Fuerteventura Island. Days 7 to 11 of the trip

February 22. We woke up around 8 and started getting ready to leave. I booked the ferry tickets with Armas, and the day before I had also booked us an apartment on Fuerteventura. While we were packing, I noticed that the wind turbines we could see from our window had become wrapped in a sort of yellow haze, and I guessed that this might be calima, which we had never seen before. This is what it looked like:

Then Luka stopped by. He was in a hurry, so he decided to say goodbye early. While we were talking, I asked him whether this was calima, and he said yes, and that it would last 2-3 days. We did not think much of it because visibility had not dropped too badly yet, and in principle it still seemed possible to travel around.

We packed up and left. Before reaching the port, though, we planned to visit a few places we had postponed until today. If we had known about the calima, we would have visited them all the day before, but it caught us by surprise.

We stopped at one place with a sunken ship, then at another place where there was a beach next to the airport. This is what it looked like:

Then we walked about 500 meters toward the airport. I opened Flightradar24 and spotted a few planes that we could wait for and watch landing. So that is what we did. We filmed a couple of them and walked back to the car.

The calima kept getting stronger, and visibility kept falling, and it seemed to us that this had to be the limit. But when we approached the town where we were supposed to catch the ferry to the next island, strong wind picked up as well. Visibility kept getting worse.

We arrived at the pier, and there were no cars there. I parked in what I assumed was the place where the Armas ferry was supposed to depart at 13:00 and went to find out. I asked the woman at the booth where we had to queue, and she said the ferry had been canceled because of the strong wind. She could either refund us or move us to the next day. I asked whether Fred Olsen was still sailing. She said I could check with them and did not have to cancel my Armas ticket yet. So I went to the Fred Olsen booth, and there they said that the 14:00 ship would probably sail, though not for certain, but they still offered to sell me a ticket. I agreed and bought one, then went back and canceled the Armas ticket. After that I re-parked the car, and Sveta and I waited for the decisive moment, because there was a real chance we would not leave the island that day. Then that moment came. They seemed to start checking tickets, which meant we would most likely sail after all. A controller came up, I handed him the tickets, and then he shocked me: our tickets were not for 14:00 but for 16:00. I had not checked them after purchase, but I clearly remembered that at the counter we had agreed on 14:00. In the end the controller said it was not a problem and that we could board even with those tickets. So, thank God, we got onto the ship and left. While sailing, I did not notice waves big enough to suggest winds so strong that everything had to be canceled. In fact, it felt like the ship rocked much less than on our previous trips. By the way, this was our shortest crossing ever. It took around 30 minutes, because the distance between the two islands is small. Lanzarote - Fuerteventura is the shortest inter-island crossing in the Canaries. On the ferry we bought something to eat. As I wrote before, the food there is surprisingly affordable, so it is easy to grab a snack.

By the way, while we were waiting in line to leave Lanzarote, we had plenty of time to do random things. I started exploring everything inside the car and discovered that it actually had cruise control. So there we were: we had already done two 10-day trips and were now on day 5 of the third one, and suddenly it turned out the car had cruise control all along. Total fiasco. It was just hidden in a very awkward place and was hard to find. After that I used it all the time, and fuel consumption even went down a little.

And so we were on Fuerteventura. Visibility had dropped badly, and we headed to check into the apartment. We drove past the sand dunes, but it was awful there - you could see nothing. It also felt a bit scary to walk outside in case calima was actually bad for your health. So we decided to stop in one town on the way. We walked along the waterfront there and took a couple of photos:

From that town we texted the apartment manager that we would be there in 30 minutes and headed out. Once there, we had to wait about 15 minutes for the person on the parking lot.

He showed us where to park the car, then took us to the apartment. It was excellent. A two-room apartment with a balcony and a shared pool for all residents. The man who handed over the keys asked us, when leaving, not to leave the windows wide open because a lot of sand could blow in. By the way, he spoke English, but the person I had been talking to through Booking spoke Russian. Later on, that contact was useful when we needed to extend the stay by one more day.

After we had enjoyed the apartment for a while, we got back into the car and drove to a huge Mercadona supermarket 5 km away. We bought all sorts of things there, including sweets, and then went back to rest after the chaotic day. We could easily have failed to reach this island at all that day.

Here is our car on the secured parking lot, seen from the kitchen window:

In the evening we sat down to watch TV. This apartment had a 42-inch LG, almost like the one we have at home, so everything felt familiar. We watched +100500 and other YouTube channels.

By the way, that day we found the only drawback of this place: the neighbor had guests over, and we could hear every word. We could not understand them, though, because it was Spanish. It also sounded as if they were banging their heads against the wall. Still, it did not affect our sleep because our bedroom was far from their side.

Morning of February 23. I did not get up especially early, around 8. As usual, I started figuring out where we could drive and whether it even made sense to go anywhere in calima. I looked out of the window. Visibility was better than the day before, so I thought the calima was starting to fade. I woke Sveta, we ate, got ready, and went out to drive around the island. First we headed to the dunes. But by the time we got there, the calima had thickened again, and everything looked miserable, yet we still went for a walk.

After that we drove a bit farther east along the dunes. There was a surfers' club there. We watched people riding the waves for a while.

Then we decided to visit an interesting beach unlike any I had ever seen. Its pebbles looked like white popcorn, which is why it was called Popcorn Beach. Here is a photo from there:

And here are the pebbles themselves. We took a few with us:

The road to that beach was not great: a dirt track, and I hate those.

After Popcorn Beach we drove to the next beach, but once we got there we realized there was nothing for us to do. The wind was absolutely brutal. It was blowing us sideways, and sand flying in the wind was stinging our faces and every other exposed part of the body.

That was enough for us, so we headed home. On the way we saw people jogging. To me, doing sports in air like that can only harm your body. There were PM2.5 particles everywhere, and they are said to be carcinogenic.

We got home early and relaxed. We rested, did some chores, and watched movies from the flash drive I had brought from home.

Morning of February 24. I had set the alarm for 6:30. The plan was to go to one of the beaches where you need low tide in order to reach a beautiful spot on foot. When I woke up, I checked what was going on outside, looked at windy.com, and realized there was no point going anywhere that day because the calima had only gotten worse. So I went back to sleep and we ended up sleeping until 9. After getting up, we did everything at a leisurely pace and then went for a walk around town. We visited the town beach. By the way, the town of Castillo Caleta de Fuste did not appeal to us. It felt like some kind of resort town similar to Anapa, so we quickly headed back home.

At home I contacted the apartment owner and asked to extend the booking by one day. He agreed. It cost 42 euros extra. After that I grabbed a bottle of water and several times went downstairs to rinse our car and wash off the sand. Then we drove to the store. There I noticed an elderly couple. The old man was pushing his wife in a wheelchair, and she could barely hold herself upright in it. I remembered seeing them when we were walking back from the beach. Back then he had been helping her into the car, and apparently they ended up in the store at the same time as us. I thought about how everything must be arranged there for even people like that to be able to come to the store and buy groceries.

So after the store we mostly loafed around and did almost nothing. Sveta mended my backpack so I could keep using it somehow. Then we watched movies and YouTube and went to bed early, because the forecast promised a good day tomorrow and we needed to start catching up on everything we had missed during the calima days.

Morning of February 25. I got up very early, at 5 a.m. I could not sleep. I sat in the other room reading articles and waiting for Sveta to wake up. But I did not have to wait long, because the calima had retreated and we needed to hurry out to the sights. The first place was exactly why we had to leave so early. It was a spot where there was supposed to be low tide in the morning, and only then could you reach a beautiful grotto. We left around 7:45 and arrived around 8:30, but there was no sign of low tide at all. Reaching the grotto was impossible unless you swam. This is what the village near that place looked like:

Still, it was not a wasted drive because the waves there were pretty good:

We stood there for a bit and moved on. The next place on our route was beautiful too, with even stronger waves and lovely wild pools where one could have gone for a swim.

We kept going. Along the way we stopped at a few sights with sculptures of some naked strangers:

We came across a place with lots of ground squirrels:

Next we headed to the town of Ajuy. Every Russian should go there and take a photo next to the town sign.

There is a trail in that town leading to beautiful grottos, so that is where we went.

We descended into a large cave full of pigeons. In theory there should have been coronavirus bats there, but instead pigeons had taken over and covered everything in droppings. There were also places that had clearly been soiled by humans.

Next to the grottos there was a beautiful place with whirlpools. There were no waves there, but the water kept surging up and down, and in spots where underwater rocks lay close to the surface, the moving water twisted into whirlpools. We probably stood there for an hour.

We drove on. The next stop was yet another unbelievably beautiful place. One could stay there forever.

The waves there were especially good. There was also a huge boulder positioned just right, acting like a ramp for the waves. I took several nice short-exposure shots there:

That was the last place for the day because Sveta started complaining. She said she wanted to rest already and that she had a headache. So we drove home, even though sunset was still far away.

Morning of February 26. We got up early, ate, got ready, and left around 9:00. The weather was decent, and we decided to visit the dunes once again, because last time conditions there had been poor. When we got there and walked around, we did not feel much enthusiasm in good weather. With calima it had looked much cooler, while now it was just heaps of sand and nothing else. In fact, they were not really dunes, just sand. The real dunes were still waiting for us on another island. This is what that place looked like in good weather:

After that we went to Popcorn Beach again, and this time the dirt road did not seem so terrible. Maybe because a tractor and a watering truck had driven there before us and leveled it a bit. We spent more time on the beach this time. We walked among the rocks where there were small pools of seawater left behind by the tide, with various sea creatures in them. Mostly tiny crustaceans and fish. But in one of the pools we found a jellyfish stuck between the rocks. I picked up two stones and used them to move the jellyfish into a bigger pool so it could float there. But it seemed half-dead. There was some kind of air bubble inside its body, probably because it had spent too much time exposed to the air:

By the end I had relaxed so much that I stepped right into a puddle. The water was clear, so I had not noticed it. I had to spend a while drying everything. Good thing I had other shoes and spare socks in the car.

The next place was another repeat visit. We decided to stop because we were passing nearby anyway. It was the beach with the grotto. We thought maybe my tide app had mixed up low and high tide, and that if we came in the daytime we would catch low tide. But we did not. Maybe it had not happened there for a very long time. Or maybe it only happens in summer or in certain months.

The next place was also a repeat, but last time we had not spent much time there because Sveta had a headache. This time, after arriving, we walked all around it and also went into a restaurant and ate quite a lot for 30 euros. I ordered veal. I thought it would be a small portion, but they brought me a huge piece of meat, still bloody. I do not even know whether it is proper to eat bloody meat. Maybe it was a rabid cow. But the fact that I am writing these lines now means I did not die, so apparently the piece of meat was fine. Sveta approached the menu more wisely and did not torture herself with giant portions - she ordered mussels.

Here are a few photos from there:

This was our last full day on the island, so we wanted to visit a few more places. But sunset was getting close, and in the end we decided that our current stop would be the last one. We visited a beach that required about a 30-minute walk:

There was no one on that beach except us and four surfers who were trying to stand up on their boards. When we came back from the beach, we got into the car and started waiting for sunset. A few other cars were parked next to us, and their passengers were waiting for sunset too:

And that was it. A long drive home through the darkness was ahead of us. Before reaching home, we stopped at our now familiar Mercadona and bought all sorts of treats.