Not what I expected at all...

Last week I finished a major project I've been working on for the past 5 months ... the site looks really good, but being stuck indoors working 10 hour days for that long didn't do me any favours in the health department ... add to that the fact that the summer in Ireland this year has been incredibly bad (it's ironic that global "warming" in Ireland and the UK means the exact opposite for us).

To say the least I needed a holiday .. and with sunshine.. cheapo too since I hadn't been earning money for the 5 months!

So I jump on Ryanair and check out the price of flights to Tarifa (my usual escape). 200 euro!! Ouch ... then I recall that my aunt has a place down in the Canary Islands that my folks are going to next month...

40 euro flight direct from Dublin ... "Hmmm it must be shit" I think to myself ... "Probably full of lager louts n stuff" ... then I do a little research....

I learned a few things about this little group of islands that I never really knew:

- For one it's in bloody Africa! I always thought it was just west of Gibraltar or something ... turns out it's actually parallel with the Sahara desert (yet still in Europe!) ... I didn't even know there was a country called Western Sahara

- The weather year round is always good. Plus it's really cheap to eat and sleep there.

- It's full of volcanoes and you can scuba-dive or surf, etc .. you can even take trips across to Saharan Africa if you like.


My interest is piqued....

Then I dig a little deeper and find out that the larger louts only really go to Tenerife, and that Feurteventura (where the Ryanair flight goes) has a laid'back surf village in the north of the island (Corralejo) ... huge waves ... strong wind for kitesurfing...30 C year round weather ... super cheap and great food ... and laid back clientelle.

Holy crap.. I didn't know we had our own personal Hawaii in Europe!


Well here I am ... 3 days later, I've already got a pretty good colour and all I can say is: sod Tarifa, Feurteventura is going to be my regular haunt from now on!

The first thing you notice about Feurteventura is that it looks exactly like Israel or Jordan. Very little vegetation due to the volcanic rock. Essentially desert. But the skyline is dominated by hundreds of exctinct volcanoes which look like mini-Ayre's rocks and definately are quite beautiful to see.

I'm staying in a "surf" hostel, about 7 others there now... mixture of Germans, Dutch, English.. I got my own room which is only costing 22 euro per night (full breakfast included).

I've been mainly chilling on the lovely white-sand beach for the past two days.. and stuffing myself silly on fresh fish and Tropical beer (Canary Island's finest brew) for next to nothing.

I brought my kite along with me, so I've been doing some body-dragging in the water and kite-jumping in the large dunes.

The main beach is fairly crowded as can be expected.. but it's easy to find empty spots at the end and the beach quality is really good. A lot of care has gone into this place. The tourists seem to be treating it well too and they don't leave empty cans around the place etc.


The infrastructure here is very well setup for tourists. 100s upon 100s of restaurants all serving authentic food (i.e. the Moroccon restaurant is run by Moroccans, the Italian by Italians, Mexican by Mexicans etc) and a bus network that can bring you to the beach and back for 1.15 euro.

Talking of euros.. that's another thing that amazes me about this (and why I love being in the EU). Despite it's location, this is literally the Spain and so one could move here and work here without needing to get any special visas.

I just can't believe I never knew that Europe had something like Thailand on it's backporch.


Anyway... back to the beach ... I'm going on a surf lesson tomorrow so can't wait for that