From La Pared to Sotavento de Jandia

The urge to climb and then jump off the sharp rock is irresistible to some

Last Saturday we went for a long walk with my former Spanish class. The walk started around La Pared village on the west coast of Fuerteventura, ran along the shore for the goodish while, and then started to traverse the island. It ended up at main road FV-1, at the level of southern end of Playa de Sotavento de Jandia.

I liked the walk a lot, the coastal path is absolutely spectacular, but there are a few somewhat difficult points about it that I’d like to record.

First, logistically it’s not easy to organize on your own. It’s not circular, and if you want to go by car, you will have to go through a palaver of arranging at least one at the end of the walk, then ferrying people between the end and the start. We had it easy, as the center provided the bus that brought us to the start and picked us up at the end. I am not sure if the walk is doable by just public transport, but inclined to think that it isn’t.

Second point — most of the route runs along the sandstone ledge not much above the high water level, and under a tall wall of sandstone. There is no or very little mobile reception; so not a great idea to try the walk on your own even if you managed to somehow arrange the transport. Apart from our large group, we met very few people along the path.

Third point, linked to the previous — sandstone ledge runs out occasionally, or becomes quite steep. Nothing too bad, but — watch out and have somebody else watching out for you.

Apart from that, nothing much I can add. Enjoy the views :)

Bright green is such a rarity on Fuerteventura, I felt obliged to record this patch of algae

The ledge is flat here, but you can see why the mobile reception if not that great

Love those sandstone “fungi”, there were a few along the way.

It took us about 5 hours to complete the walk of 16 kilometers — not a great speed, but the group always walks with the speed of the slowest member, so perhaps not that surprising. Next day, a storm hit Fuerteventura, and we had just a little taster of what was coming, with fast moving clouds, big waves and feeling cold and then hot in a space of few minutes.

The beautiful mountain in the distance are all part of zone taken up by military

The sandstone wall eroded into such strange shapes all the way along the coast, it was difficult to walk without looking up all the time.

Ah, yes — one more thing. Don’t do the walk when the tide is high and there is a lot of waves. Judging by the pools of water on more or less the same level as the path, it can come right up to it. West coast of Fuerteventura generally gets more waves, and could be quite dangerous.

At some point, the wall on our left changed to dunes. We started climbing up soon after that. As I was following the lead, I am not sure what marked the spot where you stop following the shore and climb up, but I have the impression it was where the ledge quite simply run out.

Note the small pools of water here too. Waves must have been tremendous

View La Pared to Sotavento in a larger map

Pictures of west coast of Fuerteventura on Shutterstock — here.