One of my very dear friends lives on the island of Fuerteventura, Canary Islands. Whilst I was in the UK visiting my parents I decided to take a trip out to see her and also celebrate my birthday!  I was there for four days, plenty of time to see the island and eat in the great fish restaurants that it’s known for.

Fuerteventura the second largest of Spain’s Canary Islands, sits in the Atlantic Ocean 100km off the north coast of Africa. It’s known mostly as a holiday destination due to its white-sand beaches and year-round warmth cooled by constant winds. It is the oldest island in the Canary Islands dating back 20 million years due to a volcanic eruption. It was declared a biosphere reserve by  UNESCO in May 2009.

As the first night was my birthday, Lorraine had booked a fabulous restaurant called La Playita overlooking the bay of Corralejo.  What a fantastic  night with the table decorated with balloons and banners and then the whole restaurant singing happy birthday to me.

Walking through the beautiful town of Corralejo 

 

Waking up the next morning I wandered into the garden to take some photos.  Lorraine lives at the end of a residential street overlooking the sand dunes.  You can see Tenerife in the distance from the garden.  I was hoping the sun would break through as it wasn’t as warm as I had thought!

The next day Lorraine took me into Corralejo again and have lunch.  Fuerteventura is a very barren island due to the lack of rain and volcanic landscape.  Nothing really grows here and most of the food is imported.  There are many aloe vera plants scattered around and this is one plant that does grow well.

 

The next day I booked an excursion to go around the island – I will be writing another post separately about this.

Before we set out for my last day on the island we had to walk Rocky and Poppy her two little dogs.  We walked just up the path from where she lives so I could feed the chipmunks, which run wild throughout the island.

El Cotillo

After our walk  Lorraine and I drove to El Cotillo, a small coastal town on the Northern side of the island.  It has a lovely harbour and beautiful scenery with plenty of restaurants and bars.  El Cotillo is home to El Toston Tower built in the 1700’s to defend the village from pirates. We had lunch in El Mirador overlooking the bay.  I loved all the murals and paintings that you see dotted around and also the way they use old rowing boats as decorations.

 

 

Exploring the town after lunch

Some of the murals and mosaics found around the town

 

 

For our last night we ended up eating in the beautiful El Marquesina and of course because it’s a speciality seafood restaurant I had the fish of the day.

Lastly a very short clip from inside El Marquesina

 

A fabulous time in fantastic Fuerteventura

“Wander often, wonder always.”