Caleta De Fuste in 1987 – 37 years ago!

I went through some old VHS home videos and found footage of a holiday in Caleta De Fuste in 1987. I recently got my old VHS to DVD player working, so I downloaded the video and put it up on YouTube to show some Caleta de Fuste history.

Caleta de Fuste was just in the early stages of development back then. It is very different from the Caleta of today.

My ex-wife, my son (who was 3), and I went there for a two-week holiday, and it was our first-ever visit to Fuerteventura. We stayed in one of only two bungalow complexes that existed at the time. It is now called Cay Beach Villas but may have been called something different then, I can’t remember.

There was only one hotel in Caleta then, now the Barcelo by the harbour. Next to that was the Castillo tower and a swimming pool.

Then, there was a little square with two restaurants and a few small shops. That was it! Every night, we walked across the beach to the square and asked the same question – “Are we going to eat there or there tonight?”

I have to say that it wasn’t a great holiday because there was so little to do in the evenings. If it hadn’t been for the fact that I had hired a little Suzuki 4×4, I don’t think I would ever have come back to Fuerteventura.

As we had hired a car, we explored the island. Fortunately, we found the dunes beaches of Corralejo, so we went there several times. We also went south and found the lovely Sotavento beach.

I am an avid Formula One fan, and the Spanish GP was on while we were there.

Believe it or not, the only TV I could find in Caleta de Fuste in 1987 was in the hotel. The day before, I had spoken to the manager to ask if I could watch it on their TV, which he agreed to.

About 30 minutes before the start, I went to the hotel to find that the manager had gone off fishing for the afternoon and had the key to the TV cabinet with him!

I jumped in the car and finally found a small bar near the port in Puerto del Rosario showing the race.

Fuerteventura airport was just a single-story building in 1987, too. I remember when we arrived, the luggage carousels weren’t finished. They brought the luggage around the front of the terminal on the little luggage “train,” and we took it from there.

If you have been to Caleta in recent times, you may find this video interesting:

Watch the Caleta de Fuste in 1987 video on Youtube