In my last post, L1836 – Back to the Beginning, I described a wonderful day spent in Funchal on the lovely island of Madeira, where we went on a great tuk-tuk tour with the amazing Andrea, and returned to the place where the friendship and romance between Carol and myself first began nearly two years ago.
We sadly set sail from Funchal around 4pm that day, and then sailed overnight and for much of the following morning towards our next port of call, Las Palmas on the island of Gran Canaria in the Canary Islands. We were not due to arrive in the port until lunchtime, so I was very surprised when I was busy writing my previous blog post mid morning to hear from Carol that she could see land ahead. A short time later the cruise director came on the tannoy to confirm that we would indeed be docking early. I put down my keyboard as it were, and joined Carol out on the balcony to watch us sail in. As we did so I was soon reminded why I love Funchal and Madeira so much more than the larger Canary Islands, Gran Canaria included – the vista ahead was filled with tower blocks and unattractive square flat-roofed houses, rather than the consistent and quaint whitewashed walled and orange tiled houses all over the hillsides of Funchal.
I have been to Gran Canaria many times before, and for various reasons I have ended up doing the same ship’s tour a few times – the one that goes down to the lovely Puerto de Mogán in the south of the island. Knowing this to be the most attractive and interesting place to visit on the island, and that Carol had not been there before, I decided to bite the bullet and recommend to Carol that we book this tour. The tour is one of those marked as “Must Do” in the tours brochure, and therefore it was not surprising to find that we were on one of five coaches doing the same tour.
We drove out of Las Palmas on a fast ‘motorway’ style road, which varied between three and five lanes in our direction – such a contrast from the quiet twisty lanes that Andrea had taken us on the day before in Madeira. For a while there were lots of out-of-town shopping centres and warehouses, which eventually petered out into parched and barren-looking ground which our local guide used to be fields for agriculture – he told us that agriculture exports had dropped by a staggering 70% to 7% in recent years, as the same foods can be grown more cheaply on mainland Europe.
After a time we turned off the main road and drove to our first and only photo-stop, to view the vast and amazing sand dunes at Maspalomas. We seemed to drive past endless small holiday apartments before we were dropped off close to a large hotel, for a short walk through it to see the dunes.
When I had done this tour before, it made a second photo-stop at the resort of Puerto Rico, and then took a narrow twisty road that hugged the coastline on to Puerto de Mogán. This time we just sped on by Puerto Rico on the main ‘motorway’ road, which passed through numerous tunnels as it marched inland towards Puerto de Mogán. The nett result was that the total journey time was much shorter, meaning we had much longer (around 2.5 hours) freetime in Puerto de Mogán.
Our local guide led us from the coach park down to the harbour, before releasing us for our free time. The area close to the harbour is lovely – the attractive houses and walkways with bougainvillea growing over archways, and a couple of short ‘canals’ which have rather optimistically generated the nickname for the place as ‘Little Venice’.
We walked around for a while, and then Carol decided to stop on a bench and people-watch while I got busier with my camera. To be honest the amount of free time seemed rather long (ironically before when the journey time was longer, it used to seem rather short) – this was not helped by us making a classic mistake – each thought the other had brought money with them, so we were unable to make use of any of the many cafes and shops in the area.
Eventually it was time to wander back to the coach park, for the drive back to our ship. On the way back once again we saw the barren landscape punctuated by the empty fields, and by mostly abandoned plastic greenhouses; and in just one small area dozens of wind turbines, which our local guide told us generate 11% of the island’s electricity.
As we neared Las Palmas the traffic got much more dense, and so we returned to our ship a little late and with not much time to change for our dinner.
After dinner I went up onto the top-most deck to take some photographs of the port lit up at night.
Carol enjoyed the tour – she was impressed with the extensive dunes at Maspalomas, and by how attractive Puerto de Mogán was. However of course I had seen it all before – several times – and generally I am so underwhelmed with what I find as barren and ugly Gran Canaria (as I find the other large Canary Islands) compared to the attractive and green Madeira.
Around 9pm we set sail for our next port of call, which we would reach early the following morning – Tenerife – another large Canary Island!
Postscript 1
Both Carol and I woke very early the following morning, and as we looked out of the windows of our suite we could already see the lights of Santa Cruz de Tenerife in the distance up ahead. We both decide to put on our towelling dressing gowns and go out onto our balcony to watch our approach. After a few minutes we thought we felt a spot or two of rain, which suddenly became a short sharp down-poor, so we were glad that part of our balcony was covered over by a roof so we could shelter there.
Both of us have been to Tenerife before, I have been to the island on numerous occasions and done just about every tour in the book. We therefore decided not to book a ship’s tour, and instead just have a wander around the city centre at some point during the day. This we did after lunch, and found that the ‘blue line’ which you follow to reach the city centre seemed to wander even further around the port than before. Reaching the small lake with (usually) a fountain, we stopped to rest a while, and were bemused by the scene before us. There was a bunch of media guys – we were not sure if it was TV or radio or what – and a lady who was posing dance moves in the lake – complete with shoes! The sound guy also seemed to be recording the sound of her walking along the edge of the lake in her wet shoes. Weird!
Once we decided nothing more interesting was going to happen, we wandered off around the nearby streets and I snapped away with my camera as usual.
After a while the lure of ice-creams from the Gelato counter on the ship grew too large, and we made our way back there for another delicious treat.
That evening we set sail for our next port of call, Gran Tarajal in Fuerteventura, our third and final island in the Canaries, which we would reach early the following morning. Our adventures there are likely to be the subject of my next post.
Postscript 2
I am writing this post while we are moored up at Gran Tarajal in Fuerteventura. We were due to leave the port at 2pm this afternoon, bound for Agadir in Morocco. However around half an hour before we were due to sail, the Captain announced that due to a combination of a strong onshore wind and a very narrow gap between us and shallow water and another stone harbour wall, it was not safe for us to try to leave the harbour until the wind dies down.
A couple of hours later he made a further announcement that the wind was forecast to remain strong all day, and that we would not be able to leave the harbour without the assistance of a tug, which could not reach us until after dark. We are therefore stuck in port overnight, and will attempt to sail around 10am tomorrow morning once the tug is here to help. He further announced that our call in Agadir was cancelled, and that we would be sailing directly to our last port of call, Lisbon in Portugal.
Carol and I have absolutely no problem with putting safety first, and not attempting to leave port until it is completely safe to do so. Where we are disappointed is the decision to cancel Agadir and not Lisbon. So many cruises call into Lisbon, that I am sure nearly all the passengers on board will have been there before, most like us several times before. However we suspect that not nearly as many will have been to Agadir. We are so disappointed to be missing out on going to a very different new port, and for me one in a continent I have rarely visited.
An Englishman Onboard 
Hi Graham.
Like you I adore Madeira and it is where my partner and I had our first ‘date’- meeting on a Fred Olsen ship- him working, me as a passenger; he currently works on the Braemar- but am less keen on the Canaries. I have been to all of the larger ones many times- cruising and not. I prefer them not, but even then I am reminded every time I go why I don’t really like them. It’s only resident friends that send me back from time to time. I avoid cruises going there.
Enjoying the blog!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Loving all the flower photos Graham, well all the photos but the light has been superb in this blog.
LikeLiked by 1 person