Going Up The Country

Again Claire was up at 2.30am so we both had another bad night.  We did manage to get back to sleep again but then when you wake up you cant seem to get going.  We headed off in the car, taking an overnight bag just in case, heading north towards Corralejo.

This meant first negotiating the capital of Fuerteventura, Puerto Del Rosario.  We did try to have a drive into town but it seems difficult to negotiate places around here.  There are not very good signs and no obvious ways to go and you always somehow end up on a dirt track to nowhere.

While we were traveling up the country we could see the rainclouds ahead of us again.  Sure enough the heavens opened but it soon passed.  Once you get close to Corralejo you get sand banks on both sides of the road and it looks more like a desert scene than a volcanic island.

There are some really lovely beaches just before Corralejo but its very windy.  I guess thats why there are so many surfing here.

Again when we got to Corralejo, we couldn't find our way to anywhere interesting, the roads all seem to fizzle out or are dead ends; its bizarre.  We finally gave up and headed towards El Cotillo which is on the north west corner of Fueteventura.  This is one of the places that we have circled on the map and the only one with a restaurant name written down.

We found it and had a walk around looking for the restaurant without success.  There is a lovely little port and a few old round short lighthouse type buildings but it was very choppy.  This is actually a 15th century castle built to protect the port from invaders.  It used to house 3 canons operated by 12 people.  El Cotillo was originally called El Toston which is what the castle is still called.  The restaurants near the sea were quite busy but a little touristy.

We gave up and drove around the place, eventually finding a more built up area not right next to the coast with more restaurants around.  Of course our one was the last one to be found.  But how could it have been anything else?  You don’t carry on looking once you have found it, do you?

Its called the La Marisma and its not the sort of place that you would just happen on, or even go in if you did.  Very friendly, Claire ordered a mixed fish grill and I ordered the Canary soup followed by chicken stuffed with prawns in a Roquefort sauce.

They brought an appetizer out for us which consisted of, octopus, canary potatoes, crusty bread and three sauces.  Very nice too.  My soup came in a family sized bowl and I was full before my main turned up.

Claire was horrified when they brought her fish out; she seemed to have the entire catch.  Three large whole fish, a huge piece of calemari, king prawns, muscles and a few things we didn't recognize.  I had two stuffed chicken breasts and couldn’t even manage to eat one.  Once I had filleted one of the fish for Claire she did manage to eat that but the rest we brought back in a doggy bag.  That will please the jumpy spiders and tiny ants.

I caught another jumpy spider last night, in the kitchen and whacked it with the tea towel.  It wasn't dead so whacked it twice more on the floor.  Then I couldn't see where it had gone so came to sit at the table again.  Two minutes later Claire came in and said that there was one of those spiders with loads of ants after it.  It still wasn’t dead and was surrounded by about 1 thousand tiny ants all trying to eat it.  The spider was frantically trying to get away from them without success.  It reminded me of an antelope being pulled down by lions.  How could these tiny creatures act so familiarly when they hardly have a brain?  the spider was acting exactly like it was in pain and terrified whilst the tiny ants where frantically trying to pull the thing down.  How could they have known that they had a chance?  They don’t go near those spiders when there is nothing wrong with them.

It rained the whole time that we were in the restaurant again and they brought out the biggest after dinner liqueur that I had ever seen.  I think Claire has a picture for her next blog.  We stopped for a couple of pictures on the way home once it started to brighten up again and that was another day over.  I cant tell you how annoying that this internet is here.  We paid to have it for the entire two weeks and its bloody useless.  Yesterday I spent three hours trying to get the blog on without success.  I got up in the night to find that the text and one photo was on and so put the rest of them on.  It seemed to work normally at 4am but now its slow slow it doesn’t work again.  I am going to abandon it again now and see if either of us wake up in the night again.

I just know that you are not going to believe this;-