You can pick from anything really - sailboat or catamaran are the most usual posibilities. The many harbors and marinas along the island offer something for anybodys taste.

Excursions for a whole day are a popular break from relaxing on the beach and you can choose to either explore the waters close to the island and get some spectacular views, or go out further and really get your feet wet in the clear, blue ocean.

One of the most popular cruises are trips to watch dolphins. The boats are usually equipped with binoculars for early spotting of these majestic animals.

Few other places in Europe offer such a unique opportunity and you’re always welcome to go snorkeling or diving and explore the mysteries of the sea.

Dinner cruises are a personal favorite as there is almost nothing that compares to seeing a beautiful sunset when you’re out on the ocean. Throw in good music and a wonderful meal and you truly have a perfect evening.

The truckers sell their products: every kind of vegetables, fruits, healing plants, flowers, etc.

Best of all their specialities is “chorizo del teror ” (a very hot paprika sausage). Then you can drive by Tejeda in direction to La Cumbre and enjoy a miraculous view.

It´s really worth visiting markets on Gran Canaria with their typical atmosphere and their valuable products and traditional specialities.

In Arucas they are distilling original canarian rum. You should have a shot at this. It’s delicous!

Between Gáldar and Agaete you will find a lot of caves. These are the places, the aboriginal Canarians, called “Guanches“, were living in.

The most spectacular one, I think, is the “Cueva Pintada” placed in Gáldar. You will discover cave-paintings in white, red and black colour.

The biggest cave you will see in Tunte ( San Bartolomé de Tirajana), which has been the aboriginals living room and granary.

The small and pretty city, with it’s 56.000 friendly inhabitants offers you different options to spend your time as interesting as possible.

See the awesome landscape with the rocks and green fields, blotched with flowers.
Get impressed by the magnificent Costa de Agaete!

Visit the old castle of Santa Lucia de Tirajana and get in deep touch to Gran Canarian history!
Charter a boat at Puerto de Mogan and enjoy the ocean or catch your own fish for dinner!
Rent a bike and make a trip on your own or cruise leaded by one of the locals through the villages around.

Iff you don’t like any action like this lay down at the beach and relax.

Nearly everything is possible there and people are very friendly and helpful.

For dinner you should try Mirador de Sta. Lucía, its C/ Maestro José Enriquez Hernández,

The dunes are located near the popular town of Maspalomas on the south coast of Gran Canaria and can be reached easily from there.

The region is noteworthy, as it boasts some unique plants and species of animals that are native to that area and show ties to Africa.

The lagoon of Maspalomas, which is located in the middle of the dunes, is a major bird nesting center and popular for nature lovers and bird watchers.

The contrast between the dry, yellow coloured dunes that touch the horizon and the blue ocean beyond is truly spectacular and the dunes offer some of the best and most unique hiking opportunities on the whole island.

Recently, tourism has become a bit of a problem, but great measures have been taken to preserve the fauna and flora while allowing a tourism with it´s limit.

Only some of the highlights of nature are idyllic bays and marvellous beaches, imposing cliffs, hidden paradises, majestic mountains, impressing volcanic craters, breathtaking ravines mixed with a subtropical vegetation. The isle of Gran Canaria sustains many nature reserves and national parks.

Gran Canaria has become a cosmopolitan island where all over the year numerous cultural events take place everywhere on the island. Many events of music, dance, theatre and cinema or different festivals and many carnival shows and religios events are taking place in Gran Canaria.

Due to the consciousness of tradition of the Canary Islands the origins of some of these events, or so called fiestas, lead back even to the time of the aborigines.

Most of the religios celebrations are in honor of a certain protection saint, givings thanks and heralding the end of the harvest time.

That is why you can find a lot of tourism here with a lot of hotels, appartments, restaurants, shops and tourist information points and other facilitys.

So you have to keep in mind that economically Playa del Ingles has elevated prices as it is usual for places frequented by tourists.

Playa del Ingles is especially favoured by gay people. If you like to have a drink or a party, you should take a look at the mall called Yumbo-Center.

If you prefer a calmer place for your holiday you should avoid the huge cities of Gran Canaria and visit the small villages abroad from the tourism, where you can join the traditons of the island.

It is beautifully situated on the southwest of the island and has retained much of its original charm. You wont find rambling hotel complexes here, as the government has forbidden any new buildings which are over two storeys tall. You will find a much cozier ambiance than in lots of similar villages.

Puerto de Mogán boasts a very nice fishing harbor which is connected to the lively marina through a number of canals.

That also earned the village its nickname - “Venice of the Canaries“. Along the marina you can find a multitude of restaurants and inviting bars, which are a popular stopover for yachts on their way to cross the atlantic.

Fridays are especially lively with a weekly market that attracts people from all over the island.

Additionally, it’s the perfect starting place for ferry rides to Puerto Rico and Arguineguin.

And the hills surrounding the village offer a wonderful opportunity for hikers and for those who like trekking.

The southwest and west is dominated by rocky cliffs, the coast is very varied in the north and northeast with numerous beaches and little bays. The centre of the island is hilly with a couple of high peaks and many ravines which lead to the sea.

All the Canary Islands, also Gran Canaria are known because of numerous events and celebrations. Each commune has its own patron saint celebration and other special events. And that´s why all over the year there are celbrated several fiestas fro several reasons in several places.

is known to be very bad tasting. Though the sanitary quality of the water is acceptable already, enough to be drunk, the taste is not as good to be comparable with bottled water. This is about to change.

José Luís Talavera, the production director of ‘Emalsa’, Las Palmas‘ water company, stated that they’re testing a new system at the ‘Las Palmas III‘ desalination plant which will be working in a matter of more or less a month. This new system will treat the water to achieve a better taste of it, for now its rather disgusting than tasteful.

Well, that is good news. Its only thought to be done in Las Palmas at first, for its very expensive to be done anywhere else. Either way, great news, one step more towards future.

the night of sunday, a pipe which supplies the Unelco Power station with fuel-oil, the one situated at the entrance of Las Palmas, got damaged, causing a yet unknown amount of fuel-oil to get out and affect a shore stretch of 600m at the ‘Las Gaviotas’ beach near ‘Jinamar’. The same night ‘Disa’, the company in charge of the supply, was alerted of this problem aswell as the ‘Guardia Civil’ and the local environment office.

Though, there was barely nothing to do until the next day when the diggers started to clean the sand and the adjacent land, which luckily acted as a ’sponge’, impeding huge ammounts of fuel-oil getting into the water. The cleaning works still continue today as this last two days the workers have been removing as much as possible with shovels and their bare hands. Tomorrow they will continue but with pressurizee vapor stream guns.

Here are some pictures i managed to take:

Really sad , lets just hope they’re able to clean all that mess up… :S

PICTURE SOURCE : www.canarias7.es - Borja Suárez

wasn’t hard enough, as people give up all their savings for just an opportunity to make it alive to a 1st world country, to try for a better life, risking their lives and normaly resulting in an almost certain repatriation, things like this unluckily happen more often every time.

The tragedy happened yesterday at daybreak when a ‘patera‘, those small, unstable boats, subsaharian immigrants use to get here from Africa, arrived at the ‘risco verde‘ beach in Agüimes at darkness, or at least that is what the occupants thought. What really happened is that they docked to an underwater rock formation, 20 meters off shore, which the immigrants thought to be the beach, but which in reality was surrounded by 2 meters(6 feet) of water, causing 10 of the 16 immigrants to drown.

The Chief of the ‘GEAS‘, the special group for scuba activities from the ‘Guardia Civil‘(one of our police corps), Juan Ortega Machín said that it wasn’t clear that the reason for them to drown was that they couldn’t swim since, even if they could, they all arrive exhausted and numb, packed with clothes and tend to drown instantaneously.

According to the ‘GEAS‘, 5 of the 10 casualties were said to be between age 16 and 20. The other 6 occupants survived and were taken to the hospital affected with hypoglycemia and hypothermia.

Really sad

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.

naturist association has been demanding a nudist area at the ‘Las Canteras‘ beach in Las Palmas for years, an idea that is now being overthought by the local coastal councillorship. Last July 15th was the international “swimsuitless day” and due to this the canary islands naturist association (Aniscan) wanted to state their claim for a nudist area at the ‘Las Canteras‘ beach.

Paco Ojeda, the president of Aniscan, is greatful that the Las Palmas council is going through this idea, which he stated would be a great touristic appeal for those naturists who decide to stay at the south of Gran Canaria since there are only nudist areas in this part of the isle.

Well, good news for those who like to hang around the beach in their birthday suit

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.

that the fire, though still active, is ‘under control’. It has affected 20.000 hectares and about 5000 people who start to get back to their homes progressively.

Beside the firemen/women, the emergency intervention group, civil protection and the red cross, the gando UME (military emergency unit) took also part in the extinction works with help from units from Valencia, Zaragoza and Madrid.

This has unfortunately been the worst natural disaster ever for Gran Canaria.

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.

to provide sunshine wherever it’s needed and we on Gran Canaria fortunately have plenty of it. The Red Cross organizes from this monday till mid september and initiative to help handicaped people enjoy the beach as much as we do. The “leisure at the beach program” gives people with mobility problems the oportunity to take walk at the shore or a dip of the ‘Las Canteras‘ beach in Las Palmas.

For those living in Las Palmas the program includes a “pick-up service” in the morning for those who need it and then from 11:30 till 16:30, several volunteers will help take care of them. Other activities are planed too, swapping the seashore with visits to different places of Gran Canaria.

Now that is one good news i think. Great guys!!

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!!

What a glorious day!!!

These last few days have been really hot and perfect to spend the day hanging around any beach here in the south of Gran Canaria. Today i went to anfi and i have to say, there’s nothing better than takin a nap at the beach

I’d really recomend you any beach on the south coast, since the north of the isle has been very cloudy due to friends of mine. Even some slight rain fell so… it’s up to you.

Whatever you decide to do, this summer, drink a lot of water, protect yourself with sun cream but specially the kids and try to avoid physical excercise at midday hours.

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:

3 months since the 7 year old Yeremi Vargas disappeared in the municipality of Santa Lucia but he still hasn’t been forgotten. Now, the security councillor of Santa Lucia has started an initiative to try to find him once again, but this time he intents to search in every well known in this municipality.

He thinks that, as the other searched places haven’t given any positive results, maybe he could have fallen into a well and hasn’t been found for that reason.

I don’t mean to sound cruel, but i think if this kid hasn’t been found yet and no one has demanded a ransom, he’d be possibly either dead or very far away. Let’s hope it’s the second option.

June 8th, a firemen corporal from the Las Palmas firefighter consortium, a sergeant exam to pass and two hooded people. Might not tell you a lot, but that were the “ingredients” of a mafia-like incident on Friday.

The mentioned corporal was on its way to do his theory exam to promote for a post as a sergeant when he was attacked and beat up by two hooded people. While he was beat up one of them said something like: “that’ll teach you not want to do promotion exams“.

There were 25 firemen that aspirated for the 3 availiable sergeant posts, which became only 5 after the first aptitude test. The corporal was among those 5, something that made him suspect the two hooded to be some of his colleagues and report this incident to the police.

Kinda shocked about that. Never thought we would live between such despicable people.

has come to an agreement with the airline ‘Jet2‘ wich will offer, starting in October this year, low cost flights from the UK to Gran Canaria. Leeds, Manchester, NewCastle and Belfast are the cities chosen for this particular project which will offer one daily low cost flight from each city to Gran Canaria, increasing the actual air traffic between Gran Canaria and the UK in almost 10%.

In adition to this the Tourist Board has also made another agreement with ‘Nowegian Air‘ which will offer low cost flights from Oslo to Gran Canaria. This new service is supposed to start in winter this year.

How you like that ?!?! Kinda cool i think. That’ll give our tourism-based economy a little push.