A unbelievable April in Fuerteventura

April on Fuerteventura can be a rollercoaster of emotions.
I didn’t believe it.
But after the trips at Christmas, in February and in December, I thought I would find a calm and flat month with stable weather and no special feelings.

I chose El Cotillo for my 5th trip to Fuerteventura. My beloved El Cotillo.
Yes.
I’m obsessed with surfing and I want to learn, even if I understand it’s not easy.

El Cotillo

I have already told you about my “love at first sight” with El Cotillo, but this was the first time I stayed there for a few days.
What can I say?
Love at second sight is almost better than love at first sight.
The reasons for this?
El Cotillo has divine beaches.
Especially Piedra Playa, which seems to be made for surfing and where surfers of all levels flock.
But there are also many people who simply stay on the beach to sunbathe or enjoy it.

Then there are the three more “urban” beaches: Los Lagos, El Marfolin and La Concha, which are lined up next to each other in all their beauty.

And then there are the many restaurants, the white houses, the views of the ocean and, above all, the people who visit this quiet and relaxed place in the middle of the Atlantic.

Me and surfing in April

Piedra Playa is an incredible beach and April in Fuerteventura surprised me with it too.
To be honest, I had “baptized” the winter months as the best months for surfing because there are fewer tourists and the waves are bigger.
In reality, however, everything is organized and tidy in the surf schools and the other surfers do not get in your way.
There are more people, but even those who want to learn have their space to fall, stand up, let themselves be overwhelmed by the big waves of El Cotillo and, when they are tired, find a rock to sit on and admire the sea.

Not unimportantly, there is always space on the sand to put your things down and change in peace.

The weather in April in Fuerteventura

This was perhaps one of the unbelievable things.
I landed on Fuerteventura in the days when there was a heatwave, the Calima and of course good weather.
There were beautiful days, incredible conditions with fog in the early morning (see cover picture), dense Calima where you couldn’t see 50 metres and highs of 34° C.

Then the ocean with its power and very high waves in the late evening and the almost flat calm in the afternoon down at Playa de Sotavento.

Calima in April in Fuerteventura

I had to return to Fuerteventura in April to see Calima with my own eyes for the first time.
And lo and behold…
Not so!
I had heard a lot about it and seen many photos, but seeing myself in that amount of sand early in the morning was absurd.
La Calima in the Canary Islands is a phenomenon associated with the arrival of sand from the Sahara desert, carried by the winds.
In the Copernicus satellite image above, you can get an idea of what happens when the winds decide to move a lot of sand towards the nearby Canary Islands (Fuerteventura is only 100 km away).

Below is the photo I took with my smartphone and slightly corrected (sorry for the quality) from the morning in El Cotillo when the Calima passed by.

But don’t worry (I was).
A day that starts with a bit of gray doesn’t necessarily have to continue like this.
This is what the beach at Sotavento, an hour’s drive south, looked like after a few hours.
Sun, flat sea and, you can’t see it, 34° C.

The last day of the trip, in complete tranquility, between markets, sun, Calima and good food.

No photos of that.
I was thinking about eat.