2. Like Tenerife, but much yellower!

The second half of our holiday has been filled with attempts as sightseeing, much resting on the beach and plenty more eating! On Tuesday, we decided to go and see some of the island’s sights and headed off in the snazzy car for a drive through Fuerteventura’s top attraction - Dumas de Corralejo sand dunes national park. To be fair, it is quite an amazing landscape and very cool with 26km sq of yellow sand dunes that meet the beach and have a little road running through. We walked a little over the dunes to the coast to see it all. Then we got back into our car and continued on down to the next town, Puerto del Rosario. It was a slightly more industrial town where probably more of the natives live. We had a walk along the little pier and surveyed the beach. A few years ago a juvenile Bryde’s whale washed up, dead, on the beach so they mounted its skeleton on the pier. It’s possible that it is the most notable thing to ever have happened in the town. They’re not yet civilised enough to have sun beds on the beach so given the option of a terribly sandy day, we congratulated ourselves for our excellent sightseeing efforts, returned to our town for a beachside lunch and afternoon on the sun beds on the local beach. In the evening, we had a walk round the harbour where you can look across to Lanzarote, rewarded ourselves with a sangria / beer and then walked back for a sea front paella dinner.

On Wednesday, we ventured out to a beach by the sand dunes and enjoyed another terribly busy day of reading our books. It was quite windy on that beach so the reading was interspersed by several periods of having to dash after a hat or inflatable pillow that had taken flight in the breeze! We also spotted several nudey sunbathers at the beach. In my pre-trip research, I’d learnt that all beaches in Fuerteventura are public, so no hotels or companies are allowed to own or cordon off any beach areas. There island has miles and miles of yellow sand beaches with really clear sea, which looks a much nicer, lighter blue than in Tenerife because of its sand. The whole landscape is very similar to Tenerife but without such high mountains and all much yellower!

Spanish law permits nudity in any ‘natural area’ it seems, which all beaches on Fuerteventura fit the definition for. It has become particularly nudist friendly and the beaches are all ‘clothing optional’. I was expecting it to be overrun with naked people where ever I looked so I’ve been a little disappointed in the amount of clothed people there have been. Mind you, our town seems to be 95% European tourists, a disproportionate amount of whom are Irish. We have no idea why it’s nice to listen to their accents when they chat! We finished the afternoon with a brief spot of shopping back at Spains great institution that is Ale Hop, a wander by to appreciate the latest sand sculpture, a cafe stop for a milkshake then another dinner out in the evening. We ate in yet another of the lovely beachside restaurants and had a dinner that came with delicious Canarian potatoes. In quite the unwanted shock, I also found two very unwelcome little vegetables in my veggie pile. Totally unacceptable since it’s not Christmas and they hid two on my plate. Other that that, another lovely evening!

Sam’s contribution:

Sam has taken this photo while at the Dunes Beach. She would like you to zoom in on the man who was out running up and down for some time!

Our full final day, after a pretty sunrise, we again spent at our favourite local beach. There is really nothing of note to add aside from the quite exciting fact that I had crisps with dips for lunch and we also spotted Captain Planet as it seems he’s among the ex-pats who’ve selected the Canary Islands as his destination of choice for his retirement! I also had an enjoyable time perusing the souvenir shops - all in the search for something lovely for Ivy, of course, not because I love tourist tat too! Tomorrow we shall spend some final time on the beach, after forcing our clothes back into their compression packing cubes and vacating our apartment. There will be time for a few hours of sun and last lunch before we head back to the airport for our evening flight home.

Sam’s contribution

Yes, I agree with Pip and I have had a lovely time, made even better by an excellent playlist I made for us, which has a very eclectic range of music on it. Some highlights include; Cool Rider (Grease 2 soundtrack), Jenny from the Block and a song Pip added that she thought was new last year but was actually released in 2002.