GRAN CANARIA BLOG: 30/4/19 (mostly written 8/1/19)
Drunk Brits. No culture. Crap food.
Welcome to Gran Canaria...right?
I was far more excited our trip meant Leo would have visited all six continents bar Antarctica by age 3yrs 4mths (it took me to 27; didn't even fly until 21).
CULTURE...BERBERS, STONE AGE, OBLITERATION
The Canary Islands, part of continental Africa, 70miles off the coast of Western Sahara (Morocco's disputed Berlin Wall-style enclosed territory), were created just like Hawaii: Earth's plates drift over a bubbling volcanic hot spot.
Berber Africans, from mountains in Algeria and Morocco, arrived around 1,000BC. They lost the ability to navigate by sea, and - incredibly - on some islands, even to swim; strongly suggesting they migrated to flee persecution, so had no need to sail as they no wish to return from their safe haven.
They lived as a Stone Age people - 500 miles from Europe - until just 600 years ago. (This is remarkable, but I remember on Easter Island being staggered it was Stone Age until 150 years ago).
Spain then did to the Canary Islands what it would do to Mexico's Aztecs and Peru's Incas: Obliteration.
Today, it feels nothing like Africa, and more like Latin America than Spain.
FOOD...WILD PICNICS, MARMITE
We picked wild figs, almonds and cactus fruit. We picnicked on local oranges, avocados, tomatoes, cheese, ham and 'morcilla dulce' sweet sausage (blackberry truffle meets black pudding. I loved it, Nati hated it and Leo was scared of it when I chased him round the room waving it).
We - OK, I - even tried gofio (the Canaries' Marmite; fine wheat/corn/fern root flour), great served like mashed potato in fish soup, but truly vomit-worthy when toasted mixed with milk as cereal.
RAVINES, FAKE BEACHES, SPRING BEFORE XMAS
The interior, laced with spectacular 1,000-metre high ravines studded with bright green scrub, looks quite like Peru's Sacred Valley to Machu Picchu.
And it boasts magical stargazing.
The coast poses the 'fake beach' question. On an island of grey beaches, by far the best are the two with imported sand (from the Sahara and Caribbean, which probably explains why one is yellow and one orange; unfortunately they look out of place as adjacent to one another).
So they're not real beaches, they're artifical, so don't feel as satisfying. But every park could equally be called a 'fake field,' and no-one moans about a park's authenticity.
Stacked high with cliff-hugging resorts, south coast authorities seem to have disposed of the town planning manual when approving developments.
Sahara-esque dunes made Playa del Ingles bearable for a night if we ignored swarms of old German tourists sitting by the cafes facing a car park and not the beach lined with more windbreaks than a bad day at Scarborough (it faces the cold prevailing wind).
Las Palmas, the capital, once sacked by Francis Drake (hero/pirate depending on if you're English or Spanish), has a magical small old town and sweeping beach.
Spring starts so early that almond trees were in blossom before Christmas.
The cold Canaries current meant the sea was cold but swimmable in January – and keeps summer temperatures 10C more bearable than nearby Morocco
MASH-UP MAGIC, THREE KINGS CHAOS
We'd arrived at lunchtime on New Year's Eve and were dancing within minutes as a brilliant local mash-up band segued through some of my favourite songs ever – AC/DC's You Shook Me All Night Long, U2's Where The Streets Have No Name and...Corona's Rhythm Of The Night.
Leo was asleep before midnight – helped by that time being the start of the party, not the end, as it would be in the UK.
But Leo got a second Christmas as Spanish kids receive their presents from the three wise men, not Father Christmas, on Epiphany, January 6.
Melchior, Caspar and Balthazar (in case you didn't remember) were magnificent, caked in make-up with beautiful hair and beards, riding camels and throwing thousands of boiled sweets to spark a joyous frenzy during a parade with 200 Roman musicians through the mountainside old town of Aguimes.
It was a great party.
And at last I got to see a drunk Brit. I looked in the mirror.
