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My wife and I had our second holiday without kids on the Island in November 2005, we hired a car while in Calleta de Fuste and went South to Costa Carma. We followed a road down to the beach where a large hotel was being constructed , and also where beach sports were advertised (wind surfing etc.). We stopped at the wind surfing car park then spotted the part of the beach for nudists and found a vacant stone circle.
This was our first encounter on a nudist beach and can thoroughly recommend it. We will definitely return there some time. Our holiday in Fuertaventura can only be described as fabulous.
In my opinion Fuerteventura is very much a switch-off "sun and sand" type holiday - not a touristy holiday.
We therefore did not bother with a hire car, using a taxi from the airport to Corralejo. In practice, given the length of the taxi queue at the airport, it would have been quicker to use the bus. There is a half-hourly service from the airport to Porto de Rosario which really does connect properly with the half-hourly service from Porto de Rosario to Corralejo. There is a stop on this service at the two Rui Hotels in the middle of Corralejo's long CO beach. If you do not book your taxi back to the airport days in advance you will have to use the bus.
We stayed at the El Posada (sp?) - a small bed and breakfast hotel in the centre of Corralejo featured by "Sunseekers" amongst others. Not a normal holiday hotel - more of a small local hotel used by reps, and Canarians from other islands. The taxi driver from the airport took us on three circuits of the town trying to find a route to the hotel - the Carnival and road works had resulted in the only route to the hotel being the wrong way down a one way street! As soon as the driver realised there was a problem he stopped the clock so we were not charged at all for the extra mileage.
The rooftop sunbathing terrace (not strictly CO) with a small pool was ideal for my half-hour pre-breakfast nude swim and shower. We were also able to book a double room through "Sunseekers" at this hotel - something which seems to be beyond the ability of any travel agent.
Anywhere in Correlejo is 20 minutes walk or a 0.90 euro bus ride (every half hour) to the CO beaches. We used the "Mini-train" to get to the near end of the CO beach on one day. I do not recommend it for speed as the traffic congestion results in it taking about twice as long to complete its journey as the published timetable predicts (come back Virgin Trains all is forgiven). On other occasions we either walked or took the shuttle bus to the Rui hotels.
The only portion of the beach which is not strictly CO is the bit between the two Rui hotels. The remainder of the 3km of beach has nuddies spread evenly along the whole length. Textiles tend to cluster nearer to the hotels. It is perfectly possible to walk the whole length of the beach nude, including the bit between the hotels. You do need to dress, however, for the beach cafes - I used a "paws" string from Kiniki - see http://www.kiniki.com/images/products/small/paws.jpg.
We prefer bed & breakfast in the middle of Corralejo as it allow us to enjoy the civilized night life of the town with a good choice of restaurants, etc. We found it much better than the usual self-catering apartments for our purposes. Staying in the town is also convenient for the bus services to other parts of the island - particularly El Cotillo with its splendid snorkeling coves (last bus back 19:00). Sometimes we used the excellent beach shack cafes for lunch and sometimes took sandwiches. We found the Dino supermarket did the best sandwiches.
This was our second visit to Corralejo (after a gap of three years). The town has not changed much in character under its rapid expansion (so far). The restaurants seemed to give the same quality and value that they did last time. There do seem to be more "English Pubs" with big screen soccer and roast Sunday lunch, etc. than there used to be but they are still pretty scattered and not too intrusive. There are only a few discos and Kareoke bars and these are not intrusive either (although it may be a bit different in August).
John
This was a package tour with Thomas Cook to Correlejo. The actual hotel was the Palace Tres Islas which boasts 5 star accommodation. As I was traveling by myself and the hotel has 'proper' single accommodation this actually works out cheaper than some 3 star hotels. All the single rooms are on the North side of the building with no balcony. Double rooms have a balcony and about two thirds of them are south facing. In the latter you can easily sunbathe nude just about the whole day as the balcony front is solid. The hotel itself is textile, and is about 200 yards from the shoreline!
The hotel is about 2 miles south of Correlejo itself. Apart from 2 other hotels in the same group, a mini market and restaurant there is nothing except sea and sand all around. The strip to the North, between the hotel and the town has a windsurfing area if you're feeling energetic. There were a few nude sunbathers along there but not many. However, go South and within 10 minutes you're in mixed nude and textile sunbathing, getting more nude as you go along the shoreline, and more nude than textile if you go into the dunes.
I only saw a few families nude but plenty textile-ish. There were mostly nude couples and a smattering of singles - both male and female. Interestingly I noticed a few couples where she was nude and he had trunks on, rather than the other way round. One quite amusing sight was a little girl wearing nothing but a strip of fabric across her chest which she was having a real fight with to keep in place!
The region is very heavily supported by Germans, roughly 80% I'd say. These are mostly in the 40+ age group. If you know any German you are better off using that when talking to the locals as they will understand you immediately but may struggle with English. By the way, there is no problem of reserved sun beds in the hotel. There is a clearly stated rule that unattended towels will be removed!
Fuerteventura is true to its name, and is windy most of the time. Sometimes the wind can be quite strong, and the circular rock windbreaks become essential. It seems to be the norm to leave a piece of brightly coloured clothing pinned down with a rock on the top of these to indicate occupancy.
If you like a good meander like I do, then there are 2 miles of coastline backed by dunes to the south where nobody will turn a hair until you reach a snack bar seemingly in the middle of nowhere. People were sunbathing nude to within a few yards of here, but it seemed to be an unwritten rule to put something on at the tables.
After this the quality of the beach slowly deteriorates into rock, and the road comes back to the shoreline.
In the hotel there is some evening entertainment - fairly low-key, or you can walk, get a bus or taxi into town. You will need to get a taxi back if it is late. On one afternoon I walked into town along the shoreline - took about an hour and a half. I had a look around the shops etc. and stopped in a bar for part of the evening. This was an English-run outfit. There are several, and a much higher proportion of English visitors in the town itself.
There are various tours and boat trips you can go on, but I didn't other I was there purely for the chill-out.
The total cost of my holiday was a little over 500ukp. That was for half board (excellent dinners) and included all transfers, tax, insurance and a week's parking at Gatwick.
Some nice little touches at the hotel:
Terry Blunt
Our preconception was of a sandy island and strong winds blasting sand dunes here there and everywhere. The reality was as much of a treat as the dramatically changing scenery.
The Sunseekers brochure was almost discarded as it had been for the past 3 years. Their prices at first glance seemed extortionate but we liked the idea of a hot week in the Canary Islands and Fuerteventura was renowned as naturist friendly. We were pleasantly surprised when we enquired and found that the prices were per apartment and not per person. When added to the low cost of car hire from the airport for the week and the Air 2000 flight, it was a better deal than the offers in the High Street. We had booked a Corsa but at no extra cost were allocated a bottle green Astra Estate and clocked up 750km over the week. Wed been warned not to drive off road, but they didn't say anything about dried-up riverbeds! We'd spent the morning on one of our local beaches at El Cotillo, a quiet village on the northwestern tip of the island. The beach that was 20 metres from our apartment door was, as 90% of the island beaches, clothing optional. Dotted around it were several lobster-pot style windbreaks made from the black volcanic rock by previous visitors .
The village itself, with an abandoned natural harbour and a new, bland but functional shelter for the village fishing boats divided the sandy coast. On the abandoned quayside we found The Blue Cow restaurant, which despite its scruffy exterior, provided us with three haute cuisine dinners. A life size fluorescent blue cow dominated its open roof terrace. One evening, the waves that had caused the harbour to be moved were rolling rocks the size of tenpin bowling balls up its small stony beach.
South of the village the sandy beach was huge, the far end hidden by a salty mist created by the gigantic Atlantic breakers, a perfect home to serious surfers. It was too dangerous even to paddle, but it was great to watch and listen to its deafening roar, to walk beside and play a few ends of improvised boules using a selection of the smaller rocks. We'd decided to explore a bit inland and drove off across the barren landscape between the coast and the spectacular mountains. We had a map but it didn't show the dusty trail we were following, consisting only of tyre tracks and small piles of guiding stones that Tamara identified as cairns. The stones ran out, as did the tyre tracks at the bank of a dried-up riverbed.
It seemed petty not to use the slope that took us down onto the riverbed and upstream towards the mountains. It would have been a cinch for a 4X4 but the low slung and long wheelbase of the Astra Estate had to be nursed to avoid ripping off its underside. As the riverbed got steeper and narrower I had no option but to inflict a few scratches on the dark paintwork in passing a thorny bush. There were also a couple of grating sounds as the exhaust box failed to clear the rocky bed.
We thought we were getting closer to what we hoped was a proper road when we stopped to inspect what appeared to be an impassable number of loose rocks. The rocks appeared negotiable, the camel not. A disagreeable dromedary was grazing the sparse greenery sprouting from the riverbed that by now had become a trickling stream. There was no way past him so we reversed for 500metres before doing a 15-point turn, scratching the other side of the car on the same thorny bush, only to find an escape ramp to the other side of the river 10 metres DOWNSTREAM from where we had joined it! On a bottle green car, the scratches were rather visible and we spent the next few days trying to make them duller with the help of mud, wind and dust.
Later that afternoon, we were flagged down by a German standing in the middle of the road. His English was as good as our German but despite that we understood the words Corsa and mein frau. We thought that she and their car were at the bottom of one of the steep ditches that lined the road, until she emerged, Sound of Music style, over the top of a hill frantically waving her map! Perhaps she was on a German TV Treasure Hunt as somehow they ended up as our backseat passengers, guiding us 2km up the road to where they were reunited with their parked Corsa. It seemed to have been an unusual instance of the Brits coming to the help of the Germans, although we were unsure what Helmut intended as he bade us farewell with a raised right arm salute!
The rest of the week was uneventful, other than that the 9 postcards we posted were never to reach their destinations. This was due to the stamps we bought. They had no image of King Carlos and, on reflection, should have been posted in a cardboard post box inside the supermarket where we bought them. They seem to have been part of a special courier service that was not compatible with the yellow post boxes in the street.
We visited Corralejo on 2 of the days; a National Park whose rolling sand dunes ended in the sea and were threatening to close the coastal road like a blizzard on the M62. Corralejo had many tempting restaurants but we ate at the same one twice, enjoying their freshly caught fish and view of the town beach.
We couldn't have visited the island without seeing the endless beach 2hrs away on the south coast. Jandia is superb. The sea is calm and shallow, the water crystal clear and the 20km beach is backed by a mixture of low cliffs and sand dunes. We enjoyed several nude walks along the shore, as did the other hundred naturists there. The beach is so vast that you're not sitting cheek by jowl and are amazed at the numbers when you actually count them. The scenery at Jandia is breathtaking. A backcloth of extinct volcanoes obscured only by white fluffy clouds that just hang around all day to look pretty. In the foreground, the white sand and turquoise sea entice you to use a roll of film inside an hour. The part of the beach we visited was home to a windsurfing school but there was no animosity between them and us. Indeed, it was a case of everyone should be privileged just to be here and share the beauty in whatever way they want to. No signs, no fences, no litter, no fee for parking, no queues of traffic fighting to get a space just nature and naturism at its very best.
Barry & Tamara
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