windrose roundabout

Today, while checking out the schools, we walked to the roundabout that is completely covered with Claudine's wind flowers. It looks somewhat odd with volcano and malpais in the backdrop, but I liked it a lot. She keeps fixing it - in the strong winds of Fuerteventura plastic flowers keep propelling away. It lacks scale and permanency of Cesar Manrique's creations for Lanzarote, but I think it's part of the deal - make something ever-changing with recyclable material, rather than something permanent with metal and stone

unlimited supply of blue sky

Picture above is taken from the top of small artificial hill in botanic gardens of Corralejo. I'd say to call them "botanic gardens" is a bit of overstatement, but that's what they are according to a little plaque next to one of the gate. Basically, there are cacti, palms, olive trees, some other low-growing plans with no nameplates yet, water feature, playground, little skatepark (below) and that's pretty much it at the moment. What is remarkable about it is that it's almost brand new - opened in march this year. It was a wasteland before. They keep doing small adjustments to it - adding tables, planting more stuff, but I never managed to catch the work in progress, although we pass it every day.

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.

moving water

Long exposure shot of some stones on nearest beach. I must say that I miss having a "normal" lens at my disposal. It's been a while since my broken lens was sent (I hope) for repair, so, fingers crossed, maybe our reunion is getting closer. Also, our container should be getting closer, too, and there are some lenses in there.

blue pearl

I didn't use Apophysis for a goodish while, and a new version became available meanwhile. And today I suddenly discovered the I can make flowers with it. Something to do with variation called "blob" of all things - check it out

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

Ghost crowd and fishy sandstorm

Yesterday we went to the belltower again, bit there's really just one road junction worth recording visible from it, so we went for light smudges this time.
This one looks like a crowd of ghosts, or maybe hattifatteners again

Hattifatteners and shrimps

 

If you aren't a fan of Moomin Books, here's what wikipedia has to say about Hattifatteners
The Hattifatteners are tall, thin, ghost-like creatures.... They are constantly, silently and purposefully on the move. I am pretty sure there was a picture in one of the Moomin Books where Hattifatteners were casting long shadows, heading into the sunset. Seeing those thin euphorbia shoots in the dunes made me think of them.

view from belltower - by night and by day

Yesterday Timur got really impressed with car trails photo on a cigarette vending machine (of all things). I've shown him the star trails photo but he didn't look particularly convinced. So we climbed the only accessible high point close to us - belltower in Campanario shopping center - and took a few photos of the only good road junction that is visible from there. That involved placing my camera on the edge of the window outside metal railings, as my tripod is still in transit. All in all, we did well.

Orange kite delivers

I don’t understand much about kitesurfing, but my best quess is that the point is not so much going to and fro very fast (as in the last picture), but to do tricks. We observed a big bunch of wind- and kite-surfers yesterday on the Flag beach. It took me a while to figure out that one of them was doing something other than just turning and heading back into the deep almost every approach — a guy with lot of bright orange in both his kite and underside of the board.

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

Flag beach

We've spent happy couple of hours on Flag beach. It's just to the south of Corralejo.

blue and yellow

 Looking at today's lot of pics, I realised that they fall into blue and yellow color scheme, so let's have a blue and yellow post. Well, mostly blue actually.

Today I spotted this beautiful morning glory flowers on one of the walls. I saw only pale lilac variety before, which is nice, but nowhere as nice as blue, at least in my book. I must remember to look for seeds next time I am in the shops.

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.

and the name is...

Looks like Corralejo is even smaller than I thought. Couple of days ago I wrote that I can't find the name of the lady who makes wind toys. Today we went to salsa lesson (which proved to be bachata, but never mind), and who turns up in the middle of it in bright yellow dress? So now I know her name - Claudine Macquart. By another coincidence, piles of magazine where the article about her was published and that I threw away were both in the bar where the lesson happened and in the little photo shop where we dropped in after lesson to have a passport-size photo done.

We stopped for drinks in a little bar that only opened a couple of days ago. I am pretty sure that rattan table is supposed to have glass top. Well, it didn't :) But I like the way lensbaby treated its pattern.

watery day

what a lovely splash

wind toys

Now we have a few of those recycled-art wind toys, bought from a charming lady at the artisan market in Corralejo. Since I first saw those rotors at the market, I keep seeing them everywhere - there are trees made of them in some gardens, and a whole plantation on one of the roundabouts.

She is one dedicated lady. I saw a small article about her in one of the many free local magazines, but, in spirit of keeping clatter to minimum, I threw it into a recycling container and, of course, immediately forgot her name. I will ask next week.

Both still photo and the video taken with Lensbaby.