Ireland day 1238. Monday 17 February 2025- Fuerteventura Day 07

Today’s summary	A wonderful day’s walk from Pajara to Cardon. Surprisingly hard with quite a lot of climbing and a rocky path. Stunning views and nobody about. Did the shopping in Pajara first and sent it on with our bags in the taxi to accommodation at Cardon. No restaurants near our accommodation so snack dinner and beers by the swimming pool!
Today’s weather	Dry sunny and warm. Clouded over for an hour or two in the afternoon but cleared later. Light north easterly wind. Appx 20c

Today’s overview location (The blue mark shows the location of our route)		Close-up location (The blue line shows where we walked) (Click button below to download GPX of today’s walk as recorded, or see interactive map at bottom with elevations corrected): GR131 day 6 Pajara to Cardon

Commentary

The section of Fuerteventura that we’re travelling through at the moment – right in the middle of the island – is a bit empty. That makes it tricky for hikers like us who need to arrange accommodation stops to punctuate our multi-day walks. The section from Pajara to Pared is generally held to be one of the most difficult – partly because it’s a long way (30-plus km) from one point to the other with not a lot inbetween – and partly because there’s a decent mountain ridge to be traversed along the way.

So we were pretty fortunate to be able to arrange accommodation roughly at the midway point – just beyond the settlement of Cardon. We’ve actually managed to find a rather deluxe self-catering villa (complete with its own swimming pool!!!) which will do the trick nicely. The disadvantage is that our villa is pretty much in the middle of nowhere, meaning there are no friendly bars or restaurants nearby to restore our calorie deficits at the end of the day. (There was, I should note, a bar in Cardon which looked quite nice as we passed through but as luck would have it, it was cerrado los Lunes (and of course today was el Lunes).

Anyway, this could be remedied with a bit of deft footwork with the taxi – we were collected from our apartment in Vega Rio de las Palmas at 9:00 promptly this morning and driven over the hill to Pajara where we started our walk. But not without first stopping off at the supermarket to buy dinner for tonight (as well as lunch for today and breakfast and lunch for tomorrow) and transferring it to the taxi who duly delivered it to Cardon along with our bags.

Then – and only then – could we start walking. I don’t know what to say about today’s walk except that it was simply sublime. Definitely one to remember. Surprisingly tough, with quite a lot of climbing, but that rare combination of perfect weather, brilliant views, a lofty elevated ridge-walk and – best of all – nobody else at all on the route the whole way to Cardon. We enjoyed every step of it – and it was definitely the best stage of our walk so far (and all the other stages have been pretty good too!).

We were actually quite sorry to step off the GR131 when we met the junction with the oath leading down to our villa a few km beyond Cardon. We were enjoying the walk so much we almost didn’t want to leave the path. But anyway we threaded our way through the desert from the GR131 down a rough track towards the road and our accommodation just beyond.

Once we had figured out the villa’s entry system, I wasted no time in getting into the pool – it was cold but “refreshing”. Val, meanwhile, took the rather safer option of enjoying una taza de te y una cerveza from the sidelines.

Anyway, it’s getting dark now – and it cools off quite quickly when the sun goes down . So it’s time to beat a retreat from the patio and to start unpacking the grocery. Then we need to try and work out how on earth we thought we were going to make a tasty and nutritious dinner with four bananas, a tin of sardines, and a packet of chocolate peanuts from the Spar shop in Pajara. Tune in tomorrow to see if we survived!

Today’s photos (click to enlarge)


Amazing macrame arbol de navidad in Pajara. Apparently (according to our taxi driver) the women of the town make one of these every 2 or 3 years – and of course each year’s creation has to be bigger than the last one.	OK this has got a bit out of sequence – but this pool was awaiting us at the end of our walk today. It wasn’t very warm – but what a wonderful way to cool off after a long-ish day in the mountains. Beers were at hand too!

On the high level ridge linking the summit of Pasos to Degollaga del Risco. It was like being on another planet. Loved every inch of it	Pioneering Val stepping out into the wilderness with Montaña de Melindraga beyond (we didn’t climb it, tempting though it looked)

There are several of these shelters along the route of the GR131 – all similar in design. This one just beyond Cardon seemed to have the benefit of en-suite facilities	Don Quixote tilting at the wind on the approach to Cardon. I think these turbines must be fairly new, as they weren’t mentioned in our guide book

On the summit of Pasos mountain – today’s high point at about 482 m / 1550 ft