Walking to Moro Jable, Fuerteventura, Canary Islands

Set off this morning with the best of intentions to reach what we thought might be the quaint little fishing village of Moro Jable.  First of all we were told of local buses which ran on a semi-regular basis but couldn't find the actual bus stop near our hotel.  Our resort by the way is called Hotel Ambar Beach, it's quite luxurious by our somewhat modest standards.  The lobby is especially glorious.  All steel, glass and wood facing the ocean. It's a fairly large structure, modern in its design and concept and easily the nicest thing about this resort.  More on that later.

Not having found the bus stop we decided to start walking on the highway.  I had read that hitchhiking was OK on the islands, we thought or rather I thought I might try it, winning smile and all.  Unfortunately traffic was rather sparse.  Most cars were already heavily occupied and the rest were taxis.  We trudged on, it got warmer, had to peel off a few layers.  Read that the temperature actually climbed to 23 degrees today and there was less wind which made it feel even hotter.  We thought that the walk would be about 25 minutes but it took a lot longer.  We hit a bit of a snag and had to take what we felt might be a shortcut to the beach but it turned out to be a rather long detour.  Along the way I made some casual observations.  This island is the oldest of the chain of 7 islands.  It came into



existence as a volcano spewed forth over the years by the ocean.  Its birth must have been quite violent because the island bares traces of a difficult childhood.  It's easy to imagine rivulets of lava spreading across its surface creating gorges and crevasses.  The vegetation is basically small brush, a few spindly trees here and there and strangely spots of moss where water must still seep to the surface. There is not much animal life to speak of.  A few birds, pigeons and sea gulls with little mammal which resemble tiny squirrels, that's about it.  I'm certain there are reptiles around but we didn't see any, they're too wise they hide and stay out of the sun during the day.  I would have described the island as semi-arid but must change my initial definition to arid.  This is not a land which knows a lot of water.  It reminds me of a very ancient relative who has given a lot in its prime but has now reached its zenith and is in steep decline.  Without water no new life can spring forward.  The island may not survive the coming century.  The only answer lies in desalination which is a costly process and not always entirely successful.  There are a few plants here, there's no avoiding the building of more in the future.  Although tourism is the bread basket of the islands it brings forth its share of problems.  They are continuing to build resorts which require a lot of water to function, not to mention the golf courses


which must be a feature of any self-respecting resort.  There's no golf course where we are but we saw


\a huge, green (of course) one on our drive to the hotel, there are surely many more.  Fortunately they haven't built the ghastly tall hotels which have wrecked the skyline of the Costa Brava in Spain.  Here the structures are short in stature, no more than 4 or 5 in height and built on inclines in order to follow the natural slope of the land.



We haven't been able to swim in the ocean yet but I'm not giving up, we're here for a while yet and I do believe there is a tranquil beach with lazy little waves just waiting for us.  If it's there we will find it.
We walked for about 6 kms. without reaching the town itself.  What we did reach was an outdoor shopping center of sorts which could have been a direct replica of anywhere's ville.  I swear there must be a uniformity of crap by-law somewhere which apparently is universally respected and accepted by all.  We've seen stuff like that everywhere we've traveled, it's depressing but it's the price of globalization, everything's been flattened out to look the same.

We were too tired to walk any further and settled in to wait for a bus.  The people around us were all German speaking.  Apparently there are a lot of hotels here which cater to an exclusively German clientele.  They do enjoy swimming and sunbathing in the nude.  We spotted them on our walk to the beach yesterday.  Too bad most of them are old other wise it might have been OK for some innocent ogling. While waiting there I heard a couple speaking French.  As luck would have it they were going to Ambar Beach so we ended up sharing a cab much better than waiting forever for the bus and certainly better than walking back.

Regarding the hotel itself for once the pictures promoting it didn't lie.  It's exactly the way it was pictured in the brochure which is great.  The pools outside are indeed large and beautiful,with lots of lounge chairs around and the view is gorgeous.  The indoor pool is far from warm it's not even tepid basically it's quite cool and the sauna and steam room are never open or they're opened but they're not on.  It's the same everywhere though mostly people don't swim.  They're content to either walk the beach or lounge around either dozing or reading.  It's the equivalent of Western nirvana if you come from somewhere less than tropical.

This is our first time traveling with French people and as a group they're not the friendliest bunch.  They mostly stick to themselves, don't indulge in getting to know you better conversations.  They are not curious as to where you're from, how long you're staying and certainly not what you do in life.  If this had been a bunch of Canadians the first thing they would ask is "where are you from?" and the predictable rest would follow.  They can't help it they need to situate themselves, Canada is a huge country, I do believe Americans are equally friendly.  Europeans live with many borders thus they are much more aloof.  It suits us fine my partner not being a big talker himself.

The food is plentiful and quite varied although it's a little industrial in taste.  This can't be helped when you're servicing that big a clientele.  There must be around 500+ people here.  I was surprised at the French being so keen on the deserts which aren't that tasty if truth must be told.  On the other hand the lack of cheese might explain their interest in cakes and ice cream.  There's lots of jello too which is weird,didn't think the French would like jello but one can never generalize. People are far too complicated for that.

Not sure what we have planned for the coming days.  I will update if anything interesting does turn up. Whoever is reading this hope you're enjoying my casual ramblings, adios for now.