After spending a month on La Palma, it was time for me to move on. The viewpoints there seemed a bit limited; I’m not sure if there’s a correlation with the island’s size. Ferry timings were inconvenient, with a ship leaving at 4 am. This time, I prioritized sleep over moral obligations. Loaded with a bag of mangos, I landed on the desert-like, Martian landscape of Gran Canaria. Some palms were the only trees around the airport, quite a difference from the black-rocked, green-overgrown La Palma.
Arriving light, perhaps a bit too light
I had no idea where to go, nor did I know anything about Gran Canaria. All I knew was that I needed internet for my remote work. That’s why I decided to fully embrace the unknown and play a game of following people to see where I’d end up. I chose to follow a guy carrying his surfboard under his arm—this can only end well. He took the bus to the capital, La Palma. On the way, I decided that it might be better to book something for a few nights to get a clue about how the island operates. Tempted by some surfing perspectives, I booked a surfer hostel. Focused on booking and trying to take in as much of those crazy beautiful beaches that the buses passed by, I made a little mistake. Multitasking and being overwhelmed are not the best conditions for me to think straight.
While checking the fastest way to the hostel, I jumped out of the bus a bit too abruptly. After walking for a minute, I realized that I felt too light to explain it by the adventures ahead. My backpack was stored in the boot of that bus, and I forgot to retrieve it when leaving the bus. After slowly realizing that not having the backpack with all my things was not an option, I started to run as fast as possible. Without an idea of where this bus might have headed, I just ran, ran, ran through the burning midday sun. It seemed endless and pointless, this sprint.
Yet, being on a relatively small island and being on its right corner, I felt there must be a stop somewhere, and those buses cannot go forever. At one point, I arrived at this big, weird, open plaza. Running like a crazy person around it, I came across some stairways downward and a bus sign. I found the end bus stop! There I was, running from bus to bus looking for the bus driver, as I still remembered. Another driver kindly gave me the lost and found number, but I was not yet ready to accept my defeat. At one point, I realized the bus driver might have changed. Not sure how, but there was a bus leaving towards the airport. This must have been my bus. I ran in front of that bus—luckily made it out alive, and on top of that, the bus driver asked me if I was looking for a left-behind backpack. I couldn’t believe it. I had just arrived last minute to find my backpack! I never felt lighter in a new spot, despite now actually having a far too heavy backpack on my back.
The surfer hostel
La Palma is this weirdly vibrant, beautiful chaos yet in that industrial Spanish way. I loved its energy in summer with temperatures that were just right, not too hot nor too cold. The surfer hostel was great, offering the best views to watch the waves and enjoy some fried cooking platanos with a Chimchurry spicy mix that someone had left there (still looking for this spice mix in every Spanish supermarket since). Then, there was this wild cactus on the other side of the balcony that seemed utterly unfazed by anything, continuing to grow relentlessly. It felt like you could actually witness its growth if you stared at it long enough.
The waves there were a bit messy, but it still felt good to be back in the water. La Palma has a great public library for remote work, and the city’s parks, as well as the botanical garden, are truly stunning. The botanical garden is located a bit outside the city, near the university, and is relatively easy to access by bus (although you better enjoy short hikes and walks along a busy street).
Then there was also a tinder date with a nice movie music composer and some funny Indian Spanish food.
The night I camped next to the prison
For the weekend, I wanted to camp and leave the city. But somehow there are no camping places on the island. This is why I followed a bit a more derived approach. Based on Google Maps, outside the city, there must be more free spaces and terrain to camp. So Friday evening after work, already in the dark, I took a bus up the hill outside La Palma. I found this relatively nice spot, flat, kind of hidden. Only the next morning I realized that I actually camped outside a prison. Maybe better, I did not notice the night before.
Back in the city, I changed my hostel, checking out another one close to the surf hostel. It was also fun there, but there were a little bit more party people in the room, so my sleep was a tiny bit more interrupted. Then I went bouldering with Cesar, a Colombian guy I met on Tinder. For the weekend, he wanted to show me the dunes.
Little dune weekend
So there we were, taking the bus south. After some quieter views on the beaches on the eastern front this time, on the south, the bus made it through some of my worst nightmare kind of towns. Towns made of ugly hotel bunkers and sunburnt, drunk tourists. One would need to pay me to leave the bus at those places.
However, just a little bit further outside, on the very southern tip of Gran Canaria, the dune is waiting. It feels like the Sahara took a little edge of the island and could not resist expanding a bit more.
Close to the dune, after one of its baby dunes, there was a hidden hippie beach with lots of naked people. The beach was very exposed to the sun, and without an umbrella, it was quasi-impossible to bear. Luckily, at the bus stop, some ladies forgot their sun umbrella. So at least we had that. An afternoon full of swims and sunbathing followed, along with setting up the tent. The next day, we went for breakfast back to the next town—a horribly ugly hotel complex town. While Cesar went back to La Palma, I decided to stay another night in the dunes and just return the following day up north. I did a long, incredible snorkel tour before hiding in my tent from some a bit too intrusive people.
El camino
After being back in La Palma and doing some more remote work there, I followed Cesar’s recommendation to explore the inner parts of the island, up in the hills. There, I discovered this crazy, funky, colorful hostel called El Camino. My time there can be best described as follows: singing at the bonfire, dancing to great (professional) drumming in the moonlight, enjoying delicious homecooked food, sleeping in my beloved tent, being surrounded by great people, visiting a farmers market with rare beans and delicious mangos and figs, picking lots of buscavida berries, going on agave hikes, painting mandalas, meditating under the agave tree, and exchanging yoga postures with Caro, my dear friend from Argentina.
I just can’t wrap my head around the beauty of these agave landscapes. The way they come in all forms and colors, adding that little extra to an already stunning vegetation, is simply breathtaking.
All in all, it’s a great place to be. We need more hostels like this one.
In the inland of Gran Canaria, there’s this weird clash of stunning (to me) exotic and rare plant forms meeting some interesting aesthetic choices made by the city managers. Why would you put plastic grass in between the palms? It’s not environmentally friendly at all, and it doesn’t add to the aesthetics either…
First night under the open sky
From the hostel, I took the bus further inland, further upwards. I arrived just in time in the mountains of Gran Canaria with a stunning view of El Teide, the volcano/mountain that basically covers whole Tenerife. I had just enough time to find my sleeping spot.
This turned out to be more difficult than expected, as there was a lot of wind. So, my best call, as night approached rapidly, was to sleep behind a little farmhouse wall, which also served as a path. I didn’t expect people to come up that remote path at night. Little did I know. There I was, in my warm sleeping bag, ready to embrace this adventure under a full sky of stars in the bright light of a full moon, just sending last messages to my family in case, just in case, so they would roughly know where I was. Suddenly, two guys almost stepped on me. I think the phone I was using at the time, as well as the bright full moon, prevented the collision. They were as shocked as I was, and they were even German. Luckily, apart from them, my night was relatively calm and comfortable, ignoring some of the rocks that made their way through the mattress.
The next morning, for breakfast, I was rewarded with some fresh Indian figs, albeit at the cost of getting hands full of spikes. But every spike was worth the needed sugar. I hiked down to the town in the valley. Since all the cafe places were still very sleepy at the time of my arrival (around 9 am), I took the bus back to the other side of the hill to the next bigger village to start my working day, pretending it to be a day like any other.
Before leaving the island, Caro, my friend whom I met at the El Camino hostel, invited me to stay with her. We had a great time snorkeling in natural pools and also went to that western town where that day they were celebrating an indigenous custom of praising the island with a tree branch swung into the seawater. There is no celebration in Spain without a little reggaeton party. Here’s a picture of my beautiful friend and her baby celebrating the custom as well as a glimpse of the party.
Fuerteventura
And then as a last stop on my Canary adventures there was Fuerteventura – as there were no affordable flights from Gran Canaria. With the fast ferry, it took 3 hours to get there.
I arrived in the south of the island at this strange place that resembled a collection of immense cruise ships stranded and transformed into hotels. However, the snorkeling was very good, I must say, and I never encountered fish swarms as large as there. The island appeared to be a mix of tourists and immigrants working for them. To me, the island had a bit a strange vibe, but I was also very sleep deprived and maybe not in the best spot to grasp.
The desert landscape on Fuerteventura is on another level.There is not much growing apart from irrigated palms and some few awkward standing out green gardens.
All life on that island depends on external help. Water is desalinated from sea water and food (apart form some wine and few raised goats) is imported on big ships. On top, life needs to be wind-resistant because the island gets a lot of wind, like a lot. It’s not optimal conditions to sleep in a tent on the beach. I’m not sure how I survived that night in retrospect. I didn’t get much sleep, that’s for sure. Also, I had a bit too much of that vegan cheese, which didn’t help. Anyway, I went for a beautiful run the next morning and then made my way to the bigger town next to the airport in the center of the island. I relaxed and snorkeled a bit on the reefs there before heading to the airport. There, I found myself a nice sleeping spot for camping the night before the early flight the next morning. However, my plan didn’t quite work out. I didn’t consider that small airports like this one close at night. So, this very sorry-looking guard woke me up at 2 am, telling me that I needed to leave the airport immediately. He offered me a lift outside the gates of the airport while telling me his life story and about his relatives in Galicia. He also gave me tips on where to spend the night best and when I could come back to the airport. So, I followed his advice, slept in this quiet bus station, and set an alarm to get back to the airport at 5 am. What a night. Can check camping at a bus stop off my not existing list. The next day, after coming from Fuerteventura, landing in the lush northeast of Spain felt like entering a different world.
A glimpse of lush Galicia rushing by:
