Fuerteventura, Canary Islands, Spain

We decided we needed a break from the busy cultural trips we'd been taking, so booked a trip to Fuerteventura in the Spanish Canary Islands. The flights were cheap and we needed a break from the winter weather.

Fuerteventura met that need exactly. All our other trips were about running around to finish our sightseeing in no more than a few days over an extended weekend. This trip to Fuerteventura was to R-E-L-A-X. And that we did.

The Canary Islands are off the NW coast of Africa and are sort of like the Carribean Islands of Europe. Most of the tourists we saw there were British.

The island of Fuerteventura is naturally quite desert-like—of all the other islands that make up the Canary, this one rarely gets rain and is newer to the tourism industry compared to the others.

There was not much in between the land that was developed for resorts. No real vegetation, buildings, people, etc. When we arrived at the resort, however, the white buildings and the sunshine were so bright, I had to squint, and Jay (with his blue eyes) needed to buy sunglasses. The first few days we spent switching between lying around and walking around, really just appreciating the surroundings.

Here's Jay with his sporty shades on a day trip we took to Lanzarote.

Here are a couple more pics from the Lanzarote day-trip we took. Approaching the island from the water was cool. It looked like a chik collection of wealthy properties in the set of a James Bond movie.And here is one posted to appease Jay's vanity!
We saw some funny things too, like camels on the beach. Another pastime for us in the islands was eating. We had a buffet style meal twice a day. When you put together all-you-can-eat and the Jaw-Madsons, you’ve created a monster that can’t be stopped.
We had some fun taking night-time pictures leaving the shutter open for a couple seconds. It was so nice to out walking around in the warm night air. The tropical sunsets were pretty cool too. We tried to time it to take sunset pictures each day, but the sky just wasn't cooperating so we only have one set. I think we did ok with this one.
Here we are walking to dinner in our hotel complex. It was really nice to have all-you-can-eat twice a day!
With as little hair on my head as I have, I can't believe I forgot a hat! I had to buy this FUERTEVENTURA total tourist hat while we were there. This was on the Lanzarote day-trip.This was the perfect relaxing trip where we didn't have the need to run around and see everything before we left. There was no sense that if we didn't hurry we'd miss something important.

This trip was EXACTLY what we were looking for!