New experiences in Strong Wind

It's an early start for us. Out of the house by seven in the morning for the long drive to a parking lot close by Glasgow airport we then leap on a bus for the short ride to the terminal. We each carry a rucksack which has been carefully stuffed with the appropriate clothes we'll need for a week's stay on the island of Fuerteventura (Strong Wind), which is located about sixty miles off the coast of Africa. The temperature in Scotland as we leave is eight degrees. When we land we expect twenty one degrees. This is hard to imagine, which made packing something of a challenge for us. We dug out shorts and tee shirts, sunglasses and hats and these things were crammed into the bottom of our bags. Would we need more than this? Might we go for walk up into the mountains where the air is cooler? The choice of clothes for the journey itself was also quite difficult - nothing too heavy but it must keep us warm enough until we are safely on the plane. Scarves and gloves can be left behind in the car park for when we return.

Once on the plane we started to relax a bit and then four hours after takeoff we are landing on the island and are met at the airport by Peter and Liz, a couple who made this place their home many years ago. Peter is Kate's brother and we made a late decision to visit them but given that their tiny apartment cannot accommodate us we had to find somewhere else to stay, a short walk away, we hope. Not knowing the place at all it is difficult to know the distance from one place to another but it turns out ok.

First impressions...

This is a very dry climate compared to our West of Scotland home. The vegetation, what there is of it, fascinates us - small and spiky comes to mind - but as ever we are keen to explore and after a first visit to the beach the second morning sees us walking uphill to checkout the bare mountain top visible from behind our apartment. We soon discover that this is not like a walk in the country at home. Here the dry air sucks the moisture from our bodies without us realising it although there is a fresh wind which keeps us from overheating. But we walk alone. This place is full of tourists yet nobody else seems to feel the urge to explore on foot like we do, which we find strange.

To say that Fuerteventura is a popular holiday destination is something of an understatement. Tourism, mostly people from Europe, is the island's main source of income. Where we are staying, Caleta de Fuste, is a tightly packed sprawl of apartments, all clearly built at the same time to a single design concept and managed by just a few holiday companies.

Then starting beyond the town's boundaries in every direction is a dry, arid landscape where it is a struggle to see anything growing. The crumbly volcanic rocks are scattered about everywhere as far as the eye can see with not a tree nor even a shrub in sight. On closer inspection, however, during our first hill walk, we did notice clumps of dried bushes in the landscape which we can imagine could come into leaf in the rare event of rain falling upon them.

And then there were these round things planted along the roadside, sort of living traffic bollards and certainly something to discourage pedestrians from crossing the road. These things might seem suitable for the climate here but nevertheless they are fed by their own piped water supply which seems to get switched on at night. The arid landscape beyond the holiday apartments we would describe as 'desert'.

Despite all this though we did make it to the high point as we intended and by doing this we claimed for ourselves the view across the island to the Atlantic Ocean beyond. Somewhere beyond that horizon lies Mexico, an interesting thought.

Just two days in and a daily visit to our complex's swimming pool is already a ritual. The water is quite cool, some would say cold, but the heat from the sun as we emerge from the water makes it survivable, just. Then came the big surprise, rain, barely enough to wet the ground but sufficient to render the tiled walkways around our apartment lethally slippy. With an annual rainfall of barely 100mm this was a rare experience and we were even treated to a small rainbow before the clouds blew away.

Without a clear plan our days began to slip by with little excitement. I am sure most of our fellow tourists (up to four thousand an hour coming into and out of the airport with a plane every ten minutes flying directly over our apartment on the way in to land, starting at seven in the morning and finishing at ten in the evening) would be going on island tours of one sort or another or else slopping on the sunscreen and grabbing a recliner on one of the beaches. But this is not our thing.

We like to observe from a distance and speculate upon the cries of pain those around us are inflicting upon themselves by over exposure to such a powerful sun. There are some three thousand hours of sunshine here each year.

The short flight has taken us to a different world, far away from our home life, and it is the big differences that fascinate us the most. Perhaps the biggest surprise, however, was something we only discovered when we went for our first meal at the communal eating place - restaurant/canteen - provided for our apartment complex. We had signed up and paid for an 'inclusive' holiday, not realising what this word meant until we walked inside and it dawned on us that we were getting three meals a day there at no extra cost. The vast choice of food on display in the self service facility completely blew us away. It immediately took away the need to go anywhere where we would have to pay for our food. Ok it was noisy sitting down with so many enthusiastic eaters and their families but then you can't have everything can you.

Just a couple of days left now so we decided to take a bus ride. With no particular aim in mind we chose Rosario, a town just along the coast from where we are staying and on leaving the bus we immediately felt the culture shock again.

This was a smallish but bustling city and also a commercial port with a colossal cruise ship dominating the horizon. Another world shouted at us from the rows of cabins as we imagined the impact the arrival was having upon Rosario, possibly the whole island. Thousands of fresh faced tourists (German in this case), each one spending money from the moment they disembark but having little or no connection with the resident population. Then suddenly after a set period of time the enormous ship carries them away again and the tourist funded world shrinks to nothing. Why should this feel strange to us when cruise ships go all over the world all the time? We don't have a clear answer to this other than to say that seeing one close up made us think harder about the way of life that goes with it and how little it appeals to us.

One thing we could not help but notice about the tourists near where we were staying was that they exposed far more skin than we were accustomed to seeing and much of this was covered in tattoos of one sort or another. Human bodies come in all shapes and sizes but so many of those staying locally had body shapes that seemed to defy the limits of practicality and even survivability.

Then another experience we stumbled into was when we visited a nearby street market, this one apparently being run by Africans selling largely branded goods that would have breached copyright laws in most countries. The table full of Rolex watches might have been worth thousands had they actually been genuine.

Soon enough the holiday came to an end and we were back on the plane wondering how we were going to cope with the transition from a sweaty twenty three degrees to the minus two we'd be facing when we escaped from the airport terminal in Glasgow. Well wrapped up against the cold we eventually set off on the late night drive home and soon realised we had missed seeing trees around us more than we realised and we couldn't wait to get out amongst them again.