Mountains, chipmunks and shipwrecks

Here is another tale from our holiday in Fuerteventura. Last one I promise!

On New Year’s Day, feeling fragile from the shenanigans of the night before, we decided to go for a drive across the island to visit a shipwreck that we had heard about. It was on a very hard-to-reach beach half way down on the west coast. The journey sounded like it might be another ‘Pregonda’ trip we once took many years ago when Jasmine was small.................

That beach is on the island of Menorca and is said to be the prettiest and most deserted beach. This is our favourite type of beach so we set out to find it in our rented Nissan Micra. I was map-reading the funny little (spanish) map we had found. After many hours of driving around dirt tracks with BIG pot-holes and massive boulders, meeting other bewildered holidaymakers trying to find this now mythical beach our tempers were frayed. We rowed soooo much, poor Jazz cowering in the back of the car wishing her parents would just go to the crowded beach like all the other tourists. Eventually we decided that we must temporarily abandon the excursion as we were hungry and thirsty. Driving to the nearest town we found the most beautiful restaurant in the harbour of Fornells where we had a fantastic meal. During the meal we scrutinised the map further and realised that we had in fact been following a donkey track not a road after all (our spanish was never too good) so we abandoned the trip and we never did make it. Shame really as I hear it’s pretty nice.

This trip started as a journey along very nice, newly made roads. We went way up into the mountains, round hairpin bends and down again with only small boulders between us and the fresh air way below us. I felt nauseaous most of the time and wasn’t sure if it was due to the festivities of the night before or altitude sickness but I kept fairly quiet knowing I wouldn’t get much sympathy. We did make a few stops mainly because they were such good photo opportunities. One such stop was breathtaking. I got out to get some air and take some photos when I noticed a family of German tourists feeding a group of chipmunks. I got Alfie out of the car to come and look and he fetched his packet of crisps proffering them up for the little creatures. Well there were masses of them. Really tame and cute and they had no fear of us humans. The view was stunning. There was a mountain that I called 'Titty' mountain. You can clearly see why!






We finally reached the turning we should make to see the shipwreck but as it was now almost 2.30pm we were hungry and thought it best to get some food before going any further into the wilderness of a deserted beach. We went down to a beach that the guidebook said had some great seafood restaurants but when we got there they were all closed and the only place open was a rough looking spanish bar full of old Pedros having a heated discussion. Paul was keen but the rest of us outvoted him (my hangover just couldn't cope with too much noise) so we went back to the small town we had driven through some 7 kms back. Well we had forgotten it was Sunday, New Year’s Day and now nearly 3pm. We were being stupid English tourists expecting to find somewhere open but the streets were deserted, nothing was open and there was nobody around. Suddenly just as we were giving up hope I spotted, through a door into a garden, someone eating. I shrieked with excitement and made Paul turn the car round and drive past again. Yes there it was! A beautiful tapas bar in the middle of this mountain town and they were serving food. I was beside myself. The food was fantastic. The best tapas ever. So once again the 'Pregonda' curse had thrown us into a fantastic restaurant that we would never have found otherwise.





With food in our tummies we set off again for the shipwreck. It was another Pregonda-like track. Big boulders, pot holes and very dusty. We met people coming the other way and asked them if they had found the shipwreck. The first person put us off. He said it took them an hour from that point to reach it and that the road was almost impassable. The passengers had to get out of the car on several occasions. Well I was not up for this. I thought 2 hours of driving to get back to this point then all that mountainous driving! Paul was not to be put off, we had come this far, so he flagged down the next person coming towards us who told a different story. ‘Yes it’s fine, just drive straight on. It was worth it’.

So that was it. We went for it and I’m so glad we did. The sight was awesome, AWESOME DUDES!!! The ship was huge although the back part had sunk some months before in the last hurricane they had. The beach was covered in flotsam and jetsom from the ship and this was as fascinating to trawl through as the ship was to look at. More information about the ship can be seen here





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