windy that day. Luckily, there were stone barriers in the shape of a semi circle that blocked most of the wind. We were the only people on the beach so we spent the day au naturel (lots of sunblock of course)! After a while we decided to venture out again and drove to Los Molinos, a teeny tiny coastal village with maybe 15 houses. Unfortunately, we saw a lot of trash on the ground. We didn't understand why this could be seeing as though it didn't seem like there was much to do around there, so why not pick up your trash!! Next we drove & drove & drove. We drove past goat farms, through small developing coastal towns with what looked like some pretty expensive houses. We drove along the main roads and along roads that were so bumpy and unpaved we weren't sure we should be on them! I'm pretty sure we covered most of the island. For dinner we decided to check out the town of Corralejo. We ate at an awesomely delicious Indian food restaurant and wandered the streets in search of Crepes with banana and Nutella (success!!). The moon was almost full, so, again, we went to the beach where we were the only ones and laid out on the chairs and listened to the crashing of the waves. On the way home I had a momentary lapse of memory, and when I wanted to turn around on the road, forgot I was driving a stick shift, killed the engine and flew off the side of the road RIGHT INTO THE SAND! The front end of the car was completely buried. Great!! After a couple minutes with numerous variations of my favorite "F" word flying out of my mouth, we came up with a plan. Jeff dug out the front end, and while I spun the tires to go in reverse, he pushed with all his might. After a few attempts, the car was freed. What a way to end the night!

Our last morning on the island we drove to La Pared where we sat in a wicker chair that was anchored atop a cliff. We had to get in a little more beach time, so we went to Playa de Sotavento de Jandia. This beach had more people on it than we had seen the whole time, but it was still pretty sparse. The beach seemed to stretch its white sand for miles. The winds and currents were fairly strong, so there were a lot of sandbars and windsurfers. And as is most European beaches, there were lots bathing in the rays au naturel. We of course had to join them! After a brief while at the beach, we boarded our ferry to Gran Canaria.

Gran Canaria
The rest of the trip we planned on camping. We brought just our backpacks and a small tent. I didn't really search for specific campgrounds, but from what I saw online, campgrounds existed. But once we arrived to both of the latter islands we didn't have much luck finding any. However, we decided to sleep in the car. We just folded down the back seats, laid out our sleeping bags, hung pareos on all of the windows and made ourselves a little shelter. Worked just fine! When we arrived on Gran Canaria our first mission was to pick up said rental car. The journey began! We had to catch a bus, to catch another bus, to take us to the airport, to pick up the rental car. Among the confusion, we ran into another couple that was having the same dilemma. We all managed to find our way and decided to "camp" near eachother.

The next morning, our new friends Magda and Lukasz showed us pictures from their latest hiking trip in their homeland; Poland. We exchanged contact info and went our separate ways. We drove into the city of Maspalomas to check out the sand dunes that were splattered with hordes of pasty white Europeans on vacation. It was a little too overcrowded for our tastes so instead of joining them, we just walked the coast for about 4 miles (!!), Jeff was molested by eyes on the gay beach, we grabbed a bite to eat, walked all the way back to the car using a different route and then drove. And we drove. And we drove. Or I should say I drove. The terrain was mountainous and I'm more skilled, for a lack of better words, at driving a manual car (which is all you can rent in Europe). At first we were cruising along a cliffline, looking out over the ocean & watching the sun sink into it. Once night fell, we were climbing into the mountains, in the pitch black, with sharp turns & narrow roads. We were so exhausted and just wanted to find a place to pull over. Finally we saw a sign for a village, pulled in, found a dark place to park and slept like the dead.

The next morning we woke to the wondrous beauty that surrounded us. We were tucked in a valley amongst lush green mountains in the small town of Tasarte. For some reason, we decided to take a smaller road, as though the other roads weren't small enough. This road wound even further up the mountains. It was only wide enough for about 1 1/2 cars to pass, so when another car was coming you had to pull to the side. Most of the way though, there were no guard rails! The roads were so steep and narrow that I rarely made it out of second gear. For hours. We stopped at a lookout point near a set of dams and then our digital camera died! Ohhhhh noooooooo!!!!! Now our mission was to get to some sort of civilization to try to find a store that would have disposable cameras. This would prove to be a hard task. We inched our way through the mountains, passing a small town built INTO the rocks. At one point we were above the clouds (perhaps it was fog). We drove through a small portion of the Tamadaba pine forest. Finally we found the town of Artenera where we were able to buy cheapo disposable cameras. On the road again we drove through a creepy forest, full of moss covered trees and deep, dense fog that sometimes made driving nerve-racking. It was so cold we had to don our coats. It really was spectacular that on this small island you could be at the beach in sand dunes and then a couple hours later you could be in a dense, coniferous forest. After so many hours of gut-wreching turns and blinding fog, we were ready for flatter grounds. We reached Agaete, wandered near the pier, then found a place to sleep near a lighthouse. It rained all night. At one point I nervously joked about the waves crashing up and yanking our car into the sea.

In the morning we woke to a bunch of condoms strewn on the ground. Gross!! Apparently we weren't the only people to have spent some time near the light house. On our way to catch our next ferry we stopped at a gas station to take a "shower" in the sink. We had a couple of hours to kill before we had to leave so we wandered the streets of Las Palmas. This was more of a city and had streets full of stores, restaurants and people. Then we caught our ferry...

Tenerife
Before we even left Gran Canaria I called the car rental company to ensure they would be opened when we arrived. They said yes. Our ferry arrived a little behind schedule. And where we got off the boat seemed to be more secluded than the previous ports. We only had 16euros and didn't see an ATM nearby. We hopped in a cab. While we were driving he told me how much it would cost (way more than we had), I asked him to stop at an ATM, he said no way, so I said fine then just let us out now because all we have is 16euros (all in Spanish which I'm not fluent in). Then he pouted for a while and decided to drive us to the airport anyways. He dropped us off, took our money and sped away into the night. The airport was closed! That's right, CLOSED! The cab driver knew it but instead of saying something he decided to be an ass. So there we were, no money, no car, no map and no place to sleep in the middle of nowhere. We were at a bit of a higher elevation and it was the middle of the night so it was cold. We threw on our backpacks and started walking along the highway, trying to find a plot of land to put our tent on. After miles and finding only farms, where we didn't think would be a great place to camp, and questionable neighborhoods, we headed back to the airport. We spotted a bus bench, curled up in our sleeping bags. I laid on the top of the bench, Jeff laid on the ground underneath. I doubt either one of us got more than a couple minutes of sleep. We were so cold.

When the airport finally opened we headed inside where we had to wait another hour for the rental place to open. We picked up the car only to find that it had less than an 1/8 of a tank of gas. We had no idea where the nearest gas station was and if we'd even make it to it. Most of the stations we drove by weren't open yet because it was so early in the morning. Even though we had a rough night we were still trying to keep positive but this seemed to be pushing us even harder. All we could do was laugh about it. Finally we found one that was open. We decided that after the recent fiascos we would treat ourselves and get a hotel. We arrived in Puerto de la Cruz where we began the search for a place to stay. Every single place we went into laughed at us because they were completely booked and how dare we try to come here without a reservation. But we continued the search. After much persistance we found a small apartment for super cheap. I mean really, really cheap. We had a small fenced in front yard and a kitchen. We resisted the urge to sleep the day away and instead showered and headed out like a couple of zombies. We went to Icod to see the Drago Milenario. It's a huge tree that produces a blood red sap. There is controversy over it being between 500 to 3000 years old. No one knows for sure. It was pretty impressive, however our pictures don't show that because they're taken on our crappy disposables. Oh well! On our way home we stopped at a road side stand, bought fresh veggies for 2 meals and a bottle of home-made wine for 4.40euros total. That equated to about $6! We were in bed and passed out by 8pm.

After a good nights rest, we checked out of our quaint place and drove to Parque Nacional del Teide. It's a volcano. We spent hours wandering paths and ooing and aaing at the hardened lava flows. Then we drove to Playa de las Americas, a fairly large metro area. This is definitely where the vast majority of tourists go when they visit Tenerife. We parked along a busy street and set up "camp". It was still fairly early, for local standards, so we just sat around and talked for a couple hours until around 9pm when restaurants started opening. We found a restaurant with the best Indian food ever (notice our pattern of food choice😊 We went to a bar for drinks and talked with others on vacation. Then we stumbled home for our last stay on the islands.

We woke to mother nature calling. This was never a problem at our other "camping" locales, but now we were on a busy street. Where to pee?! We opted for a deep ravine on the side of the road and went next to huge lava rocks. Hope noone saw😉 We read about ancient pyramids in the town of Guimar, so we headed there. It was fairly expensive to get in and they didn't look too impressive. Maybe I'm jaded by seeing the Pyramids of Giza? Instead we headed to the small coastal town of Radazul. Here we laid on a bench along the black sand beaches, and for hours listened to nothing but the waves. Then we boarded our plane and headed back home.

There were definitely some testing situations while on this trip. It could have turned sour quickly. But we learned to laugh it off and make the best of the situations. This was one of our most memorable and favorite trips thus far. The Canary Islands offered soooo much too see, from the beaches, to the mountains, to the volcanoes and small town charms. Maybe someday we'll return.

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Photos

Fuerteventura
Playa del Castillo

Fuerteventura
Ajuy--the coastline we walked along to get to the cave

Fuerteventura
old windmills dotted the roadside

Fuerteventura
looking east from the sand dunes

Fuerteventura
stranded in the desert. No?

Fuerteventura
the obligatory sand angel

Fuerteventura
goofing around on the sand dunes

Fuerteventura
cool mirror sculpture on Playa del Castillo

Fuerteventura
sand shadows

Fuerteventura
Jeff getting ready to brave the unfortunately cold waters

Fuerteventura
yay! we had pretty much the whole beach to ourselves-Play del Castillo

Fuerteventura
naked juggler

Fuerteventura
Playa del Castillo

Fuerteventura
Las Salinas salt fields

Fuerteventura
in Ajuy on our way to the cave

Fuerteventura
Ajuy

Fuerteventura
Ajuy--rock melted in rock. how awesome!

Fuerteventura
Ajuy--jeff looking out on the cove that was near the cave opening

Fuerteventura
Ajuy--inside the cave, which we think was actually a lava tube

Fuerteventura
Ajuy--looking out from the cave

Comments

[Launie]

How do you remember all those details?
You must have had a book or something you wrote in while on the trip? I can't remember what happened last Tuesday...let alone 2006!