Our first holiday abroad in more than 2 years, thanks to Covid-19. Destination: Fuerteventura in the Canary islands.
Thursday evening after work Ann and I drove to Stansted airport. We had already checked in online and were able to drop off our luggage that evening except for a small overnight bag for each of us. We spent the night in the airport Hilton hotel (thanks to my stash of hotel loyalty points). 04.00 on Friday morning we stumbled out of bed and took the short walk into the departures building, heading straight for security. Made fairly good progress despite the airport being more busy than either of us had ever seen before. Our flight departed pretty much on time around 07.00.
4 hours later we landed at Fuerteventura airport and took the tour company coach to our hotel, arriving here around 12.30. Our room was not yet ready. We were told it should be ready by 14.00. Alas, no joy - we were told it would be 15.00. We sat waiting in the reception lounge, our patience wearing thinner by the minute. At 15.00 our room was ready. It is a really nice ground floor room with a small veranda and our own private hot tub off the veranda.
The resort is huge. The buildings are divided into 8 or 9 different sections. The 4 main accommodation blocks are each spread over 4 floors with a total of 486 rooms. There are several lounges, entertainment halls and conference rooms as well as 4 large swimming pools with hundreds of sun loungers, some under cover, others not. The resort is directly on the beach where there are several hundred more loungers with sun umbrellas. There appear to be just 2 restaurants in the complex - one main buffet restaurant used by most of the guests and the other is à la carte. There are a few bar areas as well.
We unpacked and took a walk to survey the complex and get our bearings before returning to the room to try out the hot tub. After a relaxing hour or two and a shower and change we headed to the restaurant for supper. Because we are in a "Deluxe" room (hot tub etc.) we also get to eat in a reserved area of the dining hall. We are welcome to eat any of the food laid out in the main area, but in addition, there is a smaller buffet selection in our area with a selection of more specialized dishes. We also have more waiters to look after us in this area. So far everything we have eaten has been excellent. We will certainly not be hungry and fully expect to gain a couple of kilograms if we continue at our current rate!
Last night we both slept for around 10 hours, partly because we were not woken up by our 2 boisterous puppies which are on their own holiday break with Nicola. After breakfast we took a walk along the beach boardwalk heading south. There is apparently a working salt mine about 4km away that is worth a visit. However after about 2km the boardwalk came to an end and the rest of the path was over some pretty rough, rocky terrain that neither of us felt inclined to tackle. On the return walk we spent time looking in some rock pools and examining the interesting assortment of stones and rocks along the beachfront, much of which is volcanic. There are also a few old stone structures that we later discovered were lime kilns from a few hundred years ago.
This afternoon we lay on the sun loungers beside the pool for a couple of hours, half sleeping, half people-watching. Another dip in the hot tub before showers and a marvellous dinner.
Apparently the weather for the next 2 days will bring a lot of rain, but hopefully lots of sunshine after that. I guess we will make up our agenda as we go...
Enjoy the photos.
Our private hot tub
One of the pools by night
Another pool by night
Some of the lime kilns along the beach
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