Montaña Roja

We went up Montaña Roja (Red Mountain) a few weeks ago, but somehow I failed to write it up so far. So here goes.

There is no problem with finding the mountain, as it stick out above the dunes of Corralejo in a very obvious way. When doing some preliminary research, I even found a report by a keen runner who went, well, running up to it and then up the slope to the top. Still, I felt that I don’t want to just go in a straight line, as it were, and maybe it would be the best to go with somebody who not only knows where to go (that bit is pretty clear), but also how. Turns out I probably could have gone by myself without too much difficulty, but you never know until you try.

Majanicho

We were going to get to Majanicho, a small fishing village not very far from Corralejo, for a goodish while already. In fact, me and kids made a few false starts, never getting there, up till today. There is a "cycling route", accordng to Cabildo, which is not really. That is, you can bike there, but it's not a dedicated cycling path, just a dirt road which cars and cyclists share. Share rather unhappily in the case of cyclists, as the passing cars almost always create a cloud of fine red dust. Works as a very cheap self-tanning option though.
Majanicho itself is a tiny place, and to me it looks like the houses there are not meant to be permanent dwellings - rather somewhere to be when you go fishing. There were very few people around the village, although quite a few parked cars, I assume the drivers went down to the ocean to fish. Overall, the place has a rather surrealistic feel to it, like "The Zone" from "Stalker" movie.

Las Palmas

This weekend we went to Gran Canaria for the first time. If you consider that we've been living on one of the Fortunate Islands for over a year, it is a bit odd that so far we've only been to Fuerteventura and Lanzarote (ok, ok, and Isla de Lobos, if you start counting smaller ones too).  But time came to check the rest out and off we went on Fred.Olsen ferry from Morro Jable.

Ferry itself theoretically takes one hour forty minutes, but in reality it took about two hours in both directions. Both ways we also swayed quite alarmingly from side to side, maybe the "normal" timing really happens when the ocean is a bit calmer.

Important note: if you plan your journey yourself and are a foot passenger, i.e. one without a car, don't be fooled by apparent proximity between the arrival point of this ferry and town, as I was. I looked at googlemaps, checked the distance using my fingers and figured it's about one kilometer. When we arrived though it became clear that the arrival point is not where the googlemaps think it is. It's a lot deeper into the "container area" of the port, and you have to walk along Avda. de Las Petrolíferas, which is indeed lined with those huge cylinders full of something oily and therefore doesn't exactly smell of roses.