Montaña de la Arena

We didn’t have much luck with the sun during this excursion. One of a few small pools of light on the landscape

Montaña de la Arena is a small dark mountain between Lajares and Villaverde/La Oliva. I passed it many times when doing a part of trans-Fuerteventura path GR 131. Once we tried to go up it with friends, but turned back when we discovered that the side of the mountain that we choose was one large scree. That was the side which looks at Lajares, northern face more of less.

When I saw the announcement of the excursion to the Montaña de la Arena on Facebook, I joined. I figured that maybe there is a good path up that I failed to spot myself.

Well, I was wrong. Where we went, there is no good path. There are bits when it looks sort of like one; but those are separated by stretches of pure picon, black volcanic gravel. You step up and slide down by the same amount, and you step up again, and you guessed the rest. It’s not an easy climb, and I don’t recommend to go where we went — southern face.

Tindaya

I was looking in the direction of Tindaya for quite some time, figuring out how to get there without a car. It’s possible, but tricky, as there are just three buses per day that go past the village. You can start from further, at La Oliva, but that involves walking some nine kilometers to the mountain before going up, and that somehow didn’t seem so very attractive.
Apart from that, there was always a nagging question that nobody could quite answer — do you need a permission to ascend Tindaya, it being a protected area, sacred mountain and all that.
So I was really happy when I got a call from my former Spanish teacher saying that there will be a group excursion for Tindya, that we have enough cars and that he sorted out the group permission with ayuntamiento (district council) *.