Winter Sun - El Cotillo, Fuerteventura

This is ruggedly beautiful Fuerteventura where we spent last week, the island we'd last visited almost thirty years ago.  

Back in the pre-internet years, travelling abroad was a world away from browsing the Ryanair website over your morning mug of tea and clicking the Book Now button. In August 1997 after already booking time off work and keen for some sun, we popped into the Holiday Hypermarket, Walsall's late night travel superstore, to see if there were any last minute bargains leaving within the next couple of days. With no online travel forums, trip research pre-Y2K consisted of chatting to people in the pub or borrowing an outdated guidebook from the library so most of us relied on the travel agent understanding our needs. When a fortnight on Fuerteventura with the cheapskate option of Allocation on Arrival (AOA) was suggested we handed over our cash and pocketed our tickets. In all the excitement of finding a cheap last minute deal, we left the store thinking we were off to the Balearic island of Formentera, it wasn't until we studied the atlas that we realised we were going to the Canaries!

Whilst we loved Fuerteventura on that first visit & had vowed to return one day, it would be the last time we'd ever book an Allocation on Arrival holiday. In the past we'd always been lucky but on this occasion we ended up stranded in the middle of nowhere, in a god-forsaken place called Nouvelle Horizontale. To reach civilisation, the bustling resort of Caleta de Fuste, we had to walk 4km along the edge of a cliff (okay in the day, terrifying post-midnight), the beach, the bars, the restaurants and even the nearest bus stop were there. We'd do two return trips a day so by the time that fortnight was over we'd walked over 140 miles (and that was pre-hip replacement.)

Fast forward 27 years and a last minute trip is a whole lot easier. After booking a Ryanair flight from the comfort of our kitchen table, we read online reviews & blog posts, watched YouTube videos, joined several Facebook fan pages and scrolled through years of trip reports on TripAdvisor to find the right place for us to stay. 

We settled on El Cotillo in North Fuerteventura. A laid-back traditional Spanish fishing village with some of the most beautiful beaches on the island, popular with surfers with a low-key Bohemian artsy vibe. 

As direct buses from the airport to El Cotillo are infrequent and taxis eye-wateringly expensive, we decided to hire a car for a week. After disembarking our 4 hour flight from Birmingham Airport, we headed to Goldcar in airport arrivals and picked up Lexi, our pewter Citroen C4. After a few wrong turns we eventually pulled up outside Tao, our self-catering apartment, an hour and a half later.  

El Cotillo was exactly we'd hoped it would be, traditional and authentically Spanish, with quirky street art and interesting architecture. 

The proximity of El Cotillo to Lanzarote meant that Puerto del Toston, the village's old harbour, was an important trading port with the other Canary Islands and to Europe, especially Madeira. The harbour was one of three ports of Fuerteventura allowed to export goods, including livestock, cereals and orchil, a purple dye extracted from lichen growing in the Canaries. In the first half of the nineteenth century several lime kilns were built around the port to produce quicklime for export.

Many of the blogs we read had mentioned El Cotillo's similarity to Greece with its whitewashed walls and blue woodwork. 

Not being fans of pristine purpose-built soulless resorts, El Cotillo had that slightly faded around the edges feel we love. 

The beaches were astonishingly lovely; wild, windswept and not a sunbed in sight. Sadly, although I'm not bothered about the cold water, the waves put me off swimming in the sea - Fuerteventura isn't known as the windy island for nothing! 

Part of a trail of marine species dotted around the island, this is the real skeleton of a Cuvier's beaked whale (Ziphius cavirostris) was found beached in El Cotillo in July 2004.

El Cotillo has four beaches, each one completely different. El Concho, with its white talcum powder sand and turquoise water wouldn't have been out of place in the Caribbean.

Don't come to El Cotillo expecting lively nightlife, by 10pm we were often the last to leave the restaurant, walking home along deserted streets, drinking rum and cola on the balcony as quietly as we could, the only guests at Tao still awake.

We didn't discover rock bar, Coyote, run by Swiss musician Axel until our penultimate night. If you love rock, you'll like this place as much as we did.

Another favourite was La Morocha, an Argentinian rock bar (can you see a theme developing?)

A great spot for a pre-dinner Dorada or Tropical (the local Canarian beers) or a post-beach glass of Sangria, a drink we'd both not tasted since the 1980s and so good that I'm not sure why we left it so long to try again!

The deserted streets of El Cotillo!

El Cotillo has a reputation for live music and around sunset you'll doubtlessly stumble across a few acoustic sets in the bars dotted around the harbour. 

And on Fridays, in the main square between 5.30 and 9pm, you'll find a buzzing artisan market.

All the restaurants in the village offered great quality, authentic and freshly cooked Canarian cuisine with plenty of options for vegetarians. No Chinese buffets, no Indian curries, no burger bars or, our pet hate - laminated menus with photos of the food. Papas Arrugadas - wrinkled potatoes cooked in salt water - featured heavily in our diet as did Fuerteventura's world-famous Majorera cheese (more of that in my next post!)

The weather in Fuerteventura was mixed, to say the least - we experienced everything from high winds and sharp showers to grey clouds and glorious sunshine. Whilst the temperatures often reached the giddy heights of 27°C by early afternoon, by night they'd plummet to 15°C (but felt much colder with the wind) but despite our minimal packing, we were ready for anything and - thankfully - most bars had heaters and offered cosy blankets so we could eat & drink al fresco.

 Stay tuned for our next instalment!