Spanish day

It was Claire’s turn to wake up last night at 4.20am.  She’s too tired to blog today so its my turn again.  Feeling quite chilled out by now so we just decided to have an easy day and fill some of the gaps in that we have not seen yet.  We headed down to Las Playitas on the way to Gran Tarajal and had a walk along the black rock beach.  The weather was lovelly again today.

We walked around to the end of our bay to find that there was another bay around the corner.  We didn’t bother preferring to have a sit down for 15 minutes.

There are a few little sea caves on this corner so I investigated almost getting trapped when I went in to take a picture.  The things I do for this blog.

I knew that there was a lighthouse further around the coast called La Entallada so we headed off to find it.  The road got narrower and narrower, and steeper and steeper until Claire wanted to get out of the car.  I managed to get a picture of her once we got to the top but she wasn’t happy about going back down again.  I don't know what you would do if you met a car coming the other way.

Its quite a pretty little lighthouse with great view all around.  There was a funny little pathway that ended at the edge of the cliffs which is where I took this photo from.  Im quite pleased with my photos this time and all but two at the begining have been taken on my i-phone.

It was getting towards lunchtime by now so we headed off towards Pozo Negro where we have been told you can get the best Paella on the island.  We were pleasantly surprised to find a really nice beach along this stretch of coastline.  Its really close to Las Salinas that we walked to at the beginning of our holiday.

There were two restaurants at the end of the beach but only one was open called Los Pescardores and they specialize in fresh fish.  We had to go for the Paella and so had a jug of sangria to go with it.  I always fancy the idea of Paella but always seem disappointed when get it.  I wasn’t this time, this was the best paella that I have ever had; mmm yummy.

Well fed and watered, it was time to head back to the car and home for a siesta.  My turn to wake up tonight to upload the pictures.  Siesta over we popped out to Lins cafe as we have their wifi details from our first day here.  I brought my laptop with me and uploaded all the pictures in about 5 minutes.  It takes me as long to upload my emails on ours that we paid €28 for.  Great, looks like we might get a full nights sleep tonight.  Claire will get her chicken and I get a burger into the bargain.  We had such a great Spanish day today, Claire wants to do it all again tomorow.

Well fancy that!

Canned Heat

Having had three days of cloud and some rain, it looked a little more promising again today.  Last night it was me that was up at 3.20am for the toilet.  I got up to put the photos on but it was still quite slow.  By about 4.30am it speeded up more so I managed to get the days blog downloaded.  W decided to get an early start and tour the west coast today which is much less visited by tourists and with a mountain range between us and the coast.  Man, it was hot in the car, we had to put on the aircon which is always a good sign.  The first picture was taken at Los Molinos, a little bay in the middle of nowhere.  We intended to stop at Aguas Verdes but the navigator missed the turning so we carried onto Betancuria which was the original capital of the island.  I stopped and took a picture of the town from the road looking down the valley.

I also spotted a couple of statue figures and I think this is a great picture.  I read the plaque about them and its to commemorate the original two kingdoms where the island was divided by a wall.  I couldn't see much remaining of this wall, I think it must have all been scavenged long ago.

We finally got into Betancuria but we didnt stop long; only long enough for one photo.

Next stop Pajara which is quite a pretty little town, we even stopped at the local shop because their prices were substantially less than we pay in our tourist spot.  The bells made us jump just as I was taking this picture of the church.

Next stop Ajuy which is another little bay on the coast.  This really is a pretty little place with around 4 restaurants and a coastal walk.  We actually spent the rest of our day there.

We made the mistake of being seduced by one of the two restaurants with the views and no prices.  Both the other two without the views had meals of the day for €10 which again included a drink.  Also they have to produce better food to hope to get some sort of reputation as most people are drawn to the ones on the front where you pay twice as much for a worse meal.  Still the vies were good.  Claire had spag bol and I had grilled tuna with Canadian potatoes and salad.  They brought some bread and dips out for us to start and then charged us for them afterwards.

Following lunch we started the long climb up the slope to the beginning of the cliff walk.  It was too much for Claire and she decided to have a sit down and rest while I walked around the coast to get some photos.  She hasn’t been able to get to the gym very often lately so I guess thats why she couldn’t keep up with me.

The walk goes on for miles and miles, I think that you can walk all the way around to the next village but when you get into a bay the going get a little trickier.  There are several caves where the sea has crashed into the rocks and eroded them away at sea level.  I would have like to walk a little further but I had to think of Claire and get back once I found the caves.

A really nice day, what a difference it makes when the sun shines.  Now for the long trek back to not be able to load a single photo on for the blog again.  Claire, its your turn to wake me up tonight so I can upload the photos again.  I have been spending far to long with the blog; not because I am writing so much, just because of our useless connection.  Its taking me around 3 hours a day to upload everything so Claire will be blogging from now on to give me a little more time writing.

How absurd?

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;-

On the road again

We decided to have another chill day on Wednesday and started out early walking along the beach to the salt flats which, according to the book, is a 3 hour walk.  It was quite overcast so the going was easier than if we had been in bright sunshine but the photos are never as good.

There is a salt museum when you finally get there and as we were both quite desperate for the toilet decided to pay the €5 charge each.  It was a complete waste of time with only a couple of dozen of photographs inside light boxes with a load of words written about each.  Unfortunately, they were all in Spanish with no translations.  Still, the toilets were nice and we headed straight back home.

I settled for an icecream which is the first of the holiday for me.  We, one of those mivi things with a berry outside lolly.  MMmm, I feel like walking back that way again now.

I got on with my book, while Claire slowly supped wine reading her books.  Unfortunately, there was very little sun all day.  We headed into town to share a pizza between us as we wanted to save ourselves for dinner at the restaurant 15.

Changed and ready, we still had time to check out car hire places and I settled for one.  It was €100 for a car for 4 days or €120 for a week.  For the extra €20, even if we only use it to fetch the supermarket stuff its got to be worth it.

Restaurant 15 turned out to be a disaster.  I had the number 1 dish which was supposed to be chicken in tomato and chorizo while Claire had number 4 which was a sirloin steak in cheese and mustard.  Claire asked for hers medium but it was blue and mine was cooked in a BBQ sauce which is one of the few things that I don't like.  The bottle of wine that we bought was ok though.  Claire’s steak was also really gristly so she hardly managed any of it.  It didn't help that the vegetables that came in a separate bowl were raw.  We don’t like them too soft but these had hardly seen any heat at all.  When the waiter asked Claire if everything was ok, I wanted to hide.  She certainly left him with no chance but to take hers off the bill altogether.  Maybe we just chose the wrong dishes but we shan't be going back there again anyway; even if they would let us in.

The cars ok, its a white allegro.  I always take a photo of it when I first pick it up so I can always find it again and have a record of the registration plate.  Claire had a really bad nights sleep, and so did I really.  I had woken up at 12.30am for the toilet and didn't get back to sleep again until 3.30am.  I woke Claire up and she got up at 1.15am until 3.30am and messed around on her computer.  The man in the car shop had given me a big map of the island and highlighted all the good places to see and also where all the good restaurants were.  We headed south but the weather got worse and worse until it started to rain.  It wasn’t worth getting out for a walk anywhere so we just drove around so that why we don’t have any photos.

By the time that we had got down to Jandia peninsula where all the naked beaches are and the sun came out.  We couldn’t find anywhere to park as the place was packed out with tourists but we didn’t see anyone without their clothes on.  It wasn’t really our sort of place with its wall to wall tourist food shops.  We got as far as Morro Jable and drove back again looking for a half decent place for lunch.

One of the places that he had circled on the map for good restaurants was on the opposite coast at La Pared.  He had told me of a place with great views while you ate that did great fish.  We found the town but couldn't seem to find our way to the beach somehow and the only place that we could find to eat was a cafe full of German tourists, we couldn’t even get a seat.  We headed off into the Golf complex and found a restaurant called El Camello but there was nobody there.  They had all sorts of Canary dishes on the menu and not a pizza in sight.  They even had goat dishes.  As it was such good value we both went for the menu of the day which was a 3 course with wine for €8.50.  Fabulous value for money.  Claire had tuna salad followed by fish, roasted veg and wedgies then some fresh fruit while I had the chorizo tortilla followed by a chicken risotto style dish and ice cream.  I think Claire’s fish looked like dover sole.  Every course was lovely; I hope we get chance to go back there again.  Next time I will try the Canarian cheese and the goat dish from the main menu.  Sod the views.

You will never believe what bit me last night.  A bloody lizard.  Not just any old ordinary lizard but one of those that eat those jumping spiders that eat those wasps that lay their eggs inside caterpillars.  You want to see the size of my inflammation.

Still Chilling

I never thought Claire was ever going to blog.  She argued with me as to who was going to do the first one and I won because I only took about 3 photos before my camera charge ran out.  Good job I did otherwise you would still be waiting.  Anyway, a little bit more about our apartment.  Its quite clean and tidy but a little on the small size.  We didn't opt for the pay tv because all they have in English is news channels and you know how I feel about them.  We also didn't opt for the aircon because I’m tight.  Well, even without it Claire seems cold all the time indoors, so I figured that if I had paid for it I wouldn't be able to use it anyway.  Its not that comfy though.  The dinning chairs and the outside chairs are not comfortable and the sofa seat is twice the size of the backrest so thats not comfy either.  I find the bed comfy so I have been spending most of my time there.

We have a big shower inside a wetroom.  This sounds better than it is because for a wetroom to work properly, the floor should be sloping towards the drain.  Ours isn’t.  In fact the drain seems to be the highest point in the room.  When the wetroom fills up I think the water will go into the kitchen before it goes down the drain.  Consequently we keep soaking towels to get rid of the water.  We do have a nice clothes horse though so its easy to dry them in this heat.  I guess that its about 26 to 27 each day but we do get some clouds mainly in the morning.

Clair mentioned the market but I wanted to put my photo of it on so just a couple more words.  Claire mentioned that about 95% of the market traders were Africans.  Seriously, I know it only a couple of hundred miles to the coast of africa but thats a hell of a swim.  They were all even dressed in their traditional African dress.  Still it gave me a chance for me to stock up on my cheap sunglasses and watches.

We have had a couple of nice walks along the beach but once you get away from the bay it looks more like a typical Canary island coastal walk with the black volcanic rock lining the sea.  One part looked a bit similar to the giants causeway except bigger.

As we have been chilling out so much here so far I have already rad all my books.  Either I have to write a blog a day or get on with my book.  I have actually started on it the other day and am just about getting with it again.  After so long you loose your train of thoughts, especially when so many other things have been going on.  I do still have some books on my ipad so if Im desperate I can still read.  Also on my ipad are the thousands of offline pages that I have saved from wikipedia to help me with the book.  Because I have so many, I can never find the one I want so its quicker to download it again.  It could do with a search feature but I guess tat they never expected anyone to download so many pages to it.

Before we came I researched the best restaurants in the area with one called “restaurant 15” taking the top spot.  They have 15 main courses on the menu numbered 1 to 15 with number 1 being the most popular.  Each week they replace the two lowest ranking dishes with two more.  What a great idea!  We have been down twice now for lunch there but it is always closed.  I guess that they only open for dinner.  It did say on a website that they were open for lunch.  We keep having to find an alternative which is always a little disappointing when we were already looking forward to the top one.  I suppose that we will have to have a sandwich for lunch one day and go out for dinner like everyone else.

We had a chinese lunch today and sat in the shade but outside.  This couple came along with two small kids eating ice cream.  They changed their mind and decided to go back the way that they had come from when right next to us.  The little girl slipped off the curb and stuck her ice cream into her brothers ear.  I’m not sure which of them cried the loudest.  That image has kept me going all day.  Should have had my camera at the ready.  I got my camera charged up again but I cant get the photos onto my computer; its a real pain.  I might have to go and buy one of those SD to usb things.

We tried to book a car after lunch today for tomorrow but they are all shut for siesta between 2 and 5pm.  I didn't want a siesta anyway.  I guess that we will go down in the morning after I have posted this blog.

This picture was taken inside the Barcelo reception.  We tried to go for lunch in there but failed again.  They have a restaurant, that is second on the list, called "La Paella".  We couldn't find it.

The nasty jumping spiders out here even eat those wasps that lay their eggs inside the caterpillars.  When I woke up with a massive painful bite on the inside of my elbow, I looked around to see if I could find the culprit.  There was a jumping spider on my headboard watching me.  I had the feeling that he liked me.  They look very alert, with their two large eyes and two small ones, that seem to follow you around.  I didn’t like him incase it was he that had bitten me so ferociously in the night.  I tried to kill him twice but he jumped to safety out of sight.  In the day, the bite, with two heads, had inflamed and swollen to over two inches in diameter and it hurt real bad.  When I went in the bedroom in the evening, I spotted him again, watching me from the headboard.  This time, I killed him first time and left him squidged on the headboard as a warning to any more that might be around.  I read for a while and later. I thought I saw something moving where the spider was.  I was right; there were about a thousand tiny ants eating the spider on my headboard.  I got some tissue and flushed the lot down the toilet.  The next day while watching the Korean GP at the pub, the waitress noticed the massive swelling on my arm and asked to have a look at it.  She said that it was most likely a spider bite because of the two heads and the size of the inflammation.  When spiders eat a fly, they bite it with their two incisors that move sideways, injecting it with poison that anesthetizes the fly (but its still conscious)  the poison also turns the fly’s insides into a soup which it drinks up like a soup.  I guess thats what happened to my arm and why the inflammation is so large.