STOP 5 | Canary Islands: Lanzarote, Yoga, Dune Buggy and Poke

Dedicated to Hanane and Licia, just for the deep and honest (at least, I believe so) words spent lately, which were so needed, and for nothing else; and dedicated to the wanna-be-liberated people, who try hard to change, but can (and will) commit mistakes, without getting it.

 

For the last few days of my Fuerteventura trip, I booked plenty of entertainment activities, mostly via AirBnB experiences or Viator. I tend to prefer Viator as it usually gives you the opportunity to cancel up to 24h before, which is so convenient, especially if you change plans constantly. I was able to gather all the activities for August 9^th, so I still had August 7^th afternoon/evening – after checking in – and the entire August 8^th free. I love the beach but I love to plan for it and not to spend time there because you don’t have any other plans. Also for me, not having other plans may mean thinking, overthinking, which is usually bad, or historically it has been ☺.

 

For August 8^th, I booked the ferry to Lanzarote, many people say Lanzarote is more beautiful than Fuerteventura, so I decided I wanted to visit it, even for one day only. I had explored the port the night before, just to make sure I knew where I needed to go: I didn’t wanna move the car from the parking, because it gets crowded pretty soon. During the crossing – only 30 mins – we saw a lot of flying fish: they were really nice and probably I had never seen so many all together. I tried multiple times to catch them on camera, but I don’t think I was really lucky.

 

 

In Lanzarote, I had booked a bike, as I wanted to go to Playa de Papagayo, an allegedly great beach 30 mins by bike far from the port. I had booked with so much pride the bike online the evening before and once arrived I went directly to the bike rental, where I discovered two things:

1.    I booked a normal bike – the most plain one – and the one they had broke the day before; but they could have given to me for the same price an electric bike. Deal!

2.    It’s Sunday, and many Mediterranean people do not work on weekends or they work less: in this case they would close the shop at 1pm and there wouldn’t be any ways for me to return the bike before catching my ferry back to Fuerte.

 

So, #takelifeasitcomes, I accepted the refund (which should have been performed by the boss, not the clerk, so I was promised a refund that arrived the following da), I pulled up my phone and found a new beach I could go walking. It was also pretty hot, so I really wanted to go in the water. Playa Dorada was 20 mins walking from the bike rental, it was a really nice beach, full of people wanting to relax and enjoy the sun. I spent all day there, just sunbathing, bathing, and reading my kindle.

Playa Dorada

 

On the way back, I stopped by a bar where I could get my decaf espresso and a glass of soy milk – still, with post-diet no dairies are allowed. One of the most positive things of the pandemic is that now you can pay with card basically everywhere, but let’s remark basically, as it’s not always true and the bad surprise can be around the corner (but you need to wait for the next post).

 

 

I was really tired to spend the full day on the beach, so on my way back I just stopped to get some bread at the supermarket: bread and fresh cheese is the thing I can eat easily at the moment, and despite I don’t want to eat carbs, I need to s**k it up and do it, if I don’t wanna fast. I also got the desire to have pizza: I have not had a pizza (I mean, a real pizza, not a US one, which is far behind the culinary tradition I grew up with in Italy) for so much time. So I googled pizza and selected the place with the highest rating: that pizza was amazing, as I added a bruschetta before. I felt like at “home”, and in this case “home” is Italy.

 

 

I was stuffed and ready for the day full of activities: August 9^th.

 

The day started with a yoga lesson: I had never done yoga properly, but that lesson was really nice. I found it on AirBnB and Tjasa ran everything so smooth. It was kinda chill in the morning and windy – but that’s Fuerte, basically. I discovered later that the lesson was at 8:30am because of me, as I had booked on AirBnB (that was the planned time), but Tjasa didn’t wanna ask me to do later, so probably all the ladies there (I was the only guy) hated me in the end. But overall it was a nice experience: I felt muscles I didn’t know I had.

 

 

The highlight of the day was probably the Dune Buggy experience. I have always heard of Dune Buggy in the Bud Spencer and Terence Hill’s movie: “Watch Out, We're Mad! (...altrimenti ci arrabbiamo!, 1974)”, but I have never driven one, and probably not even seen one from a close distance.

 

Given my historical relationship with cars – only the closest friends of mine may recall – at the beginning I was freaking scared about the "adrenaline" part of the tour. And when I am scared, I start feeling anxious, and when I feel anxious I start thinking, and when I start thinking, I usually overthink and when I overthink, usually they are bad thoughts. It’s a circle, a bad one. And I need to force myself not to lose optimism in life. But then I look at anything negatively: e.g. when the guy tells you that you cannot pay with credit card (“the card reader has been broken for two days”), despite the fact it was confirmed to me less than 12h ago that I could easily pay with card. The issue here is that I had to withdraw money, paying double commissions (atm one and my bank one), so I just wasted money in fees.

 

Anyhow, when such things happen, I try hard to focus of #takelifeasitcomes and not to text friends, which usually are the goal keepers of my frustrations. Given my anxiety, I kept walking back and forth in the garage till the departure, while exploring the cars. But the good thing about my anxiety is that over the last 13 months it has not transformed into anger anymore: and again, even in such case, my closest friends are the one experiencing it big time.

 

 

Driving a Dune Buggy turned out to be an AMAZING experience, I ask myself now why I didn’t do it before. I have no words to describe, hope the pics will talk about themselves.

 

Before

Throughout

After

 

We also had a professional photographer: Crazy Shutter Fuerteventura: Vanessa was amazing, she took such amazing pics I cannot chose which are the best ones:

 

 

I got a lot of comments and messages on my socials about me being like Mad Max: and honestly – shame on me – I didn’t even know what it (he?she?) was. I promise, folks, I will make it up for my ignorance.

 

Before my next adventure (AirBnB “Vivi una vida come un canario”) I dropped by the Brisamar Clinic to get my PCR Covid test for Morocco. It’s incredible how many times I need to check every week all the COVID-19 procedures in order to get in and get out of a country, but the good thing, at least till now, is that – knocking on wood – nothing was forcely changed because of the pandemic. I also was able to pay 30€ less, as I got a deal with the lady at the reception, reaching out to her via Google Maps (guys, now you can even message with businesses on Google Maps, and it has been pretty effective for me).

 

So skipping lunch, I went to the meeting point waiting for my host. And I waited. And kept waiting and I texted the guy – Italian actually – who had not responded to me on AirBnB over the past two weeks, but he was really nice when I booked and gave me lots of information. And the guy was online on whatsapp but didn’t respond. So I left. Dropped by the supermarket to buy my usual bread with goat cheese (which I discovered I don’t quite like) and went home to pick my towel and going to the beach.

 

 

I didn’t even read on the beach, I just did sunbathing, but together with kids playing with their parents and guys listening to loud music on the beach, I was able to observe the low tide as never in my life.

 

Quite impressive, uh?! And then I decided I wanted to try Poke, since it’s something I can easily eat with the Post-Diet. I was not aware of what poke was till April 19^th of this year, when my friend Ale made me discover it in Milan; before that this was poke for me. Probably I should look at fashion things more often in my life. The Poké bar was owned by Italians and this made me proud. And also the poke bowl was pretty good. And even in this case, I got the menu over Google Maps message, so I had the time to explore it while still enjoying the sun.

 

 

I was about to go home to get a rest before meeting Alice, an Italian girl who I met at yoga in the morning and who came to Fuerteventura to do yoga and windsurf, but I didn’t take into consideration two things:

1.    First off, the first day on the water for surf sports (surf, windsurf, kitesurf), under the sun, for 3-4-5 hours, is damn intense and you are destroyed and devastated after it

2.    Second, I got a message from Karen, the owner from www.starsbynight.es to confirm the meeting details to see the stars.

 

And I had completely forgot about this appointment, as I booked directly through her website, so I didn’t get the usual 3-4 emails AirBnB/Viator/GetYourGuide send you the days before. At least I was able to recover my Covid-19 test result, which was negative: ready for my next stop.