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.

Nighttime London

We lived in the UK for a very long time, but somehow up till this year I never did any night time photography in London. So I don't know if summer London is always such a delight to photograph, or was it because of the Olympics. Doesn't really matter. Buildings and structures that might look dull and grey during the day, at night transform completely.

Not that the Tower Bridge  looks dull during the day, but some of the office buildings an the pics below do.

El Cotillo

We came to El Cotillo on Saturday evening to listen to some music on the second day of the free music festival Fuerteventura en Música 2012.
To be perfectly honest, for me it was mostly a pretext to have an evening on the west side of the island and to photograph some evening scenes. Kirill, who was there on the first night, brought back some pictures of some polygonal patterns visible on the stony part of the shore in low tide, less spectacular than ones at Giant's Causeway, but present.
There is indeed a pattern, more obvious in some places, less in others, and where the surface is more eroded, lines of lighter-colored stones are visible between the polygons.

Argonaut

The day before yesterday, Kirill found a nice looking shell with what he thought was something dead and slimy inside it on the sand of our favorite beach. He picked it up and carried it to show us; while he was walking, he felt something touching his fingers, and when he looked at it, a sad blue eye popped out to look at him. He started dipping the whole thing in the water as he walked; at which point the shy dweller climbed out of the shell and made bid to escape. The animal abandoned the shell; it looked like a tiny octopus. Kirill released it into water and it swam away, changing the color as it went. It  left the shell with us. According to my limited knowledge of octopuses at that point, they don't have shells, so we decided that the animal was probably carrying someone else's shell around for protection, rather like a hermit crab.

big fish and good shopping

Today we walked to the tourist information to find out if there was anything interesting planned for the Sant Joan. There wasn't, or they didn't know about it, which is always a possibility with our tourist information. Anyway. There is a restaurant nearby, which has a fish cleaning table outside, right by the water. Today they had a bahamut being cleaned there. The table was surrounded by people taking pictures, kids staring as only kids could, and seagulls waiting for scraps.

Lajares-Corralejo

After my last walk around Calderon Hondo, when writing up the post, I noticed how close I was from the system of volcanoes that includes Bayuyo, which is, in its turn, right next to Corralejo. So I figured that a walk from Corralejo to Lajares (or vice versa) is probably reasonably easy, and this Sunday we decided to give it a go. We ended up going from Lajares to Corralejo; maybe next time we'll go another way round.

Calderon Hondo

On Saturday I went on excursion to Calderon Hondo next to Lajares with a small group of people none of whom I've seen before. Once again Facebook proves to be useful tool for a surprising variety of things.
The walk was easy and went along well paved paths. It is a section of a much longer walk that joins the two ends of the island together (Corralejo-Morro Jable). I knew about its existence; but for a potential tourist attraction it is quite surprisingly badly advertised. Up till very recently I believed that the walk runs through the dunes, and only stumbling upon the signpost at the foot of Bayuyo made me realise that it is not the case. The first leg of the path is Corralejo - Lajares; and the Calderon Hondo is just off the path. I am not sure why it is called "Calderon", and not "Caldera"; the difference that I can see between, say, caldera of Isla de Lobos and this one is that Calderon Hondo kept all the walls of the volcanic cone, and caldera of Lobos lost a section facing the sea. Here you can see just a part of the opening; one of my companions took a great picture of the whole; but I can't figure how to place a link to a photo in facebook, they've seem to have changed something again.

Bayuyo, second visit

When we first time went to Bayuyo, the old volcano nearest our village, we went with a group of other walkers, lead by a guy who knew exactly how to go. As I said before, you can hardly miss it, so the idea was to make use of his knowledge for least painful approach. This Sunday we went with kids, believing that we remembered the way. In reality, we didn't - we missed a turn somewhere and went along a different path. Surprisingly, it worked out somewhat better than the path our guide used. The problem with his route was that for a while there was no path - he probably cut a bit of distance that way, but walking across extremely rocky malpais is not my favourite experience. On Sunday, almost as soon as we realized that we missed a turn, there was a path leading in the right direction, with some cairns along it. We took it, and it lead us directly to the path that runs around the caldera.

El Barranco de Los Molinos walk

Yesterday I went for a nice longish walk organized by the center for adult education where I take spanish lessons. There was a goodish group of us going, mostly spanish-speaking students who are taking subject other than spanish (well, for sure). Unfortunately, our own classes shrank dramatically by the end of the year.

Anyway. It's a nice, mostly level and very easy walk, starting at a small hamlet of Las Parselas. From there you first go to the dam and reservoir of the barranco (ravine). From there you go to the bottom of barranco and proceed to the sea level at Los Molinos, even smaller place of about two buildings; one of them being a restaurant. Once you located the dam it's impossible to get lost.

 The barranco is supposed to catch the rain water and the reservoir to hold it; unfortunately, this winter there was no rain to speak of and the water level looks very low. Below the level of the dam, what water there is in the bottom of the ravine is the one that filters through the earth from the ditches that come from the reservoir. There was very little of this water yesterday, which was good from a walker's point of view. Probably not that great for anybody else though.

 Those horses observed with no interest whatsoever as we started on our walk, unlike the dog from the same farm. It barked and barked, but funnily, stayed beyond the symbolic line of his territory provided by the low earth barriers. The pic is somewhat overprocessed; the original taken against the light.

More pictures below; including one of a dead goat. You've been warned.

Invisible fish and the Flag Beach again

Yesterday there was quite a few of those invisible fishes around at the Flag Beach. If you are wondering why I call them invisible, look closely. What you can see very clearly is their shadows, not the fish themselves. Small semi-transparent bodies hovers just above the dark outline.

Assorted week

Here are just some assorted pics from the last week or so. First one is our nearest proper beach, which I photographed many times - the Flag Beach. This time we came there when the tide was low, but was just coming in, and the sharp rocks in the foreground were being covered with water. When the water is higher, they might be lurking just below the surface, so beware when you go swimming. Water is beautifully clean, so when you can see that there is something dark under there, proceed with care. Isla de Lobos in the background.

Isla de Lobos walk

Both me and Kirill are attending Spanish classes two times a week, arranged by a local "adult education" organization. As the end of the year approaches, they arrange a few events for the students. First of them was a trip to Lobos (small island between Fuerteventura and Lanzarote) yesterday.
We've been to Lobos before, once in my case, twice in Kirill's, but both times we didn't really explore, just went to a small shallow cove and stayed there. This time, since we were with somebody who knew where to go, we decided we'll join the walk.

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.

El entierro de la sardina (The Burial of the sardine)

I saw carnival processions before, but I never saw the El entierro de la sardina (The Burial of the sardine) up till yesterday. I looked it up and apparently other ceremonies like this - burning of an effigy, accompanied by a procession/ritual - exist in Spanish tradition in various places. The burning symbolizes cleansing, passing of old and new beginnings. In this case, it marks the end of the carnival. In "normal" circumstances, burial falls on Ash Wednesday, but, it being Fuerteventura, it's not really linked to anything, and feels like a way to end the carnival with a proper bang.

I didn't take any pictures, because it was dark and crowded, but below are some videos of the event. It all happened on the small main town beach in Corralejo.

First, we could hear the sound of samba drums and a small torch-bearing procession of people dressed in black appeared. They were carrying the large figure of sardine with them. It was placed on a podium. If you look to the right of the sardine in the second half of the video, you could see some people dressed as priests, and just about see a crucifix in someone's hand. The whole thing is meant to look like a funeral; priests and lamenting women ("adios! adioooos!"), the works.

Corralejo Carnival Parade 2012

Yesterday there was a carnival parade in Corralejo, the biggest of the several. I heard that it was going to be a big event, but didn't expect it to be on the same scale as one in Puerto del Rosario. I think it was bigger though, and more on the show side. Kirill is telling me that there were at least seven samba bands there (I didn't count myself), and when we leaving, the tail of the procession haven't started yet, so there might have been more. It lasted for two and a half hours, but we didn't stay for all of it - kids were getting tired.
We figure that the samba group above is not from Fuerteventura, although we could be mistaken. They were, deservedly, at the very beginning of the procession, had some simple, but effective dance routines, and their costumes were beautiful, too - check out these lace trousers in the facebook album.

Too much of a good thing. Or maybe not

Last Sunday and Monday worked out as pretty busy two days for me, wellness and fitness-wise.
On Sunday, there was a four hours "introduction seminar" to Chi kung and Tai Chi Chuan in Antigua sports center. I go to Chi kung lessons with Annalisa Paloschi (below) and I used to go to Daniele Scilingo's (above) lessons, and it's the same center that organized this seminar. So it was not exactly all new for me, but let me tell you, four hours is a killer. In a good way of course, but it still is. I don't know about other students, but for me personally the pain was mostly in the back of the legs and the shoulders.

Big carnival parade in Puerto del Rosario

The parade was a week ago already, but somehow there was no time to write it up before.

After extremely photogenic Achipencos I was looking forward to this parade. (Though, unlike Achipencos, carnival parade is not something specific to Fuerteventura, obviously).

I am certainly no connoisseur, but I've watched and photographed some carnivals in the UK, and so far Luton remains my firm favorite, what with all the feather-clad samba dancers and majorettes. Puerto del Rosario grand procession is somewhat short on dancers in feathers - there were three ladies dressed as the one above, but that was all, I think. It reminded me of very tame Saffron Walden take on the same event - dressed up people enjoying themselves on the floats (I saw a few floats with on-board BBQ), amateur samba bands of all ages and so on.

But it can boast an amazing level of participation - the procession was very long for such a small town, and it looked like at least half of the viewers were dressed up somehow. It was like one half of the inhabitants are in the procession and another standing along the route.

Oasis Park Fuerteventura - birds of prey and Botanic garden

A bit more about oasis park. As I said, there are three daily shows on, out of which we only saw only the sea lions, the first one. We missed birds of prey and reptiles; but of birds of prey we did catch one interesting bit, which came after the show was over.
The birds of prey are kept in a distinct bit of park , the botanic garden, which is separated by a row of eroded hills from the main territory. To get there you need to walk about 1.5 km (according to their pointers), or catch a "jungle bus" - converted van, with rows of wooden seats. It keep shuffling to and fro between the main bit and the botanical garden, turning up at both "terminals" every ten minutes or so, so there shouldn't be a problem. Definitely wasn't a problem for us - we rode three of us both ways in a vehicle meant for at least ten times as many people. The Botanic garden is on a steeper slope than the rest of the territory and mostly contains cacti and succulents (makes sense really). There is also a lake with crocodiles (search me) and the bit where they demonstrate the birds of prey, more or less on the top of the garden. When we get there, there were very few people still sitting around, and a member of staff standing in the middle, looking at the sky and holding up something raw-looking (a piece of chicken meat, as I saw later from the photos)

Oasis Park Fuerteventura

Last week we went to Oasis Park with my sister and her daughter. There are a few useful bits of knowledge that I got out of this trip.
First, most important, and something I didn't realize before - they run their own free bus service from all major resorts on the islands. The schedules are on their website. I am not sure if it ever gets so busy that you can't get on to the bus, we got on with no problems both ways. Free daily bus service means that you don't need to book the trip, you just get on the bus and pay your entrance fee at the park. "Last minute" travel company gives you a tiny discount - 1 euro per person - but takes a deposit, which ties you in a way; knowing about the bus you an just go whenever you like.

Of course, you can also go whenever you like with a car.

Entrance fee is 24 euro adults, 12 euro kids up to eleven. However, if you are canarian resident, take you residencia paper with you and you will get in for 14 euro, kids 7 - much bigger discount than with last minute travel, I wish somebody mentioned it when we were booking.

There is one drawback, or what we thought was a drawback, with buses - they bring people in the morning, and take them back in the evening, in case of Corralejo at 6pm. When we arrived and realized that, we thought, oh no, how are we going to spend seven hours here. However, it proved to be easy - the territory and variety of animals is quite large, there are cafes serving quite reasonable food, and there are a few (three at the moment, normally four) animal shows during the day, of which we saw only one. As a result, we didn't even quite finish looking around the park, and there was no time at all for checking out an enormous garden center attached to it (sob, sob, I have to come back)