How long is the walk to the Presa de las Peñitas?

Around two to three kilometres each way from Vega de Río Palmas, taking 30 to 45 minutes in each direction at a normal pace. Allow about two hours in total with stops at the chapel and the dam. Continuing beyond the dam towards the rock arch adds both time and difficulty.

Is the hike difficult?

The first half is easy walking on a gravel track. After that it turns rocky and uneven, and the section past the dam wall involves scrambling and a steep drop — fine for confident walkers in proper shoes, not for sandals or small children. There is no shade and no water anywhere on the route.

Is there water in the reservoir?

It depends entirely on the winter. After a wet season there is a shallow green lake behind the dam wall; after a dry one, cracked mud. Neither makes the walk less worthwhile, but do not plan the trip around a photograph of a full reservoir.

Betancuria, the island's first capital, is about ten minutes north on the FV-30, with the Santa María church and two small museums. The Mirador de Morro Velosa above it gives the best view over the northern plains, and Pájara and the west coast lie the other way.

The Presa de las Peñitas reservoir filling a narrow desert ravine, with palm trees and old stone ruins along its green shoreline

Photo: Norbert Nagel (CC BY-SA 3.0), via Wikimedia Commons

Vega de Río Palmas, Betancuria, Fuerteventura

Presa de las Peñitas

A dam wall, a palm ravine and the island's patron saint, an hour inland.

The Presa de las Peñitas is a small dam in the Barranco de las Peñitas, a steep-sided ravine below Vega de Río Palmas in Fuerteventura's western mountains. Built to catch winter run-off on an island with no rivers, its reservoir is usually low and sometimes dry — but the walk to it, through palm groves and past the Ermita de la Peña, the chapel of the island's patron saint, is one of the best short hikes on Fuerteventura.

The walk, and what it asks of you

The route starts in Vega de Río Palmas and follows the barranco south — a marked path of roughly two to three kilometres each way that most walkers cover in 30 to 45 minutes in either direction. The first stretch is easy: a gravel track between palm groves and old terraced plots, with the ravine walls closing in as you go. Then it narrows, the surface turns rocky and uneven, and by the dam you are walking on loose stone between high rock faces.

Say this plainly before setting off. There is essentially no shade on the route, no water, no café and no phone signal you can rely on down in the ravine. Do not attempt it in the middle of a summer afternoon. Go early, take at least a litre of water per person, wear proper shoes rather than sandals, and be willing to turn back — the continuation past the dam wall towards the Arco de las Peñitas involves scrambling and a steep drop beside the wall, and it is not a route for young children or anyone unsure of their footing. After heavy rain the ravine bed can hold water and the rock gets slippery.

Done sensibly, it is a genuinely beautiful two hours, and the least touristed landscape you can reach this easily from the coast.

The dam, the chapel and Betancuria beyond

The dam is a curiosity as much as a sight. Fuerteventura has no permanent rivers, and a handful of small presas like this one were built to hold whatever falls in a wet winter. Most years the water behind the wall is shallow, green and completely still; in a dry year it is a floor of cracked mud. Either way it stops you, because standing water is something this island almost never shows you, and the palms and reeds around it pull in birds you will not see on the coast.

Just off the path stands the Ermita de la Peña, the small chapel of the Virgen de la Peña, patron saint of Fuerteventura. On the third Saturday of September the island walks here in pilgrimage and the quiet valley fills for a day; the rest of the year you may well have it to yourself. If you have driven this far inland, add Betancuria ten minutes north on the FV-30 — the old capital, its church and its two small museums — and the Mirador de Morro Velosa above it, and you have a full day out from Caleta de Fuste without touching a beach.