We live by weather forecasts here. They change almost
daily, and can’t really be trusted. Sometimes the day turns out much worse than
forecast, sometimes better. The weather, to be fair, has been very unusual for
Gran Canaria – way more rain than they ever get, apparently, and colder than normal temperatures.
On Saturday, the forecasts were for just okay conditions – partly cloudy, a
possibility of rain, which we took to mean a certainty of rain – but it turned out to be lovely, mostly sunny, with highs in
the high teens to mid 20s.
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| Pico de Baldamas, view into caldera |
Our original plan was to drive to Pico de Bandamas, a
place where you can look down into an almost perfectly round extinct volcano
crater, the Caldera de Bandamas. From there, we would drive on to Cenobia de
Valeron, an important archaeological site not far from Gáldar. That way, we
figured, we could be indoors, looking at museum displays, if, as expected,
it got rainy in the afternoon.
But it never did get rainy, or even cloudy, so...plans
changed.
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| Pico de Bandamas, view northeast to Las Palmas |
We set out after lunch. Pico de Bandamas was arguably
more driving than it was worth. It took about 40 minutes on mountain roads. But
the views are spectacular. Not so
much the view into the caldera, which is okay. It’s just a big green depression,
though, with what looks like an abandoned farm at the bottom. But from the
other side of the hill, you can see Las Palmas and its port – 15 kilometers away to the northeast – laid out
with miles of Atlantic Ocean beyond it.
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| Pico de Bandamas, view south west into mountains |
For my money, though, the best views from Pico de
Bandamas are to the south west, across a valley to a town climbing the
hillside. The clouds were hanging on the edge of the hill tops, with sun
shining through them. Very pretty. Karen and I walked around the peak a couple
of times, drinking in the views.
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| Pico de Bandamas, view south west into mountains |
There had been some kind of establishment at the very
top of the pico at one time, but it had long since closed. A fellow was selling
handmade jewelry from a table set up by his parked car. Otherwise, it was just
tourists, and not many of those. One arrived in a taxi while we were there,
which we then saw leave. We thought this a little odd. What was she going to
do? Walk down, or call another cab to come get her when she was finished?
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| Pico de Bandamas |
Since it was now sunny and almost hot, we decided to skip the archaeological site and head instead for the Jardin Canario, a botanical garden that was only a 20-minute drive from where we
were. The garden, founded by a Swedish botanist, Erik Ragnar Svensson
(1910–1973), turned out to be a real find. It is perhaps not maintained as well
as it once was – the interpretive centre was closed, for example, and there was
no sign of staff anywhere on the grounds – but it’s still impressive. It’s huge,
for one thing, with fabulous plants, and lovely walks. Best of all, it’s
free.
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| Jardin Botanico |
The garden extends into a deep ravine, the Barranco de
Guiniguada, near the town of Tafira Alta. There are walks along both sides of
the ravine, with bridges over the (dry) water course at the bottom. The
highlights were the cactus gardens, which feature a couple of stands of lovely
old dragon trees – not as old as the one in Gáldar, but still substantial.
They’ve built attractive recessed stone patios around them. There are also some
venerable prickly pears and dense cardon (Euphorbia canariensis) bushes. Cardon
is a symbol of the island.
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| Jardin Canario, cardon |
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| Jardin Canario, dragon tree with graffiti |
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| Jardin Canario, propeller trees? |
The best thing may be the giant fig tree near one of
the garden’s many shuttered buildings. Very baroque. It looks like flora from
another planet. Indeed, most of the exhibits here give you a weird sense of
other-worldliness.
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| Jardin Canario, Martian fig tree |
There were other people about, but not many. Most seemed
to be Spanish, either tourists or – at a guess – locals out for a Saturday
afternoon stroll. We saw two photo shoots underway. One, I’m guessing, was a
fellow helping a friend build her modeling portfolio. I noticed her in multiple
outfits and multiple locations. The other had as its main subject a heavily pregnant woman. The
photographer had brought props, including a giant baby bottle. At one point, we saw her posing leaning back on a stone bench, bump bared. Is
this a thing now in Spain – pregnancy photos?
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| Jardin Canario, dragon tree |
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| Jardin Canario, giant prickly pear |
We saw one mother with a young son, obviously spending
the day, doing some science learning along with their picnic. They were camped
near one of the garden’s several ponds. The boy had a little scoop net that he
was trying to catch something in. The ponds are populated with carp, turtles
and frogs.
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| Jardin Canario, loud frog |
The frogs made an incredible racket, especially given their size.
When we first came near one of the ponds, I thought it was some variety of
parrot in the surrounding trees. It reminded me of the raucous cry of the
green parrots you see all over southern Spain. But no, it was these wee frogs, less than three inches long, but sounding much bigger.
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| Jardin Canario, old fella |
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| Jardin Canario, cactus garden |
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| Jardin Canario, pine glade |
We spent almost two hours wandering about the garden,
then drove home via the Telde Mercadona.
The next day, for a change, the weather was worse than
forecast. Way worse. It called for sun and cloud in the morning, with “showers” coming in around two almost everywhere on the island.
We decided to get away early and drive to Teror,
another little mountain town with a famous basilica, some interesting
architecture and, we understood, a Sunday market. We should have time to see
the town before the rains came. And we did. But Teror was not our most
successful outing. For starters, it took an hour to get there on tortuous
switch-back roads – up the side of one ravine or caldera, down into the next
one, then up again and down into the next.
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| Teror, square behind basilica |
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| Teror, square behind basilica |
When we got there, we could find no sign of a market –
or not anything that we would consider a market. There was a large space near
the basilica that looked as if it could
have been a modern market square, but there were no stalls erected. We wondered
if possibly the market is not held during Lent. The town’s shops are also
supposed to all be open on market day, and some were this day, but by no means
all.
The basilica was also a bit of a bust. Its big claim
to fame is a 16th century statue of Our Lady of the Pine, commemorating a miraculous sighting of Mary atop a pine tree near this spot in the 1400s.
(What was she doing up there?) We
went in a side door and up to a viewing room where the statue stands, behind the altar, looking down the nave at the congregation. The figure is much like ones in
churches all over mainland Spain that they troop around at Holy Week: carved and painted
wood, an ornate gown of modern construction, mounted on a platform. I’m assuming this one
is processed through the streets of Teror at some point in the calendar.
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| Teror, basilica |
We could hear there was a service ongoing in the
church below. The other people in the viewing room were standing silently,
listening. We high-tailed it, thinking we’d come back later when the service was
over. But it turned out there was one mass after another all morning. Duh! It
was Sunday. We did go in the front doors a couple of times, and it is an
impressively ornate church for such a small and out-of-the way place. But there
was always a service on, which puts a bit of a crimp in the sightseeing.
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| Teror, wandering aimlessly |
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| Teror, main drag - tourist central |
Teror does have some distinctive architecture, mostly
concentrated on one main street, which has become a tourist mecca. Many of the
buildings have decorated closed wooden balconies, sometimes intricately carved.
The place had a weird vibe, though. It was as if the tourists milling in front of the basilica and up the three blocks of the
pedestrianized main street, didn’t really know why they were there. They seemed aimless, confused. We wondered if
many had come for the market and didn't know what to do when they found there wasn’t one.
They were going in an out of the
shops that were open, and goggling at and photographing the buildings, but
their hearts didn’t really seem to be in it. Nor were ours.
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| Teror, near basilica |
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| Teror, near basilica |
Karen and I got off the main street and explored a
little, but the historic centre is very small, and there really wasn’t much
more to see. We managed to spin it out for an hour and a half or so, but then
we collected our car from the parking garage where we’d left it and drove home
for lunch. We went back by a slightly less tedious, but longer route that took
us down to Las Palmas, where we picked up the GC1, the main highway along the
coast, and made our way back to Las Vegas the usual way.
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| Teror, off the beaten track |
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| Teror, off the beaten track |
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| Teror, off the beaten track |
It
was raining, not heavily, but enough for umbrellas, when we got back. Within a
few minutes of getting inside, though, the clouds closed in and the rain came
in torrents, for the rest of the afternoon. It was biblical. More than five hours of it.
The roof was leaking again before it finished, which it finally did about 6:30.
At one point I looked at the weather forecast for Valsequillo and under current conditions, it said, “shower.” This was no shower.
