In Fuerteventura, life is certainly a beach. We have never seen so many gorgeous beaches with pale-white sands lapped by turquoise emerald waters under dazzlingly blue skies… or so many bare bottoms. We got the Fred Olsen Ferry from Las Palmas in Gran Canaria to Morro Jable in the south of the island. We left a (unusually) rainy Las Palmas and in just under two hours we were disembarking in Fuerteventura, our sixth island on our island hop around the Canaries.

We had booked an apartment outside the village of Morro Jable overlooking Playa del Matorral. Our initial impressions were worrying – the apartment entrance was behind a row of unfinished retail units, the foyer was gloomy and not very clean. There was no reception desk but we were messaged instructions and a passcode for the key-box. The lift shuddered up to the fifth floor but when we opened the apartment door, it was light, bright and dominated by the view of the lighthouse which entranced us for the week. Morro Jable was once a quiet fishing village and has retained that village feel with tourist development stretching away from it to the north along miles of seemingly endless golden sands. There is also nature conservation with a broad strip of protected salt marsh between the beach and the avenue of hotels, duty-free shops and restaurants. So most accommodation here is back from the beach with boardwalks across the salt marshes to allow access to the fabulous beaches.

On all the Canary islands visited so far (we haven’t been to Lanzarote yet), the interior of the islands was spectacular with steep ravines, winding mountain roads, deep gorges and cloud forests. Not so on Fuerteventura.

We travelled the whole island by bus and although the coast is certainly a ‘rhapsody in blue’, the interior is mainly brown stony earth dotted with low bare volcanic hills, little white towns, windmills and the occasional goat farm. The island is famous for its goats cheese. There was a stark beauty to the arid landscape but it was difficult to imagine that Fuerteventura once supplied grain to the other islands. Water has always been an issue here and there was still evidence of irrigation channels in barren fields that once made use of every drop that fell. However, livestock and clearing of native vegetation have taken a heavy toll on the land. All water in Fuerteventura now comes from the sea and is desalinated in a number of desalination plants around the island. We got a few heavy rain showers and it was sad to see such a precious resource just running down the street.

On April 1, we headed north and arrived outside the apartment building in El Cotillo that we had booked on Booking.com, surprised that we hadn’t got any details for checking in. We phoned the contact number to find that we had booked online for May 1….instead of April 1. It seemed appropriate that it was Fool’s day🤣 but we got sorted – eventually. El Cotillo has a beach to suit everyone, beaches with big rollers for windsurfers and kite surfers, tranquil lagoons for swimming, a pebble beach with rocks for snorkelling and beaches in either direction for walking. With the turquoise waters and the blue and white houses, we were reminded of the Greek islands. On a sunny Saturday April lunchtime, buskers sang Mumford and Sons down by the harbour while around the corner, a three piece band played Beatle classics with Spanish lyrics. But there was a lot of building work and expansion going on in El Cotillo and hopefully it will retain its charming, laid-back vibe.

We moved on to Corralejo, the major tourist centre in the north of the island which is much bigger and livelier than El Cotillo. This is a party town with loads of bars, restaurants and clubs in a gorgeous setting with beaches and sand-dunes stretching south of the town and a long path by the coast for walking. But the sea can sometimes be quite rough here and it lacks the tranquil lagoons of El Cotillo. After so many key boxes where we checked in without any human interaction, we were delighted that there was a receptionist in Hesperia Bristol Playa, our accommodation in Corralejo. But she was coldly efficient, dismissing our efforts at speaking Spanish, demanded to see our Covid certs (the first request in months) She slapped wristbands on our wrists for identification purposes, swatted us away like an inconvenience and told us we were too early to check in. Caoimhin cut off his wristband within an hour, objecting to being branded😁

Los Lobos is a small island between Lanzarote and Fuerteventura and is a popular day trip. In the past it has been a hang-out for pirates and a centre for the slave trade but is now a Nature Reserve, a bird sanctuary and a pit stop for migrating birds. It takes its name from the seals that used to frequent its shores in great numbers. Jose de Viera y Clavijo, a Spanish historian wrote around 1800 ‘These animals are highly intelligent and capable of great education…..if you catch them sleeping, you can kill them by hitting them around the snout with a club, since this is the most sensitive part of the their body.’ Obviously lots of people took this advice as the seals have been extinct in the region for a hundred years. The island has some lovely sandy beaches, one restaurant and no accommodation. Its volcanic, stark and barren but there is life especially the constant flicker of lizards and salamanders – one even joined us on the rocks when we were eating lunch hoping for some crumbs. In an effort to combat human effects in this fragile landscape, visitor numbers are limited and a permit has to obtained from the National Park authorities. Its free and available online. But nobody asked us for our permit and there were a lot of people on the island…most didn’t venture far from shore but just headed straight for the beach for a swim in crystal clear waters but the interior is worth a hike.

The wind was a force to be reckoned with in Fuerteventura. Temperatures were in the low to mid twenties with lots of sunshine but it felt much cooler unless you could find shelter from the breeze. We were puzzled by the stone circles on many of the beaches – they almost looked Celtic – until we realised that they were windbreaks made by gathering volcanic rocks, often sheltering bronzed naked bodies. Nudity is widely accepted and not confined to any particular beaches on the island so a naked body (usually male and middle-aged) could appear from any direction. But the winds were fabulous for sailing and wind surfing and the sky over the beaches was usually full of brightly coloured sails.

The colours of Fuerteventura are like block paintings -maybe even a Sean Scully – vivid swathes of bright colours of blue and gold and brown. Here we are only 97 kilometres from the African coast although there is very little evidence of African influence. But that proximity is tantalisingly appealing to migrants, many of whom made the perilous journey in small ill-equipped boats in an attempt to reach Europe. The tragedy is that many drown (41 people rescued and 17 drowned on Feb 4 last when their dingy capsized)

Tomorrow, April 11, we get a ferry to Lanzarote, a short 30 minute boat ride away. We can even see it in the distance when we look north from Corralejo. All the Canary Islands are quite different but Fuerteventura is blessed with sun and sand, the whitest sand that we have seen on any of the islands. Elsewhere black sand beaches from lava dust and volcanic rocks were more common. Apparently, the sand in Fuerteventura is formed when tropical fish eat coral which is crushed in their intestines and discarded in the form of sand. So in other words, fish pooh! Isn’t science wonderful?🤣🤣

Until next time…..thanks for reading