A lesson in the art of campervanning

The sky is turning the shade of octopus ink by the time Vicente finishes running us through the idiosyncrasies of his army-green VW campervan. It is a T3 model - in other words old - and it will be our home for the next four days. Before we venture out into the Puerto del Rosario night, Vicente directs our gaze to the wall where a large white map of the island is pinned, strips of purple post-it notes stuck on various points to indicate desirable parking spots. I take three pictures of the map on my phone and we climb into the van. Jorge is driving; I am too nervous to go first and besides, he is more accustomed to driving on the right-hand side of the road. 

It is a bumpy first ride (the darkness doesn't help) and we’re too flustered to venture far. We’re also hungry, the energy from our airport sandwiches dwindling. We park up on an empty road and venture into the city to find food. We’re not fussed about fine dining - the thought of securing a suitable place to park for the night preoccupies our minds - and we quickly settle on a somewhat dingy beachside restaurant. Soon our table is creaking under the weight of all the food we have over-ordered - fried cheese with honey (something we will eat a lot of this trip), big pink prawns with oil and garlic, and bread rolls with a pungent pot of aioli. 

Once the waiter has cleared away our empty plates, we spread out a folded-up map of the island on the table and look for somewhere nearby to spend the night, eventually opting for Playa Blanca, a beach that I have read about in a campervan blog. It turns out to be a beach-cum-building site, grungy to say the least. It is too late to drive anywhere else and as the reality that we will be spending the night here dawns on us, we wonder out loud why anyone bothers with campervanning. 

The answer to our grumpy late-night question is that campervan-goers - according to a 2018 Caravan and Motorhome Club survey - are driven mostly by the desire for freedom and a ‘passion to escape the everyday drudgery of life.’ Fair enough, and there’s no denying the popularity of these four-wheeled homes. Birthed by Dutch car dealer Ben Pon from the VW Plattenwagen in the late 1940s, the VW Campervan has become a universal symbol for free spiritedness and the open road. 

We are not quite one with the open road yet, but we shake off the fitful night’s sleep we spent parked up in Playa Blanca with a breakfast of fruit-studded toast for me and a croissant for J, and we plod on. We drive north on a beautiful stretch of straight road towards Las Dunas de Corralejo, a natural park with desert-like sand dunes running alongside the coastline of turquoise ocean. This is more like it. We park up, fumble around in the back to change into our swimsuits and head for the water, lured by the fabulously frothy waves. We swim, read, and watch people jump and dance in the dunes, taking pictures destined for Instagram. 

The road beckons again as hunger strikes. Lunch awaits in La Oliva, a small town of 20,000 inhabitants and home to Casa Mané, an art centre I have read about and am keen to visit. We get back in the van and key our destination into my phone. Jorge has mastered the art of driving the campervan now, oozing confidence as he slides the oversized steering wheel through his hands. He pilots us into a car park and we clamber out into the sun-soaked town. It is beautiful and eerily quiet. We wander into the cool interior of a big stone church painted a brilliant white. I later learn that this is the Iglesia de Nuestra Señora de la Candelaria, one of the largest churches on the whole island. I would like to light a candle but I don’t have change. Back on the bright streets, we stumble upon Casa Mané and find that it is temporarily closed, a disappointment that is perhaps due to the severe blow to tourism Covid-19 has dealt Fuerteventura. Our cultural plans crushed, we settle for lunch in the town square. 

This is the day we learn about the eruption of the Cumbre Vieja volcano in La Palma, 235 miles away from us. We picture angry streams of lava coursing down the mountainous landscape like veins pumping hot red blood, wondering what the fallout of this will be for the people of the island. Two months later and the volcano has consumed more than 1400 homes along with many of La Palma's valuable banana trees, continuing to shoot frightening flames into the blackened sky like a dragon from a twisted fairytale. 

The next morning - volcanic thoughts still bubbling in our minds - we visit Calderón Hondo, an ancient extinct volcano whose name translates to ‘deep cauldron.’ I have fun imagining a gigantic witch stirring soupy lava with an oversized spoon when we reach the top and peer over into the large crater, which is about 70 metres deep and 100 metres in diameter. 

At the top of Calderón Hondo

We now have a long drive ahead of us to Costa Calma, a beach in the south of the island that Vicente has informed us is like the Caribbean when it isn’t windy. We have high hopes. We stutter along the highway, our T3 resistant to any kind of speed or hills. A missed exit costs us an extra 20 minutes driving, which leaves me flustered and disappointed at my non-existent navigational skills. We eventually arrive to the sight of aquamarine ocean and middle-aged beachgoers, mostly nude. We are exhausted and gorge ourselves on goat’s cheese and tortilla at the local beach club. 

Walking along the beach after lunch, the buttery sand soft under our feet, we realise that we have only been in Fuerteventura for 48 hours. Time has become warped here, each minute impossibly stretched. We wonder - perhaps somewhat tritely - whether it’s because we are experiencing each moment to the full. Maybe we will look back at this as the moment we decided to pack it all in for a life on the road in our own VW camper. But for now, we pull out the deck chairs, look out at the Atlantic Ocean and hunker down for the day, feeling content and further away than ever from the everyday drudgery of life. 

Parked up for the day in Costa Calma