This morning we went to see the famous Maspalomas sand dunes. Since Ingrid generally refuses to walk any longer stretches, we did it on camelback. We sat in metal seats hung over the hump of the camel, one person on each side. (If the number of customers was odd, the odd man out was balanced by ballast, sacks of sand hanging off the other seat.) At first the rocking felt somewhat odd but when the camels settled into their slow and steady pace, it was pretty comfortable.

The dunes (the part we saw) had more plant life than I’d expected: enough bushes and shrubs of various sorts that you couldn’t see far across the dunes, even from atop a camel.

We also saw a baby camel, resting in the paddock behind the house, just 2 days old. All skin and bones. And lying down, not like lambs or foals who are up on their feet straight away. Then again, adult camels also lie down, unlike adult horses.

After lunch we tried out the beach. It wasn’t particularly swimmer-friendly: strong waves made it hard to get into the water without getting swept off your feet while still in knee-deep water. Much of the beach was covered with round rocks (ranging from roughly fist-sized to four times that) and some were strewn on the sandy sea bottom as well, which made walking even harder. The rocks made a continuous clattering & rumbling sound as they were rolled about by the waves. Ingrid, Eric and my mum spent a while splashing and dodging waves while I sat in the shade with Adrian.

On the way back we had ice cream and then I took a nap with Adrian.

For dinner we went to the Chinese place next to the hotel, Bamboo Garden. The food was lousy (flavourless veggies and meat, too-salty dough for the deep-fried stuff) and we’re not going back there.

Adrian has been generally unhappy these last few days. He’s not the most contented baby normally, either, but it’s even worse now. He takes lousy short naps, no matter whether it’s in the pram or in a sling. He is least unhappy when someone carries him around, but not very happy then either. Perhaps it’s a good thing he is too young to remember this – I don’t think he would have very happy memories of this trip.