The 2023 hike in Gran Canaria 🇪🇸
May 2023
THIS BLOG IS STILL UNDER CONSTRUCTION
Hi! Welcome to (another) blog about my hiking adventures. This blog presents the adventures Kaya and I had during our hiking holiday in Gran Canaria. Kaya made also a vlog series about our holiday (with English subtitles, thanks ChatGPT for helping out here), which you can find here! Quality content! (In my honest and unbiased opinion).
From April 7 to April 17, me and my girlfriend/fiance (see Día Très) hiked through one of the Canary Islands - Gran Canaria. Based on a multi-day hiking trip set out in a book from Lannoo, we decided to trek from the north of Gran Canaria, across the volcanic island to Maspalomas in the south. This route was described in a... rather unclear fashion, which implied that we needed to basically plan out the route ourselves. For this we used a map by KOMPASS, the Lannoo book, the website by Caers Bart and Google Maps.
Día Cero: Getting there and final preparations
When April 7, 2023 was only there for about two hours, we left Eindhoven and the holiday officially started. We took the plane from Schiphol, which brought us directly to sunny Gran Canaria. We arrived around 10 o'clock in the morning, local time, and took the bus to Las Palmas de Gran Canaria (which is very easy to do, just using the public transport planner on Google Maps). In the city of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, we had booked a hotel to at least have a place to sleep for the first night. Before we could venture on our hike, there was one task to complete. In order to prepare the Adventure Food and make the instant coffee, we needed a gas canister for our mini stove (you cannot take these with you on a plane, obviously).
Armed with Google Maps, money and hope, we searched the city for gas canisters. Our first target was an outdoor shop in the city center, which was closed. We did not take into account that literally everything was closed, because it was the Easter weekend - the hope started to fade. After visiting all the gas stations we could find in the area, we did not have any luck and went back to the hotel. The hotel owner, a very kind hippie-like figure, gave us some suggestions to try the next day. Let's hope for the best...
Día Uno: The adventure starts
The suggestions by the hotel owner unfortunately did not work out, and as we did not want to delay our trip, we gave up the search. We started the Gran-Tour from the bus stop of San Andrés (about 40 minutes by bus from the north of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria). We spotted a BP gas station nearby, and as a final attempt to get a gas canister, we went inside. No luck. In fact, throughout the whole holiday, we didn't see a single suitable gas canister (only ones that you need to poke through).
The hike started smoothly on a dirt road heading south in a desert-like landscape. The path gradually changed into a corridor enveloped by dense palm tree leaves on either side. Quickly, the leaves started forming a tunnel where I barely fit under. Despite the tire tracks on the path, it really felt like 'the wild'. After a while, we walked on a road which mainly seemed to be used by farmers, as on both sides there are plots of land with (what seem) orange trees and other crops. All of a sudden Kaya heard a very loud buzzing! A bee thought her bun of dark blonde hair resembled a flower... Panic in its most pure form! I tried to swat the bee away from her, which resulted in the bee being stuck under the shoulder pad of the backpack. Panic level 9000 - the bee was stinging her. In a split second, the backpack is off and I yoinked the bee off her back, which resulted in the bee following me. I ran away and manage to lose the bee. Somehow, the bee did not inject any venom as there was no reaction, luckily. With some remaining shivers down our spines, we continued the hike. This happened only... 1.5 hours in. That sounds promising.
Till lunch-time we did not meet anyone on the trail, except for a single farmer. After the lunch, we ended up on a very nice trail, and came across more and more people. Day hikers hiking this part of the trail, which apparently is very popular. It's a very nice meandering trail in a small canyon, hidden away by trees and following a small stream. Some parts even involved some climbing. Following the map, we hiked up through a very dense bamboo/palm leaves forest, the number of people we encounter quickly droped to zero. Hmm... At some point, in a slightly more open area we stumble upon a sign. Checking our (GPS-)map, we see we are not on the path anymore, and the places indicated on the signs are not the places we need to go to. It looks like we need to go to the other side of the canyon, which seems impossible, given that there is no path. We head towards Moya, which is at least not going back. After a while, we end up on an asphalt road and after some advanced navigation and heuristic cartography practicing the conclusion is that the map is either outright incorrect or heavily outdated. Nice memes...
Further down the asphalt road, we ended up on a main road, where we were trying to find out where we actually are. On the other side of the valley, about as far from the intended destination as we already walked that day (it was around 17:00). We decided to hitch-hike, and directly the first car stopped to pick us up - island people are the best! The man brought us to Fontanada, a very small village with a single restaurant/hotel, which was luckily open. After some advanced communication (Duolingo Spanish, English and pointing), we managed to make our situation clear. We sat down in the restaurant (we were the only ones, because it was 18:00 in Spain) and ordered some local food. The waiter was an amazing fellow, who brought us some delicious food. He is a local, fond of hiking, and he gave us some very useful tips and tricks. He recommended an app called WikiLoc, which did have a correct map. He recommended us the correct trail such that we could get back to the planned route on the next day. So we were not completely lost. After we literally devoured our delicious meal, it was time to look for a place to sleep. Since there was no place to sleep in the hotel, our first night on our trip was going to be in the wild! Just outside of Fontana, very close by the trail, we found a perfect spot to put down our tent. After checking whether our tent was visible from the road, which was not the case, it was time to go to sleep -- we deserved that!
Click here for the vlog corresponding to this day.
Día Dòs: Volcanic ascent with proper navigation
We woke up at the wild camping spot, feeling very relaxed, as our alarm clock was a symphony of bird chants. It really makes you feel at one with nature (I know, this sounds... hippy-ish). We quickly cleaned up our tent for the second day of hiking. We feared a bit for what we would encounter because of the adventures of Día Uno (which, as you will find out, was unnecessary). The tour started with a steep ascent (about 20%, i.e., 200 meters vertical for 1 km horizontal). Since we hadn't had breakfast when we woke up, we stopped halfway up the ascent to have breakfast with a view. The breakfast came, by the way, from the restaurant we visited the day before. We ordered the bread over there in Spanish (using Google Translate) and the waiter understood it! Once again proving that this was a golden guy. The trail we walked on was so much nicer than the day before, it truly felt like a blessing. Beautiful surroundings. Eventually, we entered more volcanic scenes, which, combined with the low-hanging clouds, made it mysteriously beautiful. After a steep ascent, we were rewarded with a very nice view of one of the larger craters on the volcanic island.
We continued our way in the volcanic landscape. We in fact walked through the clouds, which made it also a bit chilly (next to being very mysterious). We also met the first fellow-backpacker, which was really strange in some way. The hiking trails in Gran Canaria were generally very quiet. Slowly, the trail led us into the forest, where we had lunch in an open spot. Since the clouds were still hanging low, the forest felt really magical - somehow the green was greener and the brown was browner. Beautiful! Hiking a few kilometers through the woods led us eventually to a parking lot next to a viewpoint, overlooking a huge valley.
The viewpoint had a small open building next to it, in which a few youngsters were listening to (shitty) music and smoking shisha. Quite funny and alienating, haha. We took the hiking trail into the valley and hiked into a more desert-like landscape. The rock formations we passed were very impressive. This last part of the hike was quite a big contrast compared to the rest of the day. For the night, we had booked a hostel (Finca La Isa), which turned out to be a chill, hippy-ish hostel in the middle of nowhere. We had a decent place to sleep and the opportunity to take a well-needed shower. The whole vibe of the hostel was very relaxed, and the dinner that we were served was delicious and plentiful! Time to sleep.
Click here for the vlog corresponding to this day.
Día Trés: A day to never forget
After a good night of sleep in the hostel, we were ready to conquer another day of hiking in the beautiful nature of Gran Canaria. The hostel provided a delicious breakfast for us, and we made coffee using the 'drip 'n sip' coffee that we still had from our Iceland trip. Good start of the day!
The hike started... funny. In the first 5 minutes, we twice took the wrong direction. Luckily, this did not cost us too much time, and we could laugh about it. After we found the correct path, we ended up on a road that led us smoothly to the small village 'La Culata.' The plan was to have lunch there, but we arrived so early that we only got a Coke and just bought some lunch for on the road. Again, a very nice lady at the restaurant, who tried to make some conversation in Spanglish (it went fine). After the Coke, the map led us quickly out of the village, steep up the mountain. Jeez, it felt like we were going up with a 45-degree incline, which, together with the burning sun, made it quite challenging. This part led us to Roque Nublo. This is essentially a menhir on steroids on top of a mountain and a popular tourist attraction. Apparently, it originates from the volcanic period and is the solidified vent of a volcano (called a volcanic plug). Halfway up the ascent, during which we had a continuously beautiful view, we stopped for lunch with the delicious sandwich from the 'La Culata' restaurant.
We had the choice to either walk around Roque Nublo and hike up the mountain to visit the Roque itself or take a shortcut and just enjoy the view. Because it was already quite challenging, we decided to take the second option. When we arrived at the crossroad, however, we experienced some major FOMO. How could we hike Gran Canaria and skip one of the major highlights?! Especially because the out-and-back trail to the rock was right there, we just could not simply bypass this. Hence, up we went. Roque Nublo is on top of a large plateau that is the highest point in the area; hence, blasting winds, scorching rays, and stunning views -- absolutely divine. Yeah, we wouldn't have wanted to miss this; Roque Nublo is quite an impressive unit. After taking some nice pictures, we settled for an orange in a small natural rock shelter in Roque Nublo (basically a small dent-like cave).
In this small cave, our lives changed. After I got the oranges from my bag, I also brought something else. So after we finished the (delicious) oranges, I started stuttering a bit awkwardly. Though, the message was clear, because Kaya said "Yes, of course I want to marry you!!" (in Dutch). After some tears of happiness and disbelief that this really happened, we had plenty to chat about during our descent back to the route. We also bought a popscle on our way back to celebrate this surreal event. In the meantime some big life questions popped up, and we realized that this question and this answer imply quite some major life-changes. We got excited talking about it and learned that we might fit even better together than we initially thought.
Click here for the vlog corresponding to this day.
Día Quatro: Battling wind
Woosh
Click here for the vlog corresponding to this day.
Día Cinco: Descending towards fire
Sirens
Click here for the vlog corresponding to this day.
Día de Descanso: Relaxing = boring...
What to do?
Día Seis: Hiking and sleeping in the desert
Cagarros
Click here for the vlog corresponding to this day.
Día Siete: Arriving in the dunes of Maspalomas
South