‘Here we are now at your hotel in Corra-lechhhho’ the rep’s voice boomed around the coach as we arrived at the Riu Oliva Beach Hotel on the island of Fuerteventura. Very nice it was too set in the middle of the Correlego National Park, miles away from the resort town. We had fallen on our feet once again despite booking a room we got an apartment with a separate bedroom too. No kitchen though as the Riu was all-inclusive and we were just in time to catch the last servings of dinner, before crashing out for the night.
The following morning we took off down the beach. There’s an awful lot of it.
It shelves out for a long way into the Atlantic and beyond a certain point no swimming costumes are required.
Back at the hotel the pool areas were teaming with families in Deutchland/Engerland (delete as appropriate) shirts. As a rule the Deutchland shirts had snaffled all the best sun loungers at some unearthly hour, only for the hotel’s cats to enjoy shedding fleas on their nice comfy towels while the ‘Chermans’ were at breakfast or back in bed. Our own countrymen tended to sit around the bar area drinking all-inc lager from opening time, so they were nice and pissed up by the time the footy started. I’d also fondly imagined that there would be no rugrats there as the school holidays hadn’t started, but there were loads of them getting under your feet when carrying boiling hot water in the restaurants and generally grizzling all the time. Since the beach was such a pleasant refuge we didn’t hang about the hotel too much.
We were pleasantly surprised by the quality of the food and drink at the Riu, after our Riu experience in the Cape Verde Islands I was prepared for dreadful wine and staff who couldn’t mix a Bloody Mary without adding Soy sauce, but the Oliva Beach was great. The on tap wine wasn’t exactly premier cru, but it was perfectly drinkable and the spirits didn’t rip out your stomach lining. All the staff were very pleasant and helpful and the Canarian restaurant in particular was excellent, especially the pimento de Padron!
While in Fuerteventura try and go to Cofete Beach, it is wonderful!
If it’s the place I’m thinking of (it was around 20 years ago that we last visited the island) then yes it is wonderful
Looks like a wonderful beach to visit. Thanks for sharing this with us.
It’s a great place if you need to chill for a week which was exactly what Mab and I needed given how busy we have both been with work lately, but there is really not a lot else around to see. Oddly enough from Corralejo you can see the resort we stayed in on the nerighbouring island of Lanzarote earlier this year.
Ahhh lush beach 🙂