Eric and I have turned into quite keen walkers over the last couple of years. We haven’t been doing much of it since Ingrid’s birth, but when we started feeling that a holiday would sit well before Christmas, we thought we’d try again. (Our other favourite holiday activity, diving, seemed much less suited to a toddler.) I rather fancied some sun so we aimed for some place warm rather than a wintery location. We ended up going to Gran Canaria because it’s really the closest place to Europe where you can get good walking and reliable good weather this time of the year. (Madeira, our #2 option, failed the second condition.)

Indeed we got a week of consistent sunshine (except for a few slightly cloudy afternoons, and a slight misting of rain one morning before we set out). The temperature was a pleasant 20+ degrees in the sun, dropping, I think, to around 15 in the shade higher up in the mountains. Warm enough to walk in t-shirt, but not so warm that the heat becomes a burden. (The evenings and mornings felt distinctly chillier and we were happy to have our fleeces and warm socks then.)

Pine forest and shrubs

I had previously pictured the Canary Islands as quite a beachy place, not really as a destination for a walking holiday, but it turned out that the interior of Gran Canaria is full of eminently walkable mountains, ridges and valleys. The landscape is very volcanic, with much exposed rock and steep slopes, and quite arid. The general feel is sort of a mixture of African desert and Mediterranean hills: cactuses, various shrubs and large aloe plants on the lower slopes, and pine forests higher up. The pine forests seemed familiar at first, but a closer look showed them to be quite different from Northern European ones. Not only were the pines strange, with very long needles and very large cones – the forest was very uniform, and almost a complete monoculture. The pines were all the same shape and size and bright green in colour and the undergrowth was limited to just a few shrubs. It almost looked artificial.

While the landscape in Gran Canaria isn’t as breathtaking as, say, the Dolomites, there was still enough variety and striking landscapes to make every day’s walking interesting. Eric and I concluded that the missing ingredient that would have taken the whole thing closer to breathtaking was colour. This was the end of the dry season, so the colour scheme was brown / beige / green across the board. A bit of snow would have helped – or some flowering plants. I imagine that the islands would look better in February–March when things are in bloom.

The other missing part was animal life. There were butterflies and a few birds, but most of the time everything was very quiet around us.

It was also quiet because there were not many people around. Since the Canary Islands are mostly known for their sun and beaches, the interior gets very few tourists, most of them day trippers from one of the coastal towns. Because tourism is so important for the islands’ economy, and the mountains really aren’t good for many other productive uses, the government is focusing on getting more people to spend more time in the mountains. (The only other possible activity in the mountains is small-scale agriculture. But the slopes are so steep that they have to be terraced for farming, which excludes most farm machinery, so the plots are all tended by hand.) So there were well-maintained paths in many places, and the information centres were up-to-date and in good shape. Nevertheless even the most popular spots (like Roque Nublo) were far from crowded, and on some walks we didn’t see a single other walker. We liked that.


(To be continued.)