Gran Canaria

These images were taken on a trip to Las Palmas on Gran Canaria, one of the Canary Islands off the north west coast of Africa and part of Spain.  The African city of Marrakech is actually further north than Gran Canaria, the climate being most definitely tropical and bordering on desert.  The capital and main centre is Las Palmas, there are seven main islands in the group, including Tenerife and Lanzarote; popular UK holiday destinations.

The couple before me in the hire car queue made the mistake of taking a flight to Las Palmas but their holiday was on the island of La Palma – oops.  When I go away on business, I always try to get some time for myself, often rather than get a taxi from the airport, I take the extra pain of getting a hire car.  This has the benefit of being completely free to explore, but it has to be said, parking around the populated areas is the worst I’ve experienced, even worse than Cambridge!  I drove around for ages until I found a vacant space in a quiet place behind some buildings, a short walk from the hotel.

The bad news, I got a ticket!  The good news, once the hotel had helped me to use an automatic ticket machine, was the fine of only €4.00!  Gran Canaria is the tip of a submerged volcano, essentially round and the centre is the volcanic crater.   Clearly, once you get away from the towns and city, water is a problem, with little rainfall, farming must be very harsh.  The scenery is extremely varied for such as small land mass; vibrant towns, massive sand dunes and beaches, rugged volcanic rocks and sunlight throughout the day once you get above the clouds at high altitude.

Tourism is a major contributor to the economy and I usually tend to avoid these places, but if work takes me there, I try and look for the best of any location by exploring where my heart takes me and I’m rarely disappointed.  There’s always something that you see when carrying a camera; what struck me about these images and Spain in general, is the COLOUR!

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