Beautiful Gran Canaria

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As one can imagine, Scotland was getting a little grey and cold in the winter months. So, in December we decided that our next trip had to be someplace warm. Gran Canaria, just off the coast of Morocco, was the winner with the cheapest flight. On January 10th we packed our bags and headed for Glasgow where our flight took off from. Our trip began with a problem though. Our flight was at 6am so we figured we'd stay up as late as possible, then head to the airport and sleep there until check-in. We ate dinner at the Aussie pub Walk About and then found live music at The Box just down the road (only about a half hour walk), where we chatted with some colourful uni students. Then we went to the bus station to catch the airport bus to Glasgow airport. Whoops! Once we got there, there was no flight listed for Gran Canaria at 6am; they didn't even have a check-in desk for Ryanair. As it turns out Ryanair flies from Glasgow Prestwick, which is 45 minutes southwest of the city by car. How do we know you ask? Well, we had to take a taxi from Glasgow airport to Prestwick because no trains for buses were running at that time of night. We didn't end up sleeping much, if at all, that night because by the time we got to Prestwick we could check in for our flight.

However, once we got on the plane, had a nap and got to our sunny destination we felt a lot better. We got there with half a day to explore so we took the airport bus to Las Palmas (the main city), found a hostel and settled in. Okay, so it wasn't that easy to find a hostel. We ended up getting the bus to San Telmo bus station (the main station) which was pretty far from the main downtown. We walked through the city for, what felt like, hours (it was probably only 2 hours) until we found an information kiosk which pointed us toward a hostel. After relaxing at the hostel for a little while we walked through the, sometimes narrow, winding streets to one of the best urban beaches in the world, Las Canteras. The sand was a mix of light and black sand which made neat patterns around rocks and toes when the water receded. The beach must have been a couple kilometres long and we walked down to the end watching the surfers on our way. We had a bite to eat and found our way back to the hostel (miraculously). We meant to only have a short nap but it turned into a 15 hours. We woke up the next morning at 8am revived and hungry. Dan ducked out that morning to get something to snack on, sure he'd seen a bakery not too far away. He wound up getting some crossants, filled with lettuce, meat, tomatoes, and corn... caliente, which for you non-Spanish speakers (like Dan) may not know means "hot". Not really the breakfast he had planned on, so we saved them for lunch.

We decided to take a morning stroll on the beach so we went to the beach that was just across the street from our hostel. Even though it was shorter than the Las Canteras Ashley thought it was mildly nicer. Probably just because there were fewer people. We walked along the road to a mall which was the port for cruise ships and had a stop for a hop on-hop off tour bus. We thought "What the heck?" Let's hop on the bus and learn about the culture and history of the city. Our first stop was Las Canteras again. This time we walked from the north end to the middle of the beach to catch the bus again. We buried our feet in the sand and just enjoyed the scenery. The next stop was a beautiful park in the centre of town. We got off the bus to walk through the park and admired the fish pond and greenery and drank smoothies on a terrace. We continued on our bus ride watching the beautiful city go by. At the end of the day we decided to walk through the city back to the hostel. On the way we stopped for a pastry, admired the stunning tiled ground and walked through the pedestrian shopping area. On our quest to walk down different streets we decided to get off the main drag. Dan noticed one lady standing outside, and thought it was a strange place to wait for a ride. As we kept going we noticed a unique aspect to the culture in Las Palmas; a lot of the houses along this street had living rooms opening right onto the street. Small rooms full of couches and people lounging on them... well... women lounging on them. As we looked around we also noticed other women on stools in doorways... oh good grief; Dan finally realized that we were happily strolling down the red light district hand in hand. If Dan had been alone, he probably would've been propositioned several times, considering the number of women there. We went to dinner that night at a restaurant on the boardwalk on Las Canteras. Eating seafood was a must and Ashley devoured her salmon. It was truly delightful.

We packed up the next day and headed our for a hike. We took the bus to Galdar where we were supposed to get a bus to the trail head. Unfortunately, what we didn't realize is that the bus only goes twice a day and the next one was at 3:15 which was too late to do a hike. However, we met a nice woman from Seville who now lives in the area and spoke impeccable English, who pointed us to another hike we could do on the Los Tilos Reserve. It was a very short walk at only 2 kilometres and felt like it only took a few minutes but we saw unusual flowers and heard a few birds. We could have caught the bus again but we decided to walk on to Moya, the next town along the road. At one point we ran into a small orange tree orchard where Dan wanted to pick an orange. But Ashley wouldn't let him (woo-pah!!!!). The house was right there; who knows who could've been watching us. We got to Moya with no problems so we checked when the next bus went back to Galdar and then went for a cold refreshing drink at a cafe. We also wandered around town where we found a church which was literally built into a cliff and apartments were built into the rock below the church. It was really neat to see. The views from Moya, which is on a substantial hill, are breathtaking; you can see into the valley all the way to the sea. This is just the kind of place Dan can imagine living. Ashley's not too sure; it might be a bit secluded for her taste.

From Moya we headed to Maspalomas which is the touristy area (think Puerto Vallarta and Cancun) on the south end of the island. Utter disaster. First of all we took the bus all the way to the end stop, not realizing the end stop was really (and we do mean really) far from the main area of Maspalomas, Playa del Ingles. It didn't look that far on a map but the map was deceiving. We eventually found our way to Playa del Ingles, in the dark might we add. Our game plan was to find a cheap hostel or hotel, which we didn't think would be hard. We were wrong. After a couple of hours of asking around the cheapest we could find was 90 euros a night. By 11pm we gave up and figured we would take a bus back to the city (only half an hour) and go back to the hostel we previously stayed at. To our surprise that hostel was full and the guy working the desk was really unhelpful. So we headed in the general direction of another hostel, hoping 2 things: 1)they had 24 hour reception and 2) they had a bed to stay in. At this point we had resigned ourselves to long-grassing it on the beach but we thought we'd give it one more go. On the way to the hostel we found Hostel Kasa. Luckily for us, they had 24 hour reception and a bed for us. It was about 0100hrs when we finally got to bed; we crashed and slept like little baby logs.

The next day was a day trip to Maspalomas. We took the bus all the way to the end station (where we ended up the night before) and walked along the beach to Playa del Ingles. It's a lot farther than we thought by looking at the map but it was a nice walk along the beach and in the water. At one point Dan, being his usual andventurous, curious, irresponsible self ended up walking out on a sand bar out into the ocean. It was funny when he ended up trapped on the sand bar with deep water between him and the shore. Since he'd walked so far on the sand bar and as a child learned terrible things about backtracking from his mother, he heaved his sandals to Ashley on the shore, held his backpack over his head and walked through the water. I guess it wasn't actually that deep. A large portion of this beach was clothing optional (as beaches are want to do), which a lot of older tourists seemed to take advantage of. We finally got the the Playa del Ingles area. The town isn't built up right to the beach because there are sand dunes in a protected area between the town and the sea. It's was an interesting topographical phenomenomenom to have right by the ocean. We sat on the beach for a while and Dan went in the water. It was about 22 degrees so the water wasn't warm but Dan got his fill of it. When we got back to town we had a too expensive drink at an Irish bar before going to what we were told is the best buffet in town. The buffet was delicious; we had the option to pick all of our own raw meat which we would take to the open kitchen and the chefs would get it stir-fried right there for us. There was also a sundae bar and a chocolate fountain. How could a buffet get any better? I wouldn't recommend Maspalomas to anyone who wants an authentic Canary Islands experience. The languages we heard spoken most were English and German.

The next day we had our best experience on Gran Canaria. We decided to try for another hike so we took a bus to Telde. From there we needed to catch a bus to Lomo Magullo; however, we couldn't figure out where to get the bus. There were no bus stops. So, we just began walking along the road to Lomo Magullo hoping to catch the bus on the way. Just when we forgot to keep an eye out for the bus, it drove past. We walked for almost an hour on a tiny road with cars zipping past and reached a small town (truth be told we never weren't in a small town all along the walk) and asked a lady where to catch the bus. Apparently, she was waiting for the bus at this random spot on the road. We thought we would just keep walking which we did until we reached another town. We talked to another local who was also waiting for the bus in a random place so we gave up walking, waited for the bus, and had a wee bite to eat. Good thing too because it would've taken a long time to walk to Lomo Magullo. The bus driver actually drove us past the normal stop in town and into a small hamlet a couple kilometres down the road. Little did we know he was taking us straight to the trail head (not usually where he goes, but there was another local going that way with her shopping). All there was to this hamlet was a couple houses with animals everywhere so we just kept walking further down between the houses, hoping that a trail might start at the back of the town. Miraculously, we found it! We couldn't believe that we actually found the right place since we were basically in the middle of nowhere and our directions weren't terribly clear. We were so pleased we began our hike on a high. The moderate temperature was a blessing; if it had been any hotter we would've melted. The scenery was beautiful with green trees everywhere. We followed the valley, walking along the creek until we found a waterfall. Ashley thought this was THE waterfall so she was pleased to sit for a while and take it all in but Dan was convinced there was more to the walk. The rest of the walk was a not for the faint of heart. There was steep uphills with lose dirt, creeks to cross with nothing more than a small stick to step on to avoid getting wet and steep rocks to climb. But we were rewarded with 3 beautiful waterfalls. This was by far our best day on Gran Canaria and if we ever return we will need to do more hiking and explore the other islands.

With the end of our hike came the end of our journey on the island. Our flight left later that afternoon so we had to get the bus back to the airport. A lot of things went wrong on this trip for our lack of planning but whatever did go right was glorious.

Dan's Photots

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Photos

Phew, we made it.
Preparing for our long walk to the hostel.

Sand patterns
This must have been where we had been walking, no rock to make the pattern here.

We hopped off
Sipping smoothies and practising our Spanish.

Look at that view
From Los Tilos Reserve

More flora
Such a different tree. Thought at first it was trimmed like this, but they're all over the place.

Just hanging out in the tree
On our second hike to the waterfalls.

Jus' Chillin'
Probably cause Ashley told him to sit on the rock for a picture.

We made it!
One of the waterfalls we saw.

Comments

[Claudia Mom]

Backtracking
Okay, okay, sometimes backtracking is the only option. Sounds like a beautiful place. Very cool tree!