Ireland day 1241. Thursday 20 February 2025- Fuerteventura Day 10

Today’s summary	Collected early again by our taxi and set off walking from Risco del Paso soon after 9am. An easy walk along the coast to Morro Jable. The official GR131 goes up and down the cliffs and into the barrancos but after doing this four or five times we gave up and just walked along the beach. Very enjoyable. Brilliant sun then an afternoon to relax at the hotel once we arrived soon after 2pm. Dinner in the hotel
Today’s weather	Dry and sunny all day. Light north easterly wind. Appx 21c

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 9 Risco del Paso to Morro Jable

Commentary

Having crossed the Pared yesterday, we are now into the Jandia peninsula and soon there won’t be any more of Fuerteventura left to walk. There was still a reasonable amount of ground to be covered today, though, but our 9am drop-off in Risco del Paso by our taxi from the hotel meant we had plenty of time to cover the 10 or 11 km to Morro Jable and still arrive in time to enjoy a relaxing afternoon in our hotel.

The “official” GR131 route strictly follows the clifftops, which tower about 30m above the broad stretch of sand which decorates the coast pretty much all the way from Costa Calma to Morro Jable. We set out full of enthusiasm but after about four or five ups and downs on the official route, we got a bit fed up with tracing out what appeared to be an altitude sine wave like you would see on an oscilloscope in a school physics lesson, and cut our losses by simply walking along the beach.

Both the beach and the clifftop routes had features to commend them. From the cliffs, there were excellent views both up and down this magnificent coastline. Plus there were the slightly creepy derelict remains of unfinished hotels and apartment complexes, decaying in the sun, to be inspected. But the beach option allowed an occasional dipping of toes in the blue sea or even – in my case – an early morning swim before anyone else appeared to spoil the solitude.

Eventually, after a couple of hours of gentle ambling, we reached a beachside bar where we treated ourselves to a couple of refrescos and a coffee. Thus re-energised, we finished off the rest of our beachside stroll quickly, successfully making use of a low tide to enable us to walk round all the headlands which might otherwise have impeded our progress had the waves been lapping higher (there are inland high tide diversions round the headlands but they aren’t so interesting and they add distance).

Finally, at about 2pm, we checked into our hotel. After doing our washing (at last we will have a chance to get it dry), we got into our holiday gear and spend a couple of relaxing hours by the pool. Later, after doing some shopping in the nearby Morro Jable shopping centre (not the most scenic) we got changed and headed off for dinner at the hotel buffet. All very civilised!

Today’s photos (click to enlarge)


About to set out from Risco del Paso this morning. The sign had seen better days – years of wind and sun had cracked the wording rendering it almost illegible	The GR131 was in many places delineated clearly like this, but in other places it was a bit vague. But you couldn’t really go wrong – just keep the sea on your left hand side!

View from our room in the H10 Esmeralda this morning. It was quite a decent hotel, actually	*Midway refrescos!*

Huge cruise ship floating by on the horizon. I think at this stage in my life I’d rather have the freedom of dry land	Hmmm. I think my lens needs a bit of clean! At our hotel in Morro Jable – the Occidental Jandia Playa

Colourful decorations on Butihondo Playa. I’m sure they sail too!