Rain

It rained, hard, our second night in the villa and most of the next morning, Monday. After lunch, it began to clear, so we went out, first for a walk around the village. There’s not much to it, although there is a highly recommended restaurant just up the street. People come from Las Palmas for it, Carlos told us. 

Streets of Valsequillo

We got in the car and drove to Valsequillo, the next town down the mountain. Las Vegas is actually a suburban precinct of Valsequillo. Valsequillo is not without charm. I liked the quirky bronze statues dotted around town: children playing, a compesino standing in the street eating a pear, a dude lounging in a chair, petting his dog. Nice views over the Barranco de Miguel, which lies between the two villages. 

View across Barranco de Miguel from Valsequillo

Streets of Valsequillo

There’s a walking route from Las Vegas to Valsequillo that appears to go down into the ravine and back up the other side. It supposedly takes about 50 minutes. But the path, where it starts just below our villa, is muddy from all the rain. We’re beginning to realize there may not be as much country walking as we had planned. All the paths will be sodden, mucky in some places, downright dangerous where they go over rock, I’m guessing.

We explored Valsequillo a little, found a Chinese-run dollar store and bought a tea ball for Karen and a battery for our Apple TV remote. My, we have exciting times when we’re over here! Then we decided we might as well drive to the coast.

Before we left the house, the weather report for the airport, which is on the coast a little south of where we turn off for Las Vegas, said it was 11C there. By the time we got on the GC1, the expressway that runs along the coast, it felt quite a bit warmer, certainly in the car with the sun baking through the windscreen. 

We headed for Playa del Ingles, about 30 kilometers south. By reputation, it’s  one of the worst of the high-rise tourist towns, but we thought, what the hell, there was nothing else to do and it was bound to be warmer there than in our villa, which is frigid. As we drove into town, we noticed people in shorts and t-shirts, then Karen spotted a pixel board – 26C! We knew the weather changed as you headed south down the coast, but this much?

Playa del Ingles

Playa del Ingles is truly awful, miles of hotels, condo towers, beachside restaurants, bars and tacky tourist shops. But it was warm. We each shed two or three layers of clothes and walked down to the beach promenade and along it until we found a bar with a table in the sun. We sat there for less than an hour over a beer and a wine, enjoying the spirit-reviving warmth – although not so much the tacky ambience. Everybody except the wait staff was from northern Europe.

And then we drove home. It was dark by the time we got to Telde, so the drive up the mountain to Las Vegas was a little different. I’m starting to get used to the route, though. It wasn’t that much worse than in the light.

It rained hard that evening. It was raining whenever I woke in the night. And it has rained most of today, Tuesday. These are not the light showers we experienced on Lanzarote last year, but hard, driving rain. No wonder the Gran Canarians think the apocalypse has come. I went out late in the afternoon to see if I could buy an electric kettle and teapot in Valsequillo. Carlos has agreed to reimburse us for these items. I convinced him that other northern European renters would want them too. It was miserable out. And I couldn’t find either item. 

Karen, meanwhile, now has a full-blown cold. We didn’t come on the Sloop John B, but this probably is the worst trip we’ve ever been on. 

Late in the evening, Carlos, with a little prompting from me, came over with some additional heating. It was enough to make the interior bearable. It rained in the night again, and rained much of the morning, including some hard, drenching showers. And yet the sun came out a couple of times too. We’re heading for the beach today, back to Maspalomas for the dunes – and, we hope, warmth.

Dunes Reserve, Maspaloma

Later. We did go to Maspalomas to the Dunes Reserve where you can walk in hilly dunes formed with sand dredged up from the Atlantic. When you’re in a trough and can’t see the highrise hotels surrounding the reserve, you could almost be in the Sahara. 

Dunes Reserve, Maspaloma

We walked along the beach from the south end of the reserve, a long way, taking little forays into the dunes for photography. It wasn’t as warm as on our first trip here two days before – below 20C, with a stiff breeze blowing. Still, better than 14C and driving rain in Las Vegas. We sat on the beach and ate our picnic lunch. As we were finishing, the breeze picked up and the sky got dark. We’d already had a few sprinkles of rain. We cut across the northern end of the reserve, with a stiff wind blowing misty rain, and climbed some stairs to a promenade overlooking the dunes. By which time the sun was back out.  More photography ensued.

Dunes Reserve, Maspalomas

At one point, we came to a place where we either had to go back down into the sand, which we didn’t fancy, or walk up a paved path towards a condo complex. We thought we’d be able to just walk up and find a road running parallel to the beach, and could walk along it to where we’d parked the car. Not so. It ended up being a 90-minute-plus trek out around a huge golf course and resort complex through miles of suburban streets of vacation bungalows in gated communities. We were foot weary and cranky by the time we got back to the car.

One thing we had never imagined about Gran Canaria was that there would be traffic jams. But there are. All the time. We hit bumper-to-bumper traffic on the GC1 heading back towards the airport. No idea what was causing it. No construction, no sign of accident. By the time we got to Telde, the sky had come down and there was driving rain. I’m wondering if the wussy Canarian drivers were spooked by the heavy rain. 

We thought we were headed to Telde to an El Corte Ingles (the Hudson’s Bay of Spain) to buy an electric kettle for the house. Turns out we were actually being directed to a shopping mall in suburban Las Palmas. By the time we got to the city, there was a deluge – although the traffic was now moving well. 

The El Corte Ingles was in a huge shopping complex with free indoor parking. We found our kettle, went upstairs to a discount store called Hipercor and bought a cheap teapot. Missions accomplished, we headed back to Telde. The temperature in Las Palmas, we figured, was about 10 degrees colder than it had been in Maspalomas in the middle of the afternoon.

By the time we got back to Telde, where we were going to do a big shop at Mercadona in preparation for Caitlin and Bob arriving the next day, the rain was constant and heavy. Our crappy GPS couldn’t direct us correctly to the Mercadona, kept miscounting exits from a roundabout and sending us haring off in the wrong direction. We finally found the store, shopped and headed for home – still in driving rain. It let up just as we were coming into Las Vegas, so at least we were able to unload the car without being soaked.

It was after 9 by the time we got inside and settled. There, we discovered two small leaks on one wall. I texted Carlos, who phoned to say they would send someone today to put plastic on the roof. (Haven't seen any sign of this happening yet.) Not sure how that’s going to work in any case. He said he has the same problem at his house (in Valsequillo). “We normally don’t get this much rain in the Canaries. It’s crazy!”

Today, Thursday, we got up late and drove to the airport to pick up Caitlin and Bob, with whom we’re now sitting around, nattering.