Corralejo; Sunday, 13 March, 2022

If the tour the previous day had been an example of how not to organise things then my booked tour for today, to Lobos island a nature reserve just off the coast of Corralejo, was a model in how to do things right. A few days beforehand the tour company had warned me that the chance of the tour taking place was only 50/50 due to the expected sea conditions and that they would be in contact with me early on Sunday to let me know, so I wasn’t surprised when I woke up to find a message on my phone from the company telling me the tour was off and a refund was on it’s way, giving me enough time to replan my day.

After breakfast I headed over to the bus station to pick up another of the local buses, this time heading to the West Coast town of El Cotello. I’d had a quick look on the map and it had the advantage of being a relatively short and direct bus ride away – with the added advantage of the buses being hourly even on a Sunday.

Again it was another pretty ride through the landscape of Fuerteventura, with the bus making a very wide loop south to serve the town of La Oliva, meaning the bus took nearly 40 minutes where as the direct route would have been less than 25 – but it did take you into the landscape behind the volcanoes and past some very pretty traditional windmills.

Arriving in El Cotillo I went for a wander and found myself quickly down at the beach where the increasing wind was causing some pretty big waves to break along the coastline, it was pretty impressive to watch as I wandered along the beach, a safe distance back from the water line.

My wander along the beach took me back into the centre of the town and from here I had a wander around the pretty town centre before heading up onto a view point on the cliffs overlooking the coastline both North and South and down into the little bay that the town is built around.

A short walk from the viewpoint is a small fort that looks like it was a museums, but has been closed for some time with a faded sign implying that it closed when Covid first hit the islands and hasn’t reopened since. Next door to the fort is one of a series of whale skeletons that are dotted around the coastline of the island to promote biodiversity and ecology.

By now I had pretty much exhausted all the town had for me, so I headed back to the bus station and caught the bus back into Corralejo and walked back to the hotel. With little more to do I decided I might as well break the habits of a lifetime and actually spend a couple of hours just sitting by and having a swim in the hotel pool, which may or may not have included a couple of drinks from the bar.

As I had an early start the following morning I headed back to my room to shower from the pool and then start packing so that I could make a quick getaway. As the sun started to set I quickly popped down to the beach to get some views of the town in the dark and then headed back to the hotel for dinner.