The Canary Islands are a place for happy people.
It is funny only now to discover that there are six more islands in the archipelago suitable for recreation. Tiny Gomera and Hierro, green-covered La Palma, secluded Fuerteventura, Lanzarote famous thanks to Michel Houellebecq, and Gran Canaria, which is called a continent in miniature, also actively welcome tourists.
Only there are very few Russians here, notes Gazeta.Ru. And if you hear Russian speech on Gran Canaria, you can be almost sure that you are looking at our former compatriots now living in Germany or Holland. Or sailors from one of the trawlers that stand for months in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, the capital of the island and one of the largest ports in Spain.
Gran Canaria has only now begun the fight for the Russian tourist. And it will surely succeed in luring away some fans from its eternal rival Tenerife – those who seek peace, serenity, safety and unity with nature. Such diverse nature that you never cease to be amazed at how often and radically the landscapes change on this tiny (only 1560 sq km) piece of land.
The high season here lasts from October to April, but this is not related to the weather. It is almost never hot here (the temperature stays around 20 degrees Celsius almost all year): simply Europeans who vacation on Gran Canaria in winter move to resorts closer to home in summer.
But in summer it is also good to vacation with children, go surfing, fish and rent a room in a good hotel or an affordable bungalow. And also – explore the island.
A trip to Gran Canaria makes sense to start not with nature reserves and parks, but with the capital. Capital, however, is a big word, but residents of the resort of Maspalomas indeed consider the capital Las Palmas too noisy, bustling, overcrowded with people and transport. And this is about a city whose population was ten years ago, at the time of the last census, 378,628 people!
Apparently, the 'noise' does not allow pampered guests from the south of the island to fully appreciate the beauty of Las Palmas. And it is very beautiful. Especially, of course, the old district called Vegueta. Here you can wander for a long time between low houses in the Spanish colonial style, looking up, examining carved balconies made of Canary pine (local pride), comparing them with French colonial houses seen in Cambodia, and finding nothing in common. Passing by cafes whose tables stand right in the middle of the street, and envying the Canarians who can sit there all day long, drink coffee and wine, smoke, shout across the street – and not rush anywhere.
But you will have to hurry, because you still need to get to the Columbus House before closing. True, in fact it was the governor's house, and Christopher Columbus himself only possibly visited there in 1492, on the way to his discoveries, but now it does not matter – where else but in the most beautiful house of the city to open an exhibition dedicated to Spanish colonization?
As with many islands of volcanic origin, in the center of Gran Canaria there are mountains, among which stand out the extinct, fortunately, volcano Pico de las Nieves and the rock Roque Nublo, the pride and symbol of Gran Canaria. Every tourist, of course, must visit the symbol – and not necessarily to rub the rock and make a wish. Just the trail to the rock is very beautiful and walking along it is quite simple: like a light walk in a park, only on one side there is a cliff, on the other – bushes and pines.
Then completely unexpectedly an amazing lunar landscape will open up to you, a rocky plateau, in the middle of which rises the Roque Nublo, smooth as an ice cube. If by this moment the mountains are shrouded in fog, consider yourself very lucky: it is rare to feel like a hedgehog in the fog in front of a very, very large rock.
In the mountains there are also nice little towns – there, of course, you need to have lunch. For an appetizer, take the local specialty – Canarian 'wrinkly potatoes', papas arrugadas. Small round potatoes are boiled in their skins and served with mojo rojo sauce made from red pepper and spices. This sauce is the best thing in the Canaries: thick, moderately spicy, slightly piquant, each restaurant has its own. And if you find yourself in the cave restaurant El Centro in the town of Guayadeque, keep in mind: there this sauce is the best on the whole island. And the cave itself is amusing: it turns out that a cave on the island is a type of housing in which, following the example of the aborigines, modern Canarians also like to settle. Only they build the toilet and kitchen outside, because there are problems with ventilation in the caves.
Descending from the mountains to the south, to the resort of Maspalomas, you discover how radically the landscape changes. The lush greenery, in which you recognize nasturtium thickly entwining roadside bushes, rosemary, mango trees, bougainvillea, plane trees and even eucalyptus, is replaced by laconic rocks and lonely palm trees. The south of the island is more like a desert – first red, rocky, and then… And then the best thing that could happen in this trip will happen to you.
Entering Maspalomas and passing by bungalow complexes, golf courses, boulevards lined with date palms and restaurants, you will drive up to the dunes. Before you will spread giant soft dunes, hot sand will call to you, and, seeing on the horizon a lighthouse where your hotel is located, you will, of course, decide to take off your sandals and walk to it on foot. You will have to put your sandals back on soon – the sand is hot. Then the song about Uchkuduk, three wells, will come to mind, and you will regret not having brought water with you.
A lighthouse, palm trees and a hotel on the horizon will seem like a mirage. Plump dunes and the scorching sun are reality. It will be funny – you know that there's no desert around, and you're not lost at all, but the feeling that you are having an adventure will remain. And after some 15 minutes, you will run down the slope of a dune to the Atlantic Ocean and at full speed run into its cool water. Then you will know what euphoria means. The endless delight of how wisely and harmoniously this world is arranged and how the hot sand gives way to the freshness of the ocean.
And then you need to walk along the beach. A rushing wave will wet your trousers to the very top – but that won't matter. The path will go past a nudist beach. And it is very important to feel safe here, because there is no place in the world calmer and more free than a nudist beach, and there are no more peaceful people in the world than naturists. Gran Canaria is beautiful because tourists and locals, gays and straights, clothed and naked, all feel equally calm and free there; it is a world of universal reconciliation and acceptance, where there are no judgmental looks, puzzled shrugs, or whispering.
And when you come to your five-star hotel barefoot, with pants wet to your buttocks, no one will judge you either. Because there's nothing to judge.