Gran Canaria

Terror, only 12 km. Help!

Virgins and Pine Tees.

I've never seen Gran Canaria, this is my third visit. I have previously experienced

Canairans Like tat too.

.

• The Hiperdino (Spanish ASDA)
• El Corte Ingles (Giant Department Store with food hall)
• The Market
• Muelle Deportiva (Marina)
• Don Pedro (Fueling Dock)

I've taken the Bilges, locker bottoms, engine oil and bars as read.

I was determined this time to see the island since the above was within walking distance of the marina. So I signed up with the ARC bus tour, and found out loads of wonderfully facts about local politics, plants, towns, villages, crops and types of rock that I will, you will be relieved to hear, not be sharing with you.

I did discover Gran Canaria is a beautiful island, with stonking views and great stuff. I may have formally referred to it as "dull brown". Since the view only came from the windows of a car on the motorway from the airport I hope I can be excused.

View of Las Palmas.

Gran Canaria is Volcanic, the above is a view of Las Palmas, from the top of one of the Calderas, the caldera itself is bellow. The road winds round a peak to the north, and I mean winds. The Lady from the Atlantic rally for cruisers sat next to me squeaked. Rather a lot. She was scared of heights. See plummet below.

A Caldera

Apparently the Canaries are divided into two administrative districts, due to the incessant arguments over where the capital should be. The point was illustrated by the following joke:

There were 5 people on a Plane, the Pilot a Priest (catholic obviously) a hippie a man from Further and a man from Gran Canaria. The pilot says "the plane is broken," the joke was in splanglish, "but we've only got four parachutes. I'm having one parachute, and we must give one to the Priest as there are very few priests these days. We must give one to the hippie because they are rare too. You two must decide which of you gets the parachute." The Gran Canarian reply's. "We Gran Canarians are bold, Fearless, and strong, I will go without." The Furterventuran immediately jumps out of the plane. The pilot says "That was very foolish of you you will be killed without a parachute." The Gran canarian responds, no I won't I've got the parachute I gave the Furterventuran the hippies rucksak.

I cannot describe the windyness of the roads, a coach finds it hard going. The Virgins make the whole crawl round bends on the edge of bottomless pits more interesting. Maria our excellent and extremely verbose guide told us about them. The first one told the invading Spanish where the locals lay in ambush, though she did admit that she may have been "Quizzed" about the matter rather than volunteering the information. Given translation the similarity between "quiz" and "inquisition" worry me slightly. Excuse my cynicism but her status as a virgin saint may be someone's guilty conscience. The other virgin is some lass with pine trees. Search me it was information overload. However pretty girls hanging out in pine woods? I reckon she was sneaking out with her boyfriend.

Spamish Man's Leg

Which brings me to the subject of Spanish men. Apparently their legs look like this. I'm in here, hairy legs are obviously acceptable.

Canarians have some different words to the rest of spain. Kinewas is one (I'm writing it as I heard it), outedatas is another. Both are used for potatoes. The derivations is easy. The potato varieties came in from England than they just read out the labels as best they could. Kinewas is of course "King Edwards" and "outedatas" is "out of date". It appears British trading practice is as dodgy as ever.

I haven't seen the southern end of the island. Its the touristy area. I have heard several seminars on Atlantic crossings, and when the trade winds blow the southern end of the island is a "wind acceleration zone" which is why its popular with wind surfers and kite surfers. Of course its also full of Germans.

Gran Canaria is high. The bus wound its way up to 1700m I took a GPS and my waterproof digital camera has a manometer in it and tags your photos with depth as well as the normal stuff. It tells you the pressure, so it tell you the height. The pressure it reads here at sea level is 1000hPa. Up top there 840hPa. That's 15% drop in pressure. Noticeably thinner air.

I do love my toys. Will ad an image from the GPS track here when I can