Gran Canaria... Days 1 and 2

And here is the reason why I eventually got my blog under way! My holiday to Gran Canaria!

We flew to Gran Canaria on the morning of 20 March 06 and landed in sunny GC (Gran Canaria) around lunch-time. After finding our taxi and taking a hair-raising ride to our "home" for the next ten days, our holiday started. I know some people reckon the holiday starts at the airports, but after our journey, I prefer to think of our holiday starting at the bungalow where we were to stay.
So our holiday started at El Palmeral Bungalows in an area of GC called Campo International, which is just north of Maspalomas (southern part of the island). The picture to the left is of the pool area between palms, but in the background one can sortof see the bungalows. The picture below is of the pool and bar area. Photo taken at a quiet time, usually the area was crawling with people!










The first night in GC we ate out at one of the local resturants in the local shopping area (Faro2). I tried the squid steaks which turned out to be lovely...yum yum. The potatoes were also nice but beware if you don't like salty things as the potatoes were caked in salt! Bit much for me.
End Day 1! Enjoyed the warmth, sunshine and blue skies!

Morning of Day 2 we set off in search of the beach and the sea! Since we were a bit away from the beach we had about a half hour walk before reaching the beach itself (the walk was leisurely!). Our aim for the morning was to reach the LIGHTHOUSE! Our walk towards the beach took us along a pathway beside a canal (which was pretty dry) which lead (eventually) into an estuary. On the one side of the canal we had houses/shops etc and on the other side DUNES! lovely. Anyway, here are some scenes from our walk (before reaching the beach).


Left :Some camels! One could go on a camel safari
if one so desired!

Right: The estuary and dunes in background.

Once getting to the beach we turned right to go through a market place and towards the lighthouse! Unfortunately we got "hi-jacked!". Nothing too serious, just some people trying to sell "timeshare"- Some holiday thing where you hand money over and then get cheap holidays whenever you want (we never saw the fine print!). So, yes, we got caught in to going and chatting to the "dealer" and finding out about this scheme. It took about 2 hrs of chatting before we managed to escape, however we didn't leave with empty hands - we managed to get two t-shirts (although I seem to have lost mine already! Mom? Was going to play squash in that, or even better do the gardening in it!). We also managed to leave with two bottles of white wine which didn't taste too bad and some watches (oooh!! I won't describe those! Let us say they were not real gold!). Oh, and we left with information about the island, so not a total loss! After leaving though we didn't have time to get to the lighthouse as we were hungry and our food was back at the bungalow, so back "home" we went.

And now the brain becomes fuzzy! (is this a sign of a good holiday! Day 2 and forgetting what I did!).

Based on the photographs, and assuming most are in order, I think we went for a walk past Faro 2 (the shopping centre) and towards the "Wednesday Market" place (just to see where it was).

On the way back we walked through a lovely garden area in which there were roses (left pic) ...

...and a lovely view towards the centre of the island (right pic).

And now I must post this as I have work to get on with in the next couple of minutes. Next part will follow in the near future...