Playa de Sotavento de Jandia and night photography

Last week, apart from going to Ajuy, we visited the Jandia peninsula. It is on the opposite side of the island, but it's not a long drive - certainly lot shorter than drives we had to underatke to get to Norfolk coast when we lived in Essex.
Playa de Sotavento de Jandia, or Playa de Sotavento, or simply Sotavento, is probably the most famous beach on the whole of Fuerteventura, and that's saying something, as there is a lot of stiff competition. The surfing championship is held there, and the water is just beautiful. The entrance to water seems to be free of sharp rocks, although I didn't check the whole length of the beach of course.

The interesting feature of that beach is that there is a long sandbank running along the shore at a distance maybe couple of hundred meters. It separates the open ocean and a shallow area of less moveable, slightly stagnant water. We were there when the tide was at its highest, but even then it was possible to walk along the sandbank, sometimes wading a little.

Ajuy

This weekend we took out a little rental car and went on a few outings around Fuertevetura. One of those was to a place named Ajuy, which, I must say sounds quite shocking for a Russian ear. Especially when you say something like “I am in Ajuy” in Russian.

Anyway. Prior to this visit, I was convinced that the road to Ajuy is extremely bad; not at all sure why by now. The small road that goes to the village itself (FV-621) is not that narrow and doesn’t behave like a snake; a somewhat trickier stretch is on the bigger road FV-20 between Tuineje and Pajara; or, if you are mad enough to take FV-30 bewteen Betancuria and Pajara, that should provide you with a good adrenalin influx. Still, if your car is powerful enough, it’s not really that bad, especially with automatics.

Fuerteventura - around Montana Roja

one of the main roads on Fuerteventura, FV-1 from Puerto del Rosario to Corralejo, passes through the most spectacular it of scenery. First you go through rather lifeless lava fields before coming up to Montana Roja, and then you come into a different bit altogether - white sand dunes of Corralejo. Beaches by the dunes are amazingly beautiful. Some of them are more or less taken over by kite-surfers, but it doesn't really matter because you won't want to swim when wind is strong enough for them, and when it's not, there is no kite in sight. Well, maybe one or two.

Montana Roja seems to be an epicenter of roaming goats. They mostly stay in the lava area, but those guys above came into the dunes for a bit

Two very short videos on driving there first, coming up to Montana Roja




second, past the mountain, through the dunes. Lanzarote is visible in the background