STOP 5 | Canary Islands: Come with me to see the stars

Dedicated to Mattia and Nicole, but more so to baby Leo, who just arrived and who watched the stars from mom’s belly a couple of months back, right in Fuerteventura, right in the same magic place.

 

When I met Karen at the meeting point, I introduced myself as the “troublemaker”, as I had asked her so many questions. With all the points of making (re)connections and #takelifeasitcomes, sometimes I forget that other people may not have time for all my curiosity questions and excitement. Karen laughed at me, she was totally cool with all my questions (not sure if this holds true for my last one: “better glasses or contact lenses?!”).

 

But before getting into Karen’s tales, obviously not everything could go always as intended. I got into the car and my phone was not connecting to AppleCar anymore, without me doing anything differently versus the other times. It was annoying driving with the phone on the dashboard, the phone that was falling on the floor of the car every five seconds, without you being able to really see directions, or even to listen to directions because – as much as I can love Google Maps – sometimes all of a sudden Google Maps audio goes off, and there is no official debugging procedure to get it back again, and you need to try everything. But I was just in time, so I couldn’t spend 30 mins trying to get AppleCar/GoogleMaps right; I tried the usual things (turn-off the car display, turn-off the on, forgetting blue-tooth device, reconnecting, using the cable, using Bluetooth): there was no way it wanted to work, right when it was also about to become dark. #takelifeasitcomes, but why just then? Anyhow, I was able to meet Karen safe and sound at 21:11, 4 mins before our appointment, and I tried to play with the car display again to make it work. Still unsuccessfully.

 

I “discovered” Karen - Stars By Night - thanks to Mattia and Nicole, whom this post is dedicated to. And Karen lived up the expectations: she is passionate about the past, about the present and probably about the future as well, she moved to Fuerteventura about 14 years ago and has been showing people the sky since then, probably. She explained to us so many things about the universe above us. She showed us so many stars, we saw so many shooting stars, and we saw Venus and also Jupiter and Saturn with the telescope: I was able to see the “rings” of Saturn. And some of the tens moons of Jupiter.

 

We saw Ursa Major, the Polar/North Star (which may change in thousands of years, not showing the North anymore). We saw the Sagittarius spiral arm of the Milky Way and the Perseus arm, which are the most important of the many spiral arms the Milky Way is made up by. The Earth in on the Orion arm, one of the minor ones. We discussed about supernovas and if we have ever seen a star dying as humans (the answer is probably not yet, but astronomers). We discussed about archaeology and the importance of the universe in this field and this resonated with my previous trip in Israel. And I learnt that we see stars that are out of the solar system, but still in the Milky way. And those stars may be even bigger than the sun. And if they are yellow/orange, it means they are in the final stage of their life – which Karen reminded us it does not last 90 years like humans, but just million or billion years. I discovered that two stars of Ursa Major point to the Polar Star and also a star from the Scorpius constellation. I don’t think I will recall all the things Karen told us, but it was literally an unforgettable experience that I want to live again with my wife, one day.

 

Karen took also apparently an amazing pic of me. And by the way, AppleCar started working again on its own once I got into the car after the event was done and I was able to drive home safely at 1AM.

 

Enjoying till the very end

In the morning of August 10^th , I booked something else. Probably I just don’t wanna stay still enjoying the moment, but I need to do something all the times, but I found this amazing AirBnB experience I wanted to give it a try: Electric Bike tour in the North Coast of Fuerteventura. This adventure was managed by an Italian guy and again it made me proud and sad at the same time: so many Italians running businesses in the North of Fuerteventura, just because Spain can offer better job environment than Italy. Italy government, just wake-up! We already lost competitiveness against many other countries we easily beated in the past.

I’ve asked Luigi – the owner – at what time we would be back, as I had to drive to the airport and AirBnB was showing 3:30pm as end-time: he said usually around 4/4:30pm. And my flight was at 6:50pm. I still had proper time, assuming everything would go as intended (traffic, fuel, car return, check-in). But obviously adding stress to the experience is what makes you not to enjoy it.

 

Anyhow I bought my 2 small whole grain bread rolls, got my coffee and soy milk and I was ready to rock. Below you can see my bike, the other bikes and a pic with all the bikes of the group – we were 11 people.

 

 

I asked only one question to Mattia, our guide: why my wheels are thinner than everyone's else (I never want to feel different ☺) and he said: “the others are more stable in the sand, but make the bikes heavier”). This is not a trivial anecdote, but let’s wait a bit. The tour was something like this below:

 

 

 

This is possible with Google Maps timeline, an amazing feature. The tour was about 5h and we would cross the volcano till reach El Cotillo beach to have lunch and then come back through the cost via a dirt raod. And it was with electric bikes, which I had never ridden before, so I was pretty excited about it. Thanks to the phone holder that Olga gave me in Philly, I was able to have my phone right at my neck all the times.

 

 

Pic taken by Mattia - the guide

 

 

Riding an electric bike is fantastic, as you can use the assistance (CHECK) when needed, and ride it as a normal bike otherwise. Our initial speed was 11km/h, as it was pretty rocky and uphill, but on the way back (everyone from the group got to know I had a flight to catch), we also touched 30km/h, easily. One of the key highlight was the crater of a volcano (inactive).

 

Probably I will buy an electric bike at some point, together with a dune buggy.

 

 

 

But there might be some obstacles: one is wind, when you are upwind you really need to rely on the assistance to help; and sand. Do you remember what I said about my wheels?! Exactly, this was the result ☺

 

 

Nothing really bad, I got a little bit annoyed, but Mattia gave me his bike, with flatten, big wheels: it was likely driving a Mercedes, vs driving a Smart. We got back at 4:15pm and I was pretty happy. Time to reach the airport then.