Graham Williams - Traveller and Writer 
  • Home
  • About Me
    • My Travel CV
  • My Travel Writing
  • Graham's Blog
  • Contact Me
  • Trekking Everest Home Page
  • Jennifer Pope

Gran Canaria

25/2/2014

0 Comments

 
In recent years I have taken to escaping the winter weather in the UK by heading to the Canary Islands. They have enormous appeal to northern Europeans, being warm throughout the winter, are Spanish territory so a good standard of living and are not that far away, only four to five hours by air. Everywhere else that’s warm at this time of year is either a long way away, like Argentina, or dodgy, like most of Africa including Egypt now, or dull, Dubai and Australia. So the Canary’s fit the bill and the islands economy and existence has been built on the tourists that swarm here in their thousands.

Of course, people don’t only come here for holidays; many have stayed and bought homes. Tenerife was particularly German, Fuerteventura very British and Gran Canaria just about everybody but it seems to be a particular favourite of the Scandinavians.
PictureWhen the money ran out.
This trip was very different for me, as apart from some high end packages to inaccessible places, I’d never been on a package holiday before. The flight was routine but a pretty Swedish girl was waiting at the airport to tell me which bus to get on, which then took me to the hotel. No haggling for taxis or waiting for the airport bus. Then onto the world of mass tourism, huge hotel complexes have been built on almost every inlet or cove which has a beach. The hotels are massive concrete structures that climb up the sides of the hills, each floor only having the depth of one room before hitting bedrock, but this ensures that every balcony had a sea view. Some of the hotels are miles inland where you’d need a telescope to see the beach. Not all of these have been a success, due to Spain’s financial crisis when the property boom went bust, many workers just walked out leaving half completed shells which will probably be left to decay.

Luckily, my hotel was close to the beach which had black volcanic sand. It was warm enough to swim in and due to protection of the cove not too choppy. On most of the islands the Atlantic breakers make swimming something of a trial.  

My fellow holiday makers were all somewhat older than me but I was staying in a ‘child free’ hotel. A mix of nationalities, British, Norwegian, German, even Spanish. Some people clearly never left the hotel but ‘hung out’ around the pool all day. This was an all inclusive hotel, where food was continually available for fourteen hours a day, and booze for even longer, just help yourself.
PictureLooking down the valley to Morgan in the far distance.
Of course I did go out, several times to the nearby town of Puerto de Morgan which still retained a village feel; and to Morgan itself, a hill village higher up the valley from the coast, few tourists made it up here. Beyond Morgan the road rose up and climbed up to the high mountains. On one day I did hire a car and made the gear grinding trip up, switch back after switch back to the top of the valley then onto the rolling plateau area at the top. The hills are covered with pine forests and a few people still scratch a living up here with goats and fruit trees. Also here are the reservoirs that supply the coast that keep the whole society/ economy going. At this time of year there was very little in them, I looked for one as a feature to calculate where I was but soon realized that what should have been a large lake was no more than small pond in the middle. The money, probably EU money that has been spent on roads is phenomenal. A motorway runs almost all around the island, and even the road into the mountains was new and well maintained, all you need is a head for heights.

The walking trails on the hillsides are well marked and maintained and as you have to be fairly determined to get this high, not far off 2000m, you will meet very few people. The coastal fringe is a world of mass tourism and in winter very much geared towards older people but just inland is another world, with very few people and a very natural landscape. Probably the nicest Canary Island that I’ve been to, and with much more to discover I shall probably go back.


Picture
A Farm in the High Mountains.
Picture
A view of one the 'full' reservoirs.
0 Comments

In Tenerife

1/2/2011

1 Comment

 
Picture
One of the vagaries’ of booking hotels on the internet is that you are presented with a random selection of choices, and you run down the options using your own criteria; number of stars, does it have a pool, do the pictures of the rooms look nice, and of course the price. Then you book it. But because of the wide sweep of the net you might find yourself in a place you would never have found yourself or even considered before. This is how we have found ourselves the only British people in a hotel entirely given over to German tour groups.

We are in Puerto de la Cruz on the north coast of Tenerife, a resort described as ‘fashionable’ in one of our guide books and it was in the past when the British ‘discovered’ it in the days when only the rich could travel. It still has an Anglican Church and an English school; but it’s clear that in recent times it has become a German colony, mainly populated by elderly Germans either living here year around or just for a few weeks,  escaping the northern winter. All the signs are tri lingual, Spanish, German and English and you can get by easily in German, as most of the people you meet speak it. Most of the Spanish are quite thrilled when spoken to in Spanish, especially when it’s pronounced properly.

Our fellow hotel guests could all be described as senior, mainly late fifties and sixties, ‘though a few younger couples help lower the average age. They are all very friendly and speak to you in German as if you are one of them, after all, how could you be any different? I don’t mind this as I speak some German and I like the practice. They probably consider me a little odd as my replies are never as allusive as their questions and comments, as usually I’ve only understood the outline of what they are saying. Still they are pleasant company, and we usually have the massive outdoor pool to ourselves as well, even getting a sun lounger is no problem; also for its size it has to be the quietest hotel I’ve ever stayed in.

I had one moment this afternoon when I nearly lost it though, when the desire for tectonic neatness almost pushed me to open up hostilities. Driving into the hotel car park I quickly pulled into a space, as rain was beginning to fall and a storm was clearly on the way. Having turned off the engine, I was surprised to be harangued by a passing German senior citizen because my back tyre was over the white parking line. My German isn’t up to yelling ‘so bloody what we’re not in Germany now we’re in a hotel car park in Spain’, so I just ignored him. I did move the car though. After all it’s not wise to alienate yourself from the dominant group even if officially you’re not even part of it.





1 Comment

    Archives

    June 2016
    November 2015
    October 2015
    April 2015
    August 2014
    February 2014
    July 2013
    November 2012
    October 2012
    July 2011
    April 2011
    March 2011
    February 2011
    January 2011
    October 2010
    September 2010
    August 2010
    July 2010

    Categories

    All
    Africa
    Authors
    Books
    Ecuador
    Europe
    Greece
    India
    Kenya
    Malawi
    Rgs
    Safety
    Spain
    Tanzania
    Travel
    Uganda
    United Kingdom
    Writing

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.