The Update #44 – The Last Warm Sun Rays 

Yes, there they are again, it has been a while but it is time to give you an update of our lives over the past few weeks. We left you on the beach in Fuerteventura, but in the meantime, we are no longer there and we are sitting with our butts in the snow of Canada. But we will save exactly how we got there and what our time was like in the Netherlands for the next updates. Let us first take you, and ourselves, back to that wonderful warmth of the Canary Islands.

There was one more thing we wanted to see before we left Fuerteventura: the dunes. We decided to go here at sunset and it was the best decision. The light over the dunes was fantastic and we had a whole photoshoot. It was a bit smaller than what we expected, but that didn’t spoil the fun, as Dutch people, we are of course spoiled with our dunes.

In the evening we BBQed one last time with Rianne, Enzio, and Fleur, where Enzio showed us his master BBQ skills one more time. It was time to say goodbye, the time traveling together with Rianne and Enzio, unfortunately, came to an end. It is so nice and special that we were able to spend a lot of time together. We will miss them, but hopefully, they will visit us again on the way. Right? haha. On our last day together we took Fleur to the airport in the morning and we shared one last pancake lunch together. We had a lot of fun the four os us and we will miss waking up with the Yeti next to us. After a last big group hug, we headed for the South of Fuerteventura. Enzio and Rianne will stay on Fuerteventura for a while to discover the rest of the island. But we will start the long road to the Netherlands with Gran Canaria as the first stopover.

From Fuerteventura, no boats are going directly to mainland Spain, so we decided to make a one-day stopover in Gran Canaria. We had a super early boat so we could make the most of our time in Gran Canaria. From the boat, we immediately drove to a beautiful walking area where we parked the car and stretched our legs. We did a very nice circular walk around Roque Nublo where we walked a long way through a forest. And man, we have missed the forest, after our time on the super bare island of Fuerte, we now walked through a wonderfully fragrant forest. We walked alone for most of the walk, until we got close to the Roque Nublo. It was immediately very busy here and much busier than we had experienced on the islands. It was understandable because the viewpoint was also very beautiful. But it’s always funny to notice how many people walk only from the parking lot to the viewpoint, but don’t take the time to explore the rest of the area. While the rest of the area is also beautiful, especially when you walk through it for a while. We both enjoyed the walk and the beautiful nature and the feeling of walking through the forest again.

In the evening we found a place to sleep close to the harbor where we made the last preparations for our crossing to Huelva. This time we would only take 31 hours instead of 40 hours. We now left in the morning, so we only had to spend 1 night on the boat. After hearing the experiences of Rianne and Enzio, we decided not to book a cabin but luxurious seats. Also unlike last time, we had no catering on the boat, we had now prepared food in advance for the road. The boat trip went by very quickly and the seats were very comfortable. It were a lot more comfortable seats than you would get on a plane. Our 31 hours consisted mainly of sleeping, eating and watching some TV, and reading. We hardly left our seats, but the time flew by. Unfortunately, we had some delays, but that didn’t stop us from making a big dent in our return trip. The plan was to drive the 2300 km back to the Netherlands in 3 days. But since we had mostly slept last day and a half, we were fresh enough to drive into the night for a while. We headed for the north of Spain after a pizza that we had to wait a little longer for than we had hoped, something with an oven that still had to heat up. We finally ended at 1:30 am in a small village where we camped next to a farm for the night. The next morning we took it easy to recover from the driving but then continued our trip. We had set our sights on Limoge in France, a journey of almost a thousand kilometers. We made a shower stop on the way, because on our route and cheap, and of course a pizza stop. Pizza turned out to be the food on which we could drive well and so we didn’t have to ‘waste’ time on cooking. It was a bit stressful for a while whether we would be let into France. There was a problem with our QR code and somehow border crossings and especially speaking to customs officers is not his specialty. We hadn’t researched the corona rules of the countries we would drive through at all, also because we hadn’t had any problems on the way there. So when we were stopped by the border control, Jappie panicked a bit. Would we be admitted, should we not have done a PCR test, will they send us back, will we be fined. We didn’t have a booster shot yet and our QR code was, according to the French gentleman, ‘non-valide’. In the meantime, Lonneke tried to keep calm and just show that we had a real QR app on our phone and that we didn’t know why it didn’t work and in the meantime also tried to make me keep my mouth shut, and not have me say booster shot another 10 times In the end, the French gentleman let us through and we could continue driving. It probably helped that he couldn’t speak English and at least we pretended we couldn’t speak French at all. Finally, we ended around midnight in a small village near Limoges.

Until the next.

Love,

Jap and Lon

Spendings of the Week

Budget per day €54 and per week €378 and per month €1700

Route

Driven kilometers: 1581