Best Places to See and Photograph on Jandia Peninsula, Fuerteventura
02 February 2020, by Oana Badiu
Discover the wildest and most beautiful landscapes of Fuerteventura with these 10 best places to see and photograph on Jandia Peninsula!
Roque Del Moro - the Hidden Gem of Fuerteventura
25 January 2020, by Oana Badiu
Roque del Moro Beach and rock formation were some of the best views I have seen on Fuerteventura! I found this walk to this isolated and beautiful place to be the most interesting on the island!
While I was having a cocktail in a bar on the beach, my attention went to a big poster which looked really cool! A closer look revealed that this picture was taken on Fuerteventura, but it wasn’t saying exactly where! After googling for a while for “landscape photography Fuerteventura” and “rock formations in Fuerteventura” I have seen already quite many pages of pictures, but there were still none that looked like the place in the poster. After failing to find the place on Google Search I started checking Google Maps for weird rock formations on the island’s coast. I started with Jandia, since I have visited this awesome coast a few days prior, and I found Roque del Moro quite easily when zooming in! After checking the pictures on Google, I concluded that this was indeed the place I was looking for!
I was reading a lot of articles of what to see in Fuerteventura, but Roque Del Moro was not part of any of them. As it turned out, this was the most interesting hike I had on this island! It’s like travelling back in time, millions of years ago!
Where is Roque Del Moro
Roque Del Moro is a rock formation that is located on the northern coast of the Jandia Peninsula, on the southern side of Fuerteventura. Roque Del Moro marks the end of Cofete beach, the wildest and most impressive beach on Fuerteventura. While Cofete beach is very famous and gets lots of visitors, few of them actually know about Roque Del Moro, so you can enjoy this beautiful place free of crowds! In fact, when we visited Roque Del Moro, we saw only a lonely photographer taking pictures of the rock formation and a woman who was sunbathing and then walking on the beach.
When to Visit Roque Del Moro
I advise to go visit Roque del Moro at low tide. You can check the tide hours online and you can plan your trip accordingly. The waves here are big and Roque Del Moro is surrounded by massive cliffs, which are close to the ocean.
How to Reach Roque Del Moro
Unfortunately, Google doesn’t show any path to Roque Del Moro, so to find the place you need to check maps.me map on your phone. While driving to Cofete beach, at some point there is a sign with an arrow by the road and a small parking place next to it. I recommend tracking your car on maps.me, since we drove on that road 2 times before and we didn’t spot any sign. There is a very rough road leading to the beach, however the road is accessible only by off-road cars, like Suzuki Jimny. I actually recommend walking the 3 km from the Cofete road to Roque Del Moro, even if you have an off roader! The things you can see on this easy walk are amazing!
Path to Roque Del Moro
Fuerteventura is the oldest of the Canary Islands, forming over the course if 20 million years! Most of the island was formed 5 million years ago and ever since it has been battered by strong winds and rain, making it the island that it is today. From a geological point of view, Fuerteventura is the most interesting island from the Canary Islands! The Natural Reserve of Jandia has some of the rarest seashells' fossils in the world and you can get a huge fine if you take one of these! The path towards Roque Del Moro goes through a small canyon and while walking here you feel like you are stepping into a different world, millions of years old!
You will get to see the ocean floor from millions of years ago, with clearly defined layers of where the water used to be. The marine sediments date back to the Mesozoic era (252 to 66 million years ago).
You will also get to see some unique rock formations caused by erosion and different types of patterns on the rocks.
Have to say that usually I don't get so enthusiastic about rocks, but these are just amazing!
After you reach the beach, turn left towards Roque Del Moro and it gets even more interesting! The erosion caused by winds and water over many years have formed beautifully carved sandstone, which I didn’t even expect to find on Fuerteventura!
After all these interesting things, you finally make it close to the great rock formation of Roque Del Moro, which is surrounded by massive cliffs and waves.
The waves at Cofete Beach are big, with strong currents, so you should NOT go swimming. As you can see from the pictures above, there is some water that got trapped between the rocks at the high tide. I imagine that the place gets inaccessible during high tide, at least not without getting yourself wet. Therefore, I advise to visit Roque Del Moro during low tide, like we did.
When we were turning back, mist engulfed the whole area, making Roque Del Moro Beach looking very unusual. The tracks that we left behind were already washed out by the waves and everything looked surreal! I think I have never visited a beach where I got to see the sand and the waves without human footprints! The cliffs, the untouched sand and the mist created the perfect opportunity for some fine art photography!
I think I can't say enough how much I liked Roque Del Moro and I am so happy that I actually discovered this place thanks to my curiosity towards a poster that looked cool!
I definitely recommend a stop at Roque Del Moro when visiting Cofete Beach. It was my favourite place from all the other places I have visited on Fuerteventura!
