Around The World In 80 Cats #24: Fuerteventura

Kathy, a longtime reader (who still hasn't adopted me despite my pleas), has once again taken an amazing cat-themed vacation with her family, this time to Fuerteventura, one of the Canary Islands located in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Africa.

On her trip, she encountered some of the gorgeous feline natives, and also discovered a wonderful charity dedicated to helping the neglected and feral cats of the island.


TingTong, a friendly Siamese belonging to the neighbours.

She writes:

The three of us went for a do-nothing holiday to Fuerteventura (one of the Canary Islands) during our daughter's half-term. All we wanted was some sun, warmth and to swim in the sea. We rented a villa on the eastern coast of the island, near the airport. It was lovely and we had a great time, just what we needed.  


Scary, the other friendly neighbour cat.


Dracula

The neighbours were an English couple who had lived on the island for nine years. They were very helpful to us and gave us a lot of information about the island and what we could see and do there. They also had FIVE cats. All of them were cats that had been abandoned by their owners and had been very thin before they came to live with this kind couple. Our cat-mad girl was in Cat-Heaven!


Ray


Bitey

The lady was associated with The Twinkle Trust which is a local organisation that is involved with cat rehoming, neutering, feeding and their general care. Also, if a cat is white they try to arrange for them to be shipped back to England because these poor kitties could suffer from sunburn! Some towns have Cat Cafe's maintained by the Trust, but these are not like those of Japan. These are just dog-house-like structures where stray cats can come for food, water and shelter from the sun.


A cute sleepy cat who we found lounging in Betancuria.


A Siamese we found near the beach. Our girl was convinced it was TingTong but he would never have travelled that far from home.

Two of the five cats were very friendly and regularly came over to to be petted and fussed over. Three of them had Halloween-appropriate names; Scary, Dracula & Bitey. Scary and Dracula were completely black and Bitey had a white 'bib'. One was a ginger marmalade cat (Ray) and the other was a Siamese (TingTong). Scary and TingTong were the friendliest.


An unusually coloured and beautiful cat we saw on a bench near Morro Jable.


Just managed to catch a photo this one sneaking around at an outdoor restaurant.

I've included some photos of the neighbour's cats and some other cats that we saw on our travels around the beautiful island of Fuerteventura. Had I been faster with the camera there would have been several opportunities to photograph many other cats. As I said, it was heaven for cat lovers…they were everywhere!


Saw this sweet cat right on the beach.  He was friendly and allowed me to get several photos of him.

Special thanks to Kathy for sharing her vacation photos with us this week! It looks like I just have one more destination to add to my "cat travel" list!

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Know of any cat-themed travel destinations, or have any cool kitty vacation pics to share? Drop me a line at catsparella@gmail.com!