We Arrive

Our trip this year did not begin well, and hasn’t shown much sign of getting better. 

It started with a lost day. We flew WestJet for the first time, from little London to Toronto on a puddle-jumper, then to London Gatwick on WestJet’s fairly new trans-Atlantic service. It meant an easy, uncrowded check-in in London and no security or baggage drop-off hassles in Toronto. Our bags would be checked through to Gatwick. The best part: no tedious, bumpy ride in a RobertQ bus to Toronto. All good. To a point.

The flight out of London was first delayed because of weather, a relatively minor winter storm, it seemed to us. Then when we were on the runway, a little over an hour late, ready to take off, the pilot reported a minor equipment malfunction – a light on the instrument panel that should have gone off, but hadn’t – and we had to turn back. The new delay, waiting for a technician to come out and fix it, meant we would miss our connection in Toronto. 

The WestJet ground crew made a valiant effort to get us to England in time to make our EasyJet flight to Gran Canaria the following day, but it was not to be. The agent had actually booked us on a British Airways flight leaving later in the evening and was prepared to send us by cab to Toronto – all at WestJet’s expense. But by the time he’d made all the arrangements, we realized we didn’t have time to get to Toronto, especially with the weather. So they booked us on the same flights the next day, and sent us home in a cab.

We had to change our EasyJet flight to Gran Canaria, to the following day – at a cost of about $270. And we had to cancel our hotel reservation at Gatwick (at no cost, luckily) and rebook a different, but more expensive hotel. 

The next day, everything went smoothly. We’d been upgraded to WestJet Plus – business class: bigger seats near the front, free booze and quite decent food, priority boarding. And the flight was the fastest trans-Atlantic flip I can remember: 6 hours and a few minutes. So that was all good. We even slept a little. Then we got to Gatwick.

We’d booked a room for the night at the Sofitel right at the North Terminal because our flight to Gran Canaria left really early the next morning. It took us five minutes to walk to the hotel from the terminal. We were prepared for them not having a room ready – it was only about 9:30 a.m. We weren’t prepared for them having a room available but refusing to give it to us before the nominal check-in time of 2 p.m. – unless we paid an additional £60 (about $100.) The room had cost $149. Basically, extortion. At first, I said no. But Karen couldn’t bear the thought of hanging around the airport for five hours. So we caved. The room, which we would have for about 20 hours, less time than somebody checking in at 2 pm and out the next day at noon, was just okay – for $250! This is a new scam in our experience. I’m guessing most people in our position, coming off a red-eye from North America, would be forced to accept the same bait-and-switch.  Shame on Sofitel! We’ll never book it again.

We did sleep. We read our newspapers. We went for a walk around the North Terminal – very exciting! Later in the day, as early as we could justify, about 6 pm, we had a surprisingly nice, if over-priced, dinner in one of the restaurants in the hotel. The Sofitel is a circular building with a central courtyard where the reception and restaurants are. Rooms overlook the courtyard or look out over the airport. (Ours looked in.) We went to bed early, rose very early, 5:15 am, and caught our rebooked EasyJet flight to Gran Canaria.

Where we hit the next snag. 

We’d rented a studio apartment for a few nights – one of which we’d alredy missed – in Las Palmas, the big city on Gran Canaria. It was right on Las Canteras beach, on a pedestrian-only promenade. Our very nice host, Andrew, a young Brit, showed us around the tiny, badly furnished but well-equipped flat, and at the end, said, ‘Now for the bad news, guys.’ Turns out there was a glitch in the electrics. Every now and then the power would cut out. This was a new problem, Andrew said. He’d had an electrician there just before we arrived, but he couldn’t fix it. 

View from 8th floor flat looking along Las Canteras beach

The main kitchen circuit, with the hot water heater, stove and fridge – who puts all those things on one circuit? – would cut out, taking the flat’s power with it. We’d have to unplug the water heater, the supposed cause of the problem, he told us, flip the power back on, wait ten minutes – it turned out to be much longer – and then flip the kitchen breaker back on and plug the hot water heater in again. The worst of it was that every time the power went out, which was often, it took out the already iffy 3G-based Internet service, which took a l-o-o-ng time to come back.

Outside of our flat on Paseo de las Canteras

So. We couldn’t use the kitchen. We moved the microwave into the bathroom and warmed up the pre-cooked chicken we’d bought at Mercadona and had it with a salad that first night. Karen later braved a shower but still had hot water when she got out, surprising given the boiler had been off much of the day. We did a couple of walks along the Paseo de las Canteras. Very pretty beach, lots of bars and restaurants and tourist shops. But not really our thing. Why did we book here? Can’t remember. 

Paseo de las Canteras

The next morning, I emailed Andrew and told him the conditions in the flat were unacceptable and we would have to have a partial refund. He almost immediately emailed back and said he understood our frustration and would give us a full refund. Wow. Free, if crappy, accommodation.

Public art: downtown Las Palmas

Playa de las Canteras

The long-range weather report was grim: rain every day, all day for the next week or more. Carnivale was supposed to be on, a big deal in the Canaries, but many of the events had been cancelled because of the bad weather. Andrew said, ‘Yeah, they seem to think this is apocalyptic.’ We certainly saw little sign of festivities. 

But that day, our only full day in Las Palmas, turned out pleasant: sun and cloud, a couple of very brief misty showers, high teens, low 20s – about what we expected in Gran Canaria. We went for a long walk south along the beach to Cuidad Jardin, a mid-town neighbourhood with a nice municipal garden, past large commercial docks and a marina bristling with masts. We saw a cluster of little training sail boats scudding out across the harbour. Las Palmas, a city of almost 400,000, is in part strung out along a point, with the Atlantic on both sides. 

Cargo ships at commercial port in Las Palmas

Our ultimate destination was Triana and the Vegueta, the only old sections of the city – and not very old, this is mostly a city of the 20th century. We had lunch in Triana, just off a bustling pedestrian-only shopping street, at a typical Spanish eatery filled with locals out for their Sunday lunch. Not haute cuisine by a long shot but good value. As usual we had the fixed price lunch: three courses for €11. 

Cathedral of Santa Anna

The Cathedral of Santa Anna, a little further on in the Vegueta, is quite pretty on the outside. It wasn’t open, and apparently rarely is. The squares and narrow cobbled streets around it are pretty too. We searched for a modern art gallery noted in our guidebook, but it too appeared to be closed. Good thing we enjoy walking. We cabbed back to the flat. When I told the cabbie the address, he said, basically, that’s a long street, how am I supposed to know where your number is? Ah, because you’re a cabbie and this is your city?

Bishop's Palace

Near cathedral

Andrew was having the electrician in again the next morning at 10, so we had to leave a little earlier than planned. Fair enough, we were no longer paying guests; Andrew had already sent through the refund. He walked us over to a nearby square and hailed us a cab. Andrew is a keeper. We need more Airbnb hosts like him.

Our itinerary was to cab out to the airport, pick up the rental car we would have for the next four weeks and drive to Las Vegas, to our mountain villa. Despite our bad experience with Europcar last year in Scotland, we had rented from them again, again through an online agency. They tried the same trick as Sofitel. We had booked the car for 1 pm. We got there before 11. The desk agent said, oh, our car wouldn’t be ready until 1, but we could upgrade to a bigger car that was available – at €10 more a day. We cooled our heels in the airport for two hours, reading our devices, feet up on the suitcases.

We relied on a crappy freebie GPS app to get us to Las Vegas. It was supposed to take us first to a Mercadona (our favourite Spanish supermarket chain – home of €2 Cava) in Telde, the major town a few miles down the mountain from our rental. Except the GPS forgot to take us to the grocery store. We arrived at Las Vegas an hour early, after many wrong turns and back-trackings, most due to the program’s inability to keep up – it would give us directions to turn after we’d passed the intersection. Or its inability to count exits from round-abouts. ‘Take the second exit.’ Except it was actually the third, or the first. We drove back and found the Mercadona, did a huge shop and arrived in Las Vegas at about the right time. Carlos, our host, met us at the house and showed us around.

It’s a lovely place, large, three bedrooms, nicely finished inside. There’s a huge walled, tiled terrace with tables and chairs, loungers, barbecue oven, lemon trees, cool carved wooden chair. The beds are comfortable, the bedding okay. The kitchen is reasonably well equipped. Most of the furnishings appear to have come from Ikea and are fairly new. Carlos seemed a nice fellow, spoke English, not fluently but well enough. 

The bad news? The place is a little out of the way, in a village half way up the mountain. It’s a good half hour by car to the coast. It’s also, right now, quite a bit cooler and damper than the coast – closer to 10C than 20, with off-and-on light rain as we were driving up. There is no central heating. Only one of the two space heaters provided works. And two wouldn’t be enough to heat such a large open space anyway. I’ve requested more heating. 

The mid- and long-range weather forecasts have not improved, but the next day, the Sunday, was supposed to be sunny, if cool. And it was. 

We set out a little after 11 for San Mateo, home of a famous farmer’s market. It's further up the mountain, via a steep switch-back road with a posted speed limit of only 40 kph, and traffic mostly moving slower. The town was jammed with visitors. The market itself was shoulder-to-shoulder with shoppers, buying mostly locally-grown vegetables, fruit and herbs. We picked up odd-looking, Christmas-tree-shaped carrots and a few herbs. Outside the market building, there were stalls selling the usual cheap clothes, doo-dads, CDs, etc. This was not a tourist attraction, though. The crowd, I would guess, was 95% local. 

It took us over half an hour to get out of town because of traffic jams. Our next destination was Tejeda, a picturesque mountain village – still further up the mountain – that Andrew had recommended for a shop selling almond sweets and our book recommended for the views. (Gran Canaria is a big almond producer and there is an almond blossom festival, usually about now, but probably on hold because of the cool, rainy weather.) Along the way, we stopped at Cruz de Tejeda, the highest point in the mountain pass that gets you from San Mateo to Tejeda. It’s another spot known for fabulous mountain views. And they are great, but there was an icy wind blowing and the temp was probably below 10C here. Colourfully decorated donkeys were taking children for rides, there was a mini-farmer’s market. It was a Sunday outing type of place, with mostly local tourists, but a few foreigners.

Panoramic view of Cruz de Tejeda

Tejeda is a pretty village, with more great mountain views. By now the sky was perfectly clear, the sun shining warmly. We walked around the village centre and then selected a restaurant in the sun across from the church. They served a lot of typical Canarian food and had a special platter for tourists with five of the most popular dishes in tapas sizes: papas con mojos (salty little whole potatoes with a tangy tomato-based sauce), salty whole mini-green peppers (not hot), a chicken and chickpea stew, meatballs in tomato-based gravy and big wedges of a fresh local cheese. A pretty good deal for €10 each and another €1.60 for a perfectly decent glass of white wine. The food took an absurdly long time to come, though, and by the time it did, a cool wind had come up, making it a little uncomfortable for sitting out.

Stopping for tapas

Tejeda: more mountain views

We had fun, though, watching the people walk by. Foreginers were probably in the majority here. It was interesting to see the differences in how people reacted to the weather. Some, the Canarians and other Spaniards presumably, were wearing toques and puffy coats and scarves, and were still shivering. We also saw a couple of Northern Europeans in shorts – mad Scandinavians probably. By the time we finished lunch and had a last look around, it was after 4, and it was past 5 by the time we had retraced our route and got back home.