Dear,

I’m writing from Fuerteventura.

When we came out to visit our friend, Szamos in the Canary Islands and showed us our favorite places, we thought we should do a bigger bikepacking tour. January here is like the beginning of summer at home, so you barely need any equipment. We didn’t even take a tent. It wasn’t hard to guess the route either, because the Granguanche is a great gravel tour and a really great way to get to know the islands. And Szamos already knows almost every good place by heart!

We roamed the islands of La Graciosa, Lanzarote and Fuerteventura for about 500 kilometers in ten days. The sight completely impressed us! The tour was a huge experience, although it was often not easy to ride in the strong winds.

We could have covered a longer distance in all that time, but we wanted to feel good. Now the performance did not matter. It was a long time ago when the last three of us cycled like this. During the tour, there was no question of whether to roll down a tempting path or stop for a cafe con Leche condesada or a beer. Or just for the sake of it.

Most of the meals were served in small shops or small pubs where locals go and not tourists. We sat down on the bench by the roadside and ate there. Often the cats also came there to groom. And every bite tasted like having lunch at some elite restaurant.

At the end of the day, when we were looking for a place to sleep, one thing mattered: being windproof. We slept on the ocean shore, in the ferry, in the desert, listening to the rippling of a creek, in the ruins of a hotel that had beautiful days and at the foot of wind turbines. There was a time we woke up, mice were covering up the rest of our food, and there was a flock of goats.

It was a crazy good party, but here we stop, we’re not going any further from Fuerteventura. We’re ganging up a little more and heading home.

With love,

PS – I’ll send some photos too