Sam n Daz in Fuerteventura!

2006-03-09T12:05:00.000-08:00

Day 1 Wednesday

Arrive in Fuerte in the afternoon, its raining!
Arrive at hotel Club Las Olas and settle in. Meet the neighbours, namely Ben and Etienne. Ben is off his face on smarties and hugging his kite surfing board like its a small child . Etienne is a bit more...on this planet?!

Daz and I went for a meal in a steak house, it should have been called raw meat house!

Met the rest of the group in Corkys and then went to Oink Bar, seem like a nice bunch!

Day 2 Thursday
Meet for Breakfast and check out the beach
We could see Lobos...

Lobos

Sand Dunes near Correlejo

We went to the sand dunes to fly some kites. Its really amazing, the island is made of rock but there are sand dunes. Apparently the sand all comes from Africa, its carried over by locusts.

Daz listening out for instructions

After a hard days flying it was time for a siesta (as it was to be on most days!)
We met up with the gang and went for a lovely meal in a fish restaurant. The place was busy but luckily the waiter realised who we were and actually kicked some people out of their table so we could be seated. Sadly, someone had stolen the walls so we were sheltered from the wind by some tarpaulin.

This is a photo of Ben and Etienne. Ben is smiling as he has tasted Steak for the first time in 13 years. He prefers it to Smarties now (just about). He also likes eating trifle for breakfast. After thinking that Etienne was normal, we realised he was indeed French. He calls himself Swiss though for some bizzare reason. He did however redeem himself with the first (and arguably the best "FACT OF THE DAY" dropping into conversation that North Atlantic Sea Cod produced their own antifreeze. Facinated by this fact I conducted a laborious 3 second google search and found out that this is true. Infact, the antifreeze is a blood protien which stops functioning when the cod is pulled out of the water, hence the fish will instantly freeze. Good Cod.

mmm Cocktails

ergh! Cocktails (He wasnt smiling at the end of it!)

This is me and Elena, She is a lovely Spanish Girlie who lives in Aberdeen with her very Scottish Phillippeno Man friend Hamish. A former airhostess, her claim to fame was recently meeting Chico of Pop Idol fame!!!

Day 3 Friday
We were all up for the kiting and Daz and I would have been in the water, sadly there was neigh wind so the instructors took us surfing. Sounds like a good plan? For most people, yes! But for Sammy?

PLUS

EQUALS...

STICHES!!! ARRRRH!

I was surfing and the board hit me in the head. The instructors did a great job at looking after me, then Daz spotted me covered in blood, so ran from the sea, straight past me to the bag to grab the camera. "Dont clean her up too much, I need a photo!!!" My HERO!!! Anyway a quick trip to the hospital and some plastic surgery and I was all patched up. Unfortunatly, the doctor said I couldnt go in the water again for a week, which kinda killed the kitesurfing part of the holiday for me!

As much as I wanted to drown my sorrows, slight concussion meant a drink free night! Another gorgeous meal, this time we had 4 walls and everything. Daz made a new friend...

If you look very closely in the picture above, you can see that Etienne looks like he's been taking horse tranquilisers. Dont worry, he wasnt. He drew the short nacho and had to sit next to the windsurfers. I never really understood the kitesurfers v windsurfers rivallry, but I did learn a few facts...
1)Windsurfing was big in the 80s
2)Windsurfers wear their pants on the outside of the wetsuit to look like superman (I think that was it?!)
3)I had given up caring by this point.

Too many Corenitas? (thats forgein for Corona)

After all the girls tried to ride on the resident pony outside the restaurant, it was off to our local haunt OINK! bar.

Ben seems to think we are in a film as he is counting us down for a take..."in 3.....2....."
And after his second STEAK MEDIUM of the holiday, he is feeling a bit too hetro. So he decided to let off a little steam...

The barman at OINK! was a very nice man named Jay, he was always confused that I called him Bill...

Mystery solved.

After a hundred and 5 games of pool Daz and I skulked off early due to the lack of alcohol in my blood stream. Everyone else went onto Waikiki beach bar... Anyone want to comment?!

Day 4 Saturday
My god am I only on Day 4!!! Saturday was a day off for the instructors, so we had all planned to go out for the day, see the Island, however everyone got back from Waikiki at some unearthly hour and everyone was rotting in their beds. Credit to Hamish who dragged his corpse down to reception to tell us that he wasnt coming out! I would not have bothered!!!

So Daz and I went into town to find an activity. After 4 trips up and down the highstreet and about 3 hours, we decided to go on a buggy tour of the Volcano and coast. When we got to the meeting spot, 2 guys turned up in a jeep (one spoke a bit of english!). Strapped us into the buggys and said "dont get too close" that was our tuition on driving these death traps!!! Darren was first up and started moving, however there was no steering, the guide had forgotten to unlock the streering column! After that was sorted, we were on our way...

Pimp my ride

Lunar Crater

You would be forgiven for thinking we were on the moon, apparently the first astronauts were shown pictures of the island in training for the moon landing. Put that in your fact box ET!

The landscape was amazing, lots of craters with very little vegitation. We did see some green bits and even some Goats! Goats are the national pride of Fuerte! Good cheese!

I had had a knock on the head OK!!!

View from Buggy looking out to sea

After our day out, we met up with the gang who had recovered from Waikiki and went out for... Italiano!
Ben had Steak, Medium (for a change) I had Pizza just to keep my bread intake up. Not sure what Hamish had, some kind of christmas decoration...

Octopussy

Day 5 Sunday
Back to this kiting lark then, Ben and ET had a good day kitesurfing, although saying that, Et ended up about 2 miles south down the coast, he said he was headed home (No sence of direction these frenchies)

Then it was Darren and Gavins turn to go out on the boat. I convinced everyone that I would be fine to go on the boat and not get my face wet...hmmm! The idea was to take footage of Daz in the water but in true Murphy's law fashion (what can go wrong will go wrong) my BATTERIES RAN OUT!!! ARRRRG!!!! Just as Daz got the hang of the body dragging!!!

So this is the best I can do...

James bonds twin brother

Launching the kite

Sorry Daz! He did really well with the body dragging except for the basking shark impression... Shouting yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh followed by a large intake of salt water!

Daz explaining his day out

In Rock Cafe

I think we went out for steak that night?

Day 6 Monday
In the morning I went to the doctor and she told me the wound was healing well and said I could go in the water!!! yay!!!! However Murphy had another plan! It was far too windy for anyone to go out kitesurfing so Danny took us on a tour of the island. We went on a mountain road

View from Mountain Road

Local Wildlife

Danny Seales, tourguide extrordinairre
(Ben sold his shoes for steak the night before)
Astex Church door

For lunch we went to a villiage which had this church with an astex door, it dates back to the 11th Century, but noone knows how it got there!

From there it was offroading time! We went in search of the American Star, a shipwrecked cruise liner that broke off from its tow rope in a storm in 1993.

Found it! American Star

After nearly getting blown off a nearby cliff, we went gokarting on this track in the Capital, Puerto

Go Karting!

On the way home, we saw this on a roundabout! After driving round the roundabout 5 times, we realised it was quite innocent, just a farmer milking his goat, ahhh.

Dinner was at El torro or something like that?! Amazing fish restaurant, YUM!

Day 7 Tuesday
Ok, last day, Im allowed in the water, right. There is wind, not too much, not too little... perfect?

Daz got a good run on the boat, managed to get the board on his feet and did a massive body drag back to shore which was great! Here he is after his trip

James bond 2

So, now, its time for Dot, Hamish, Elena and Sam to go out in the boat for body draggin (Or "bordi draaagin as Hamish would say!)...
Firstly, boat doesnt start, a few nervous laughs and about 7 more attempts and the boat starts... yay!!! Out to sea we go, get bashed around lots but we get there. I get in the water, launch the kite, kite crashes... 3 more times and we realised that the lines were impressively tangled with no way of sorting them out. Back to shore. Get the lines sorted and back out to sea. Boat stalls, but doesnt seem too much of a problem, until we realise that the kite lines are wound around the propella (Ive just realised why everyone was calling it prop!!! )

10 minutes of untanglation and no success, Hamish resorts to asking for a knife! No knife... Danny phones to shore to explain the situation but hears a voice in his ear " you have 5 seconds of credit..." Brillliant!!! After 10 more minutes we finally get the lines unwound and try to start the boat. Eventually it starts and we all go back to shore, totally gutted!!! So no bodydragging for us!! And there was no way we wanted to push our luck with a third attempt, time was getting on!

It was the last night, and we were all in good spirits despite the disapointment! We managed to drag Dottie and Gavin out after he had recovered from his cough, good job Dottie had her travelling pharmacy! We went out for another Italian then on a pub crawl, you guessed it OINK! and Corkys! then to Waikiki... Early on in OINK!

Dottie and Elena in Corkys

This was just before dotties pole dance! We were a bit nervous when she got on the wall! Although the boys were too concerned about their balls. They were being blown around by the wind. Annoying when both teams were rubbish at pool anyway.

Ben and his mate Gavin

Later on in the evening!

And thats the end of the holiday! We had such a great time, met some fantastic people, thanks for the laughs guys, see you all soon.
A huge thanks to everyone at Extreme Holidays who loooked after us so welll. The accomodation was lovely and they made sure we knew the best watering holes! They put on a great week and we really appreciate their efforts. So much so that within 2 days of being home, we have booked another holiday with them!!!

Ohh just one more thing...
Just keep Swimming... Just keep Swimming