This was pretty much a loss as a travel day. The ferry didn't set sail until 2350 and I had visited as much of Las Palmas as I wanted to. I walked north to El Castillo de la Luz (page in Spanish), the fortress of Las Palmas, but it was under renovation and not open to visitors. So I took a desultory photo and left. After lunch at El Muelle and finishing the Buddhism book, I returned to the pension to nap. Since I didn't have the use of the room any more, this was in a lounge chair. I watched Spain beat Hungary 3-0 in a UEFA game. Finally it was time for a buffet dinner.
At the wharf they loaded our baggage into the hold. I forgot to take my jacket out so it would be a cold night's sleep. Rats. I was glad I had shades because they left the light on in the passenger lounge. At 0400 we were rudely awoken by all the entertainment TVs coming on. An irate Spaniard summoned a crew member to switch them all off.
A blonde woman with a foreign passport had a laptop and a printer in its packing as baggage. I wondered if she had done her shopping in Las Palmas and was returning to Lanzarote with her loot. Travellers are always glimpsing little mysteries that won't be solved.
From the markets I walked back to the pension along the seafront. It was a hot day and my feet got very tired. I should have taken the bus. However I got to see a regatta happening in the port. Yachting is a popular activity on Gran Canaria.
I had a siesta in the hot afternoon and ventured out in the evening when it was cooler and the light more beautiful along Playa de las Canteras.
At the southern end of the playa is the Auditorio Alfredo Kraus which honours this tenor born in Las Palmas. He was partly Austrian, hence his last name. The architecture of this auditorium and convention centre is very attractive. It's even more beautiful when lit at night and viewed from the water.
Here is a giant statue of him overlooking the playa.
The plaza on top of big shopping centre opposite the auditorium was handy for taking pictures of the area. There was a lively salsa party thumping along when I visited.
The light got more dramatic as the evening wore on. I waited for the beach walkers to form this juxtaposition for the shot.
Then the colours shifted towards the purple end of the spectrum.
Finally the floodlights from the promenade painted the beach a garish orange against the dark backdrop of the sea.
Well all that scenery was very pretty but it was now 2130 and I had to assuage my hunger. The place I had chosen, Istanbul Kebab, was further north than I thought. The Plato Degustación (a bit of everything) was more filling than I expected. Served me right for being greedy. I wrapped some in flat bread to take away and ate the remainder. Where is a homeless person when you need one? In the end I left the kebab roll on a park bench hoping that a hungry soul might find it.
A short bus trip outside Las Palmas is the botanic gardens. I decided to devote a Sunday morning to it.
Its full name is a mouthful: Jardín Botánico Canario Viera y Clavijo. It has a large collection of Canarian flora scattered across 10 hectares. The name commemorates José de Viera y Clavijo, an early botanist of the Canaries.
But it really is the life work of Erik Ragnar Svensson, a Swedish botanist who came to live in the Canaries in 1931. He founded the gardens in 1952 and it was opened to the public in 1959.
He died in 1973 and is buried in the grounds of his beloved garden. In one nook I found a sign reading, Aquí yace Erik Ragnar Svensson (Here lies ...). I remember it well because words in Spanish starting with y are few and only fill one page of the dictionary. The common ones are ya, yo, yema (yolk), yerno (son-in-law), and yunque (anvil, which we met in Cuba). To which I could now add yacer (to lie).
Let's start with this interesting Canarian native, the Dragon Tree (Dracaena). You can see some of the red resin that is called dragon's blood.
Succulents are heavily represented in the garden.
A cluster of cacti.
You wouldn't think a prickly cactus would have such beautiful flowers.
Detail.
Somehow this succulent reminded me of the biohazard symbol.
Cassia according to a reader, I thought it was Yellow Broom but comparing the flowers and leaves I was wrong.
Help?
A reader says that this is Limonium.
Hollyhock (Alcea) I think.
Lots of Dragon Trees.
Succulent. I'm not knowledgeable enough to tell you the species.
Hmm, rather prickly.
They look furry. Until you get close.
I like how the flowers sprout from the "hands".
A reader tells me that this is an Aloe.
I remember well the amusing popular name of this one: Mother-in-law's Cushion. "Here mother, have a seat..."
You could bring several families here.
Bright cactus flower.
Another family gathering.
Delicate looking flower for a prickly plant.
"Furry" balls.
Non-succulent for a change. I thought it was Rudbeckia, then maybe Echinacea but those are mostly purple and grow on stalks rather than on branches. A reader thinks it's Senecio, and that's probably right from the description, but the pictures of flowers I've seen don't have the bent back petals. Anyway all of these are daisies (Asteraceae) so let's leave it at that.
Limonium again.
No hurry to go anywhere so I slept in. I had all day to explore Las Palmas. It's a working Spanish city, not a tourist resort. The temperature was a perfect 24C with cool breezes.
The sights of Las Palmas are scattered across several kilometres north-south, and the guide book had to represent the city on two maps. On my walk to the cultural centre of the city, Plaza Santa Ana, about 3 or 4 km from where I was staying, I passed Parque Doramas, which has a small collection of Canarian flora.
Colourful flower bed.
Cacti. There will be more pictures from the botanical garden later.
Sparkling fountain.
Near perfect rose.
Plaza de Santa Ana.
The Casa Colón museum. This had informative displays on his journeys. I didn't think much of the contents of the Centro Atlántico de Arte Moderno, so I have no recollection of what I saw.
A pair of very colourful macaws playing in the courtyard of Casa Colón.
I looked in on a couple of markets, the covered market and the market at Vergueta. Strawberries were expensive, but bananas were cheap, of course. I tried a gofio ice cream. Gofio is a Canarian specialty, a flour made of roasted grains which can be eaten as is for a snack. The ice cream had a slightly burnt taste, not unpleasant, and certainly no weirder than the black sesame ice cream found in Asia. I tried to buy some Gofio in a supermarket but didn't find any.
In the evening I walked through El Muelle (The Wharf), which served as a multistorey shopping centre and, er, wharf. I bought a ticket for my next ferry sailing. There were international stores there, including Quiksilver. Canarians looked relatively prosperous. I suppose this may be because the rich gravitate to pleasant climes. However being a medium sized Spanish city, Las Palmas has the usual problems with drug addicts and illegal immigrants.
I watched a ferry for a while, then walked back to Playa de las Canteras to view the sunset before calling it an evening. As luck would have it, there was a glorious sunset but I had no camera with me.
My itinerary was dictated by the ferry schedules. If I tarried too long on one island I might miss a connection to the next one and not do that island justice. So I had to get a move on. I ascertained that I could visit Corralejo on Fuerteventura from Lanzarote, so I had only two big ferry runs, to Gran Canaria, and then an overnight to Lanzarote.
Before I left I took a picture of this restaurant that took my fancy. It was actually situated on the beach. You could see a family living in it, defying the tide of tourist construction.
The German woman seated in front of me on the bus was mechanically stroking her husband's hair. Maybe he had a headache. At Santa Cruz, the capital, I had no time left for a stroll. Not practical lugging a backpack anyway. So I saw little of Santa Cruz. It is an Atlantic port of some importance though.
The fare was cheaper than I expected, only 14€. I gave my Bonobus, a prepaid bus ticket, to the ticket teller lady as a present. The transport was a car ferry, with mostly local passengers as an afterthought. Some prime movers were apparently positioned to double as ballast.
A pleasant 3-½ hours later I arrived in Las Palmas, the capital of Gran Canaria. GC is the third largest island, but Las Palmas is the largest city in the group, with over 370,000 population. It is also circular, like La Gomera. I found the pension that I wanted. Unfortunately it seemed that a smoker had the room last; I could smell the stale nicotine.
I had 4 days until the next ferry and I felt that I would have no problems filling the time. Besides the tourist beaches in the south, there were attractions in the environs of the city. Las Palmas seemed to have quite a few international restaurants . I thought that the guide book didn't do it justice. It certainly had more to offer than Los Cristianos, which was just a small town.
In the evening I took a stroll on the very long promenade of Playa de las Canteras. Many nationalities were in evidence. African women in traditional clothing stood out. How many of the people on the street were residents, how many visitors in transit, and how many immigrants I couldn't say.
Yes, a very stereotypical picture, but it really looked like that. I see from the temperature chart that the average high varies from 20C to 27C over the year. Must be a hard life, enjoying the mild climate.
In the local branch of El Cortes Inglés I found palm honey and Canarian honey which would be suitable gifts for P and K back in Heemstede. I took the easy way out and had a buffet dinner in a Chinese restaurant, run by immigrants from Fujian.
