Trip to Fuerteventura

August 20, 2002 in Uncategorized
Tags: spain, travelling

Fuerteventura is a piece of desert west of the African north-west coast (view from high above) and perhaps the only thing you can do there is surfing – at least this is, what all the people I know say. Of course, this was inspiration enough for me to search for other possibilities to spend my time. Studying the map of this island makes you first think that doing something else than what most of the people here do — drinking or surfing — is impossible, talking to some locals reveals that there actually are a few things you can look at, that there are some attractions you can visit…

Of course, to visit these things, you have to bring a huge portion of interest in culture, lifestyles and architecture and you must be somebody who likes to read since the relicts you can find there are already damaged heavily, so your imagination makes fifty per cent of the experience! So I started to read about the island, wondered that it once was a beautiful island full of plants, trees and tropical life and that so many ships stranded here (like, for example, the American Star). I read about the white-sand-beach in the north, about the mountaineous region in the center and about the many deaths on the island’s west coast because of the underestimation of the sea’s power there by tourists. And as it is always with interest, the more you know, the more you want to know, I rent a car and drove around, seeing even more than expected.

I heard about beautiful beaches either in their natural state or included into villages or small cities like the one in Moro Jable (see it on the left photo or view from high above), I read of a special kind of christianism combined with actions you would call voodooism and in fact I saw a shrine with a doll symbolizing someones daughter (center image) and I also heard about the many dangerous places where not only smugglers and other “elements of crime” met, but also nature had its traps because of some strange geography that made the sea somehow holding you on a certain position and not letting you swim to either the open sea or the coast (right photo).

What is really an eye-opener and the perfect thing to get some “Ahhs!” is if you manage to find one of the many pathways along the coastline like the one in the left picture. Sometimes these ways will lead you to absolutely unexpected places like voodoo-shrines, graves or places you would wish never to be arrived at. But they make fuerteventura much more interesting than beer, wine and alco-pops. Going on the coastline is one thing, getting into the center of the island, another. There you can see villages nearly untouched for years with people still looking at you like at the first Spanish who arrived here. Of course, to see such a village, you have to leave the main roads and travel at your own risk, but yet it can be interesting to be confronted with the past in such an intense way. And when you are there, you are not only confronted with how they deal with animals, but you can also see the missionary-work of christianism there.

All in all, Fuerteventura can be more than just surfing and getting drunk. Yet, what part of this world cannot?