In which Sid and Doris try again to behave like tourists, and learn much, much more about goats.
We are up before sunrise – not because it is particularly early, but the Canary Islands are on GMT despite being substantially further west, so the sun rises at 7:45 and sets at 18:15, which is very civilised for indolent tourists.
The plan is to take the ferry from Lanzarote to Fuerteventura, drive all the way across the island to Morro Jable port and take a second ferry to Las Palmas on Gran Canaria.
What could possibly go wrong? Sid has got an ear infection. We will spare the tender feelings of our few but enormously valued reader(s) and skip over some of the less glamorous symptoms, but to summarise: it hurts a lot (other details withheld) and Sid is not hearing things. Doris regarded him sympathetically but briefly and then confiscated the Shugmaster keys on grounds of safety.
Here is Doris with Shugi and the high-tech boarding pass going to FV.
There is time for Doris to muse as Sid sits silently on the journey south. Lanzarote is brown in the north and black in the south, the views are expansive but not really endearing. We see walkers walking up black/brown hills to look at black/brown hills and are not sure it is really worthwhile. The cyclists have great roads, many almost to themselves. Certainly they are cycling hard in the sunshine, they are not going anywhere in particular but clearly that’s not the point. Anymore than when Sid goes for a run.
Over to Fuerteventura which again is doing its best impression of the poorer bits of the UAE, with stranded assets, half-done projects, and little villages with a variety of palm trees. The dune area in the north offers some small-scale off-roading, and Sid’s eye is taken by this impressive commitment to low-pressure sand tyres.
An information board focuses on the usual quest to be -est: Fuerteventura is closest to Africa, and the longest island, and tries also to make a virtue of its lack of overall elevation meaning that it might be the flattest. You can play on surf boards with kites, sails or motors. It is sunny. People scraped a living but did not have the resources or time to create a world beyond home and church. You will not find the Prague Technical Museum.
We have slightly lost track of the reasons why museums are shut, but as today is Sunday we did rather expect this church and associated hospital to be open. The town has done a great job of making something of these four buildings
This hospital with three wings was a sensational innovation when built.
The highlight, later in the day, is certainly the Cheese Museum with its careful consideration of goat husbandry (there must be a gag in there) and the variety of Majorero goat breeds.
The importance of goats to the island was clear when the main port town was called Puerto de Cabras, until changed for the more genteel Puerto del Rosario in 1957. Boo.
The windmill museum has been shut so Sid and Doris leap up this one. It is like a windmill and perhaps we should not mourn the museum too much now we have had a free mill in with our Cheese Museum entry fee.
The museum is built as a traditional Fuerteventuran (or rather we should say Majoreran, as the Majorerans were already there when the Spanish renamed the island as Fuerteventura) house, mostly built of local basalt/limestone and with wood as the luxury item. Very appealing semi-courtyard layout for those of us who might aim one day to build a courtyard house.
One of the excellent interactive exhibits invites the visitor to find pairs of goats based on three males and three females pictured from behind. On the basis of the observed scrotum shape of the male which would you expect to be the shape of the udder of any female offspring?
Clearly a larger, undivided udder will make for better milk productivity so wrong scrotum shape is very male goat career limiting. Sid and Doris got them all right and are considering creating a card game for all the family. It is surprising more of this did not come out in The Sound of Music.
This is far from the most spectacular udder picture, but it is a local goat.
Also making an appearance below, the Bothy McWeevil’s Cactus Garden with Doris to add glamour and scale.
Bravo for the cheese museum which has been missed off the coach tour itineraries. Hurrah. We truly have had our money’s worth.
Would you like to put in an early bird order for the new card game?
No.