Today my hire bike was due back so I decided to keep it simple and ride up the coast to the Faro de Toston lighthouse and back.
I left just after 10am and jumped onto the coast road which has a rep for being like a washboard in places and pretty harsh going. The wind was pretty light today too and with a tailwind outbound I made good progress reaching El Majanicho in just over 20 minutes.
The road was pretty quiet. It still has deep puddles in places, from the recent storm, which don’t look like they’re going anywhere soon apart from evaporating away which will take some time. The cars and vans that have ventured this way have just made a path around them in places, sometimes over some really knarly volcanic rocks too which is fine but most of the hire cars you see here are Fiat 500’s or Panda’s!
It’s a popular coastline with surfers and you often see surf school vans of students parked up at key places. The surf was pretty big today though. Quite a swell and you could here the thunder in the distance as the waves crashed on the rocks.
The road gets worse after El Majanicho. More washboard and more rocks buried in the sand to contend with. It’s not quite the dunes but occasionally a deeper section of sand catches you out as you squirm left and right looking for grip.
After 50 minutes I eventually reached the end of the coast road and took the short tarmac road to the lighthouse for a brief stop to suck up the sea air and take in the views. No calm seas here, it’s constantly being churned with big waves and crashes creating a lot of sea spray.
After a few mins I headed back firstly picking my way through the sand and then stopping to watch some surfers taking on some really big waves which must have been upto 4 or 5 metres high at times. It’s quite impressive to watch but equally looks really dangerous too.
Riding eastwards back I was into a headwind but it wasn’t too bad today. More of a breeze than a wind so it wasn’t sucking the life out of my legs with every pedal stroke it can be capable of. It is a relatively flat and open trail and you’re quite exposed to the sun and the wind, both of which I’ve fallen foul of on previous visits
Finally, the wind turbines on the outskirts of Corralejo came into view and I knew then I was only a couple of km from home
A nice 40km and 100 mins in the bag
