Gran Canaria, Temisas — Aguimes, with a visit to Barranco de Las Vacas

Horizontal panorama

Some time ago I wrote that we would repeat the visit to the Barranco de Las Vacas following a linear route Temisas — Aguimes. Since then we have visited the area twice. First we did the linear route (find the map below), with a visit to the cave complex Cuevas de la Audiencia very close to Temisas. I don’t have any photos of the caves, partially because they are VERY dark (it’s almost like being blind!), but mainly because they were chock-full of people. To be fair, we went on a bank holiday, so the hikers were out in force, more on that later.

Second time we went from Aguimes (and back) with a specific purpose in mind — that is, to make a photosession with Timur playing his guitar there.

Playa de Güigüí, the secret beach

Impressive cliffs, right?

I suppose Guigui (pardon me for not going into all that umlaut nonsense from this point on*) is Gran Canaria's equivalent of Cofete beach on Fuerteventura. Although it is nowhere as large or as beautiful, it has one very important advantage - you can swim there reasonably safely without being swept into the ocean, never to be seen again.

One disadvantage (although it is debatable if this is indeed a disadvantage) is that Guigui is even less accessible than Cofete. There is no road at all; your choice is either walk or go by boat. Going by boat is expensive; plus, there is absolutely nothing at all on the beach, no bar, almost no shade in the second half of the day, zero, zilch, nada. And, if you decide to extract the maximum value out of the boat ride both ways and stay there for at least three hours you will end up severely sunburned and quite possibly really, really bored.

Cycling to the north and south of Corralejo

Some sites are keen to promote Fuerteventura as a place ideal for family sports, including cycling. Much as I want to promote Fuertevenura as ideal place for everything, “ideal” for family cycling it is not, at least not in the North, around Corralejo.

Both kids are now cycling to schools and sports, under our supervision in Timur’s case. I was thinking for a while that we should do some longer rides and the Easter hols seemed like an ideal opportunity. So we did two slightly more extended trips — one to the north-west, towards Majanicho, one to the south, to the dunes by the road. What follows is an advice by a lay person who cycles, not a dedicated cyclist, keep that in mind.

Colors

 Even now, in winter, Fuerteventura's sun is strong and colors striking. And here is Timur, in his bright t-shirt, sitting against blue-grungy wall background, and completely disinterested in being photographed. How unfair is that, I ask you?

more dunes, new pair of shoes and observation about postal services

Here Timur's doing what he likes to do best.

dunes - flying sand and drawing zumba logo

Timur prefers dunes to ocean. He doesn't mind one hour walk each way to get to the large, steep, completely plant-free dunes - just to jump or run off them. And now the biggest crowds of visitors are gone, there is a good chance to have an undisturbed sand to walk on, which makes for nice picture

Festival de cometas — unexpected preview

We went for a walk in the dunes today and unexpectedly got ourselves a preview of upcoming kite festival (festival de cometas). the festival itself starts on the 10th at El Cotillo, and will hopefully be a lot bigger, but looked like participants are arriving and starting to fly the kites already. Today they were on a beach past RIU hotels as you go from Corralejo towards Puerto del Rosario.

A few more pics follow.

growing basil and other things

Those are tiny basil plants that are now growing in a pot on our sunroof. I am surprised - I thought when bringing them outside that they might not be happy about so much sun. It appears I was totally wrong.

Unrelated pics follow

We finally found a way of planting our plastic windroses wherever we want. All you need is a large-ish volcanic stone with a through hole from a local beach. We are probably not meant to remove "beach material" here either, but every single garden I looked into uses those stones, so I guess it's ok.

More unrelated pics below

underwater

At the moment Timur doesn't just jump in the pool holding his nose closed with his fingers - he even swims under water like that.

He already had three days at school. He doesn't understand much Spanish yet, but fortunately, there's another boy in his class, who speaks both english and spanish. He's helping Timur out with difficult bits (which is pretty much everything right now, apart from drawing and having a snack)

bright day

Another bright and sunny day today. Timur's relaxing after a swim - once he is in the ocean, it is very difficult to extract him from there.

green-haired man

I don't like small fiddly things. Timur, on the other hand, loves them. When we were in local art and craft shop, he spotted those little white men and later oh-so-casually mentioned them to me ("... and, by the way, they are only one euro ninety five..."). So of course we bought one. I am pretty sure the coiffure should ideally be thicker, but Timur's happy, and so am I. Tomorrow we will give little white man a haircut with manicure scissors

sand angels and patterns

Although most of the sand surfaces are disturbed, there were a couple of perfect mini-dunes a little bit away from beaten track - razor-sharp crest and everything.

walk to the dunes

Although natural park starts across the road from us, "proper" sandy dunes are some way away, and today we measured how far - 45 minutes walking reasonably fast by the roadside. There might be a shortcut through the park, that we'll try next time we go.

Right now it's a lot of tourists coming to visit the dunes during the day - we saw some arriving by busload, plus there's not much wind, so the surface of the sand is disturbed in many places. I know when to come for good organic sand patterns though - in winter, when there's very few people and wind is blowing. Admittedly, when wind blows really hard, sand dunes might be just about the last place you want to hang around.

Fuerteventura looks and lens that is no more with us

Today we went to Puerto del Rosario and I've parted with my faulty lens and some money. It will be sent to Barcelona and they'll call us and tell if it's reparable, and if yes, how much it'll be. The guy we spoke to in canon center didn't speak a word of english, but funnily enough, I understood what he said, without catching any particular keywords in his speech - probably because it was of a highly predictable content. It will be "un mes, mas or menos". I am feeling sort of post-lens depressed, me.

Meanwhile while we were planning the move and making the move, Timur definitely turned from a being of unbearable cuteness to a being of unspeakable coolness. At least in his own eyes.

flowers, coffee and haircut

Delonix regia, flametree. They are now in bloom everywhere

a builder was a-building

Nothing much happened today except I got on a bicycle first time in years. It's a fancy one - gears and handlebar brakes. Not at all like bikes of my childhood, where you needed to pedal backwards to brake. It will take some time before I attempt a big ride, but it'll happen one day.

Builders are doing something to the roof of a local shopping center. I just like the geometry of this view.

Bonus track is a very short movie of Timur, taken both above and below the water surface. I must say Kirill's little camera handles this switch pretty well.

watery day

what a lovely splash

dunas y playas otra vez

 One of the things that we wanted to do yesterday at the dunes was to make a new "fuerte-zumba" userpic for Kirill's profile at zumba.com. We weren't particularly successful, picture above approaches the desired effect, but we'll have to come back and do it again some day

energetic sunday - dunes

 Today we finally went to the "big beaches" (playas grandes), about three kilometers from the edge of Corralejo. Ocean was a bit choppy and red flags were on, but we didn't really go there for the ocean. Those beaches are backed by white sand dunes, where our kids (and not only they) like to jump, roll and run downhill
Which is precisely what they (and Kirill) did for a while.