The “Aquasur” finally turned into “Aqualand” in the course of the years and makes the largest leisure park of the isle by now. Covering a surface area of about 90.000 square metres this theme park aims at offering a great amount of water- based attractions such as for example more than 30 water slides. There is a certain area addressing at children which also contains a great variety of the park’s mascot, the “Aqualand”- ape.

Another amazing attraction is the famous “Tornado”, a closed flume entertaining visitors by presenting light- and sound effects while sliding. Furthermore there are tourist features like the “Mamut” for four persons, the “Crazy Race” with nine parallel water slides, a “mini park” for kid, the two “Kamikaze” slides (meaning high speed), “Rapids” as special rafting adventures as well as “Aquamania”, “Congo River” and a swimming pool with artificial waves for relaxing.

Situated at a tropical oasis in the southern part of the isle “Aqualand” is not far away from Maspalomas and is open to the public all- season because of its advantageous constantly warm temperatures.

Without renting a hire car the amusement park is approachable by using public transport. So there are two bus routes, one of them line 45 (Playa del Ingles / San Agustin) and the other one line 70 (Puerto Rico / Faro Maspalomas).

PICTURE SOURCE : www.canarias7.es – Borja Suárez

Not a ‘million dollar, baby,’

but 380 mil. € is the estimated budget of the project for the new Gando Airport Runway. The president of the Gran Canaria Council, José Miguel Pérez, advanced yesterday some details of the project that soon will be presented by the ‘furtherance ministry’.

The time-frame is estimated to be 38 months but the beginning hasn’t been determined yet. The new runway will be connected to the actual one and will have a length of 1.100 meters and will also be suitable for class F aircrafts, like the new Airbus A380.
This new runway will make Gran Canaria a very important enclave for trans atlantic flights.

Well…, though good for us on the one side, the environmental impact of this will be also considerable.

if not the most famous, ‘fiesta’ on Gran Canaria is “La Rama“, which literally means ‘the branch’ but is at the same time short for “La Bajada de la Rama” or ‘the descent of the branch’, is held every year in August 4th, which would be tomorrow.

Traditionally the celebration is about going up the valley of Agaete dancing to the sound of a marching band, getting some tree branches, previously taken from trees in the ‘tamadaba forrest’, and taking them down (always dancing) to the ‘port of Las Nieves’ (the port of Agaete) to Our Lady of Las Nieves, who reside in the port hermitage, as an offering, after hitting the ports’ waters with them.

The mayor and the different neighbourhood associations of Agaete have decided not to carry branches this year, as a gesture of solidarity for the catastrophe suffered by the island due to the forrest fires. Only a few selected people, the usual devotees, will carry some, and the rest will get green handkerchiefs at the same place where they would normally get their branch.

Wow…, i got no words for this…
That is a really really nice gesture.

listening to the constant radio reports about the fires i didn’t realize how close the fire was to Maspalomas until my mother gave me a call and told me: “…go out and take some pictures of the red sun…”. So i took my cam and went outside and saw that the smoke was almost over us. The smell of burnt wood was impossible to go unnoticed:

I couldn’t really see much, so i took my car and went to higher grounds, i made it a few kilometers above ‘El Salobre’, the neighbourhood over ‘El Tablero’. Here is what i saw:

Really sad

which was aparently controlled, was stoked up due to the high temperatures and the extreme wind that hit us last night. The municipality of Mogan got the worst part, since there have been people evacuated from their homes to avoid human casualties. Almost 60 to 70 homes have been already affected by the fire and around 2000 people evacuated. The towns of Ayacata, La Plata, Veneguera, Barranquillo de San Andrés and Cercados de Araña are within the heavily affected area.

The area burnt until yesterday was about 3500 hectares, wich should be unfortunately way over 4000 hectares. Lets hope all the firemen and all volunteers manage to extinguish it as soon as possible.

Some of the evacuated people shelter at the beach in ‘Mogan Playa’ were the ashes carried by the wind fall to their feet.
In Maspalomas we had 42º degrees at midnight with extreme strong wind gusts and now we are at 47º.

46º degrees as you see on the picture showed the thermometers this midday in Maspalomas. The streets were almost desert and those who had the courgage or the obligation to walk the streets looked like they were being tortured.
This, so called, ‘CALIMA’ is warm sticky air from the sahara is not unusual here but seldom reaches as high as today.

The extreme heat favour the formation of forest fires which have been the order of these last few days. There was one in Mogan a few days ago and a bigger one in the center of the isle, talking over to the municipalities of San Bartolomé De Tirajana and Tejeda. In Spite of the 3500 hectare that it has already burnt down the president of the Gran Canaria Council if confident that it should be controlled by todays evening.

Wow, that is some sad news.
The bad thing is, that the fire was set by forest ranger who was about to get fired next month.

here on the isle, and everywhere else. The simpsons make it to hollywood in “The Simpsons Movie”. The official release date is this friday (27/07/07) but some theatres will screen it tomorrow. This weekend was the pre-release in the small town of Springfield, in the US state of Vermont, who won the airing of this movie in their town after a voting contest with 13 other Springfields’.

Yesterday was the premiere in L.A.(California) with about 300 invited guests. The Simpsons as a show for its own celebrate this year their 18 years of airing, with 400 episodes yet aired in 18 seasons, but “the Simpsons-franchise” celebrate their 20th birthday since it first started to see the light in April 1987 in “The Tracey Ullman Show”.

Whatever your age, sex, political orientation or religion is, i think this movie will be great!!

I’m back again yeeaayy!! hahaha
I have been very busy the last months and I just wanted to start over again with some good news.

Therefore, here I go. The ‘port of Mogan‘ and the ‘Amadores beach‘, both in the municipality of Mogan, have been awarded once again with the so called "blue flag", which is given by the ‘Federation for Environmental Education’ for excelcent quality, cleanliness, accessibility and security of their waters and beaches.

The other "blueflagged" beaches on Gran Canaria are: the ‘Las Canteras‘ beach in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, the ‘Melenara‘ beach in Telde and the beaches of ‘San Agustín‘, ‘Playa del Inglés‘ and ‘Maspalomas‘ in San Bartolomé de Tirajana.
The other "blueflagged" ports are: the port of ‘Pasito Blanco‘ in the municipality of San Bartolomé de Tirajana and the only "blueflagged" non coastal area is the nature park of the ‘Dunes of Maspalomas‘, also in San Bartolomé

That’s nice, huh?? 27 beaches and 3 ports are "blueflagged" this year on the entire archipielago.

Don’t think it’s intentionally but a students life is busy while the exams last.
Please be patient, i finish this Tuesday and hopefully be posting again from then onwards

Thank you, Rayco.

Don’t get alarmed tonight,

if the entire island seems to be submerged in chaos with bonfires everywhere. We are neither under attack nor have been hit by a meteor shower.
If you don’t have nothing to do tonight, i higly recomend you wherever you are on the isle, but specially those near to the Playa del Inlges (San Bartolomé) and the Canteras (Las Palmas) beaches to visit these beaches around 12:00 PM.

Like every year in june, normally coinciding with days around the summer solstice, the night of the 23rd to 24th, we celebrate
“San Juan”. In this peculiar festivity there is a large fireworks spectacle and people make huge bonfires almost everywhere but the bigest are seen at the beaches. This was originally made to “strengthen the sun”, since the days will get shorter every day until the winter solstice.

You should witness this festivity, it is very spectacular.

at 12:00 PM i got a tip from a “source” i have telling me a light plane was at the beach of Playa del Águila at the south of the isle. I drove over there and to my surprise i saw a floatplane being pulled out of the water by the firemen. Specifically it was Lake Seawolf Renegade.

The pilot was forced to land on the water after using up all hise fuel. Aparently hedid nothing wrong beside that, since he had all his documents in order, but then police found out that he had thrown out the plane several bales of cocain. The 40 year old uruguayan pilot, who said he came from the Sahara, was initially set free last night, but was aprehended this morning with a few carafes of kerosene, in order to refill the planes’ tanks and flee

Police has retrieved several bales one of them of 25kg of weight, of estimated 200kg, and the search continued through all the day supported by and red cross speedboat and a helicopter.

Wow, what you think about that?? Lotta mafia-like stuff going on lately…. Here are some exclusive pictures y managed to take:

One of these days i’ll finish uploading all the info on the main page on appartments and homes to rent, hotels, cottages, etc… here on Gran Canaria. When i have everything uploaded i’ll post again with all the main links, but i think you’ll find it very interesting to have a look at its’ content.

Stay tuned for the upcoming info.

and you’re planing to take a trip to Las Palmas, i would highly recomend you the ‘old part’ of the city, Vegueta. In this beautiful area, which is being renewed to be only pedestrian, you can find the market of Vegueta and several restaurants in which you can enjoy typical canarian food. I personally would recomend you “El Herreño”.

The streets of Vegueta are very beautiful, have a look:

You can also find in Vegueta, the “house of Columbus” which is a museum about Chistopher Columbus.

the rest of the Tejeda pictures i posted yesterday. Oh and, by the way, Tejeda is highly recomendable visiting at any time of the year, specially after some rainy days when the weather is sunny again.

Thanks again to Josele, for the great pictures…

finally i manage to post again. I’m really sorry for this unmeant break. Things came together all at the same time, construction works at home, refurbishment, college works,… :S
I’ll hopefully be able to manage it so this won’t happen again.

As a matter of ‘reward’ i post you this awesome pictures a friend took for me of Tejeda, at our islands heart. I’ll post some now and the rest on another post, since they’re a lot.
I was just as astonished as you’ll be after going through them:

Josele, thanks for the pictures…

…yeah, it rained this morning. After a sunny hot summerday, nothing better then a slight rainfall to clean up the air. After watching the F1 race my mom told me to get my camera out and take some pictures. So…i took out a large tripod and went out to hunt some raindrops.

Here’s the result:

The last one might be one of the best shots i’ve ever taken…
What do you think…? Gimme some comments on that…

i had the chance to take a trip with a friend on a Cessna, flying over the south of Gran Canaria, and i have to say it was just great. And as you might have noticed it seems that i have always my camera with me…
Here are some of the best shots i took:

Thanks for the ride Krile…

but plain reality. During last weekend the SEPRONA, the "nature protect division" of the Guardia Civil found two snakes at two different locations on Gran Canaria. One in a home at the ‘Rafael Cabrera str.’ in Las Palmas and another one in the municipality of Valsequillo.

The one found in Las Palmas was a young ‘Python‘ of more than 1m length. The second one found in a natural reserve called “La Higuera Canaria“, in Valsequillo, was an albino ‘California Kingsnake‘. The Guardia Civil is doing some researches to find the last tenant of the home since the snake was found by the owner after the tenant left.

Both snakes were given to the ‘Crocodile Park’ in Agüimes where they’re kept correctly and safely.

have left behind a very beautiful landscape. I went a few days ago to the ravine of Guayadeque to a BBQ and took some amazing pictures i think.

Have a look at them and judge for yourself:

We’ll be pleased if you post your opinion in a comment

The kids’ name is Yeremi Vargas, he is 7 years old and disappeared last saturday in Vecindario (Santa Lucia) around midday. The entire island is alerted, since the last time when the girl Sara Morales disappeared too.

The “Guardia Civil”, the local police, the “Proteccion Civil” and several other security forces are working non-stop to finde this “little fella”. The search was first just Vecindario but now it extended also to the municipalities of Agüimes and San Bartolomé and their respective security forces.

So please, if you have seen this kid or have a hint that might lead to him please contact 112 inmeadiately.

have been extremely windy. Yesterday night and this morning have been even worse. The sea is extremely rough as far as i know almost around the entire isle, so be very careful. Clic on the picture to enlarge it. It’s the seaview from Las Palmas this midday.

Throttle down your speed on the highway too since it goes through vast areas with no mountains and is susceptible to strong gusts of wind.

I had problems keeping my car on the road from the aeroclub
(San Agustin, in San Bartolomé) to Vecindario (in Santa Lucia), so be careful. Watch your hats and skirts.

Look at the amazing beach day we had today in “Anfi” (Anfi Del Mar, after Arguineguín in the municipality of Mogan). 28º degrees and no sign of any wind. Just glorious.
Doesn’t this look like the damn paradise …Sure it does!!

is the last carnival weekend. Last weeks saturday the carnival queen of maspalomas was elected. Cristina Mahuego was the winning candidate wearing a dress named "La Joya del Nilo" (the Jewel of the Nile) representing the "El Muelle" Shopping Center in Las Palmas.

Yesterday night took place the Drag Queen Gala and tomorrow will be the big carnival parade going through all “Playa del Ingles”, Gran Canarias‘ “touristic heart” in San Bartolomé.

As almost every carnival event we highly recomend you to have a look at it. You surely won’t be disappointed.

between farmers and “finca” propietors have started this initiative in order to promote the culturing of this tree. It’s ment to define different varieties of this species, look for one which is better for general production purposes and eventually breed new species. They’re also in charge of establishing other ways of marketing this product, since almonds have been a very important procduct in the last decades.

The municipalities taking part in this association are mainly Tejeda and Valsequillo, but other colindant areas dedicated to this trees’ culturing.

That is a good initiative. My “tip of the hat” for these people.

more or less the first or second week of february, one of the most picturesque, atractive and traditional fests of Gran Canaria take place in Tejeda and in Valsequillo the week after. When the almond tree flowers sprout, announcing the begining of spring-time, the center of the island, where these trees grow, turns into one of the most beautiful landscapes you could possibly imagine.

Have a look at some pictures of it in Tejeda:

Thanks to Jose and his sister for the pics.

You like hanging around the pool all day long getting toasted by the sun? Sick of carrying home 2 buckets of beach sand? Got kids and tired of them brabbling all day long. Maybe this can help. AQUASUR, Gran Canarias‘ biggest water-slide park is near you. It has 13 attractions and all in all 33 slides, as well as several pools, souvenir-shops and a cafeteria within a surface of 90.000m².

Thanks to our splendid weather the park opens daily (except in case of bad weather conditions) from 10:00 to 17:00. Adults pay 22,50€ and kids pay 16,00€ and it’s situated on the road to “Palmitos Park” km 3. You can get here also by bus, taking line 45 or line 70, depending where you’re coming from.

Try it!! You and your kids will enjoy it.

Among many other things to be done in the future, this is the most extraordinary one. In a term of 5 to 15 years, more than 3.000 hectares of different species of trees are going to be reforested. The actual wood grounds are estimated to 14.000. Therefore and after some documents dealing with protected areas are ratified, Gran Canaria will gain a third of its actual wood grounds.

Mainly pine-trees and other species common in thermophilic woods are to be reforested. The areas where it’s going to be done first are:
- The "Nublo" rural park, extended throughout 8 municipalities: Tejeda, San Nicolás de Tolentino, Mogán, San Bartolomé de Tirajana, Artenara, San Mateo, Valleseco and Moya.

- The "Tamadaba" natural park, concerning Agaete and San Nicolás de Tolentino.

- The "Pilancones" natural park, in San Bartolomé de Tirajana.

- The "Los Marteles" natural reserve, also extended throughout 8 municipalities: Valsequillo, San Bartolomé de Tirajana, Agüimes, Santa Lucía de Tirajana, Telde, Ingenio, San Mateo and Tejeda.

- The protected landscape of "Pino Santo", in Santa Brígida.

That is a great initiative. Great news, thumbs up.

i went to Arucas with friends, to have some coffee after lunch. We had it at a cafeteria right next to the cathedral and as i always carry around my camera, i could not resist shooting some pictures. As the fasade of the church says the first stone was set in 1909 and was not finished until 1917.

Have a look at them, from the outside and mainly the mosaic cristal work:

How about the “tasartico”camping, in the municipality of San Nicolas. It is a very calm place and has exceptional views. Check ‘em out: