April 9, 2024

My previous post just loaded after I tried for 2 days. It has been hard to get the pictures downloaded during our 2 days at sea. Finally it worked! So let’s hope this one works too.

Las Palmas is currently the capital of Gran Canaria Island. It is sort of strange that they exchange capitals every four years with Santa Cruz de Tenerife where we will be visiting tomorrow.

I slept through our sail in but got some shots in the port which is pretty industrial.

Our tour today was “The Flavors of Grand Canaria.” Our guide was Vera and she was really funny and a good guide. She is originally from Bulgaria and speaks 5 languages. Some of the information she shared with us:

The Canary Islands are made up of 9 islands – this one is right in the middle. They are volcanic islands. Even though it is cloudy with a few sprinkles today, they only get 2-3 days of rain a year. The beaches are natural sand beaches and quite beautiful. In fact, Many people vacation here for “the best climate in the world” according to the director of research on climatology at Syracuse University. Tenerife is the largest island and Gran Canaria is the second largest.

Our driver was Victor and he was also wonderful. The streets here are not conducive to buses and it was a little scary at times.

There are 14 climate zones here and the fruits and vegetables are grown higher up because the humidity is higher there. They are even growing Aribica coffee!

Most of the population (about 400,000 in Las Palmas and almost 900,000 in all of the Canary Islands) is Catholic and there are many churches.

80% of the revenue of the islands is from tourism.

The Canary Islands are Spanish but are only 93 miles off of the African coast. And they are not named for canaries, but for the dog. They are named after the Latin term “Canariae Insulae” which means “Islands of the Dogs.” It is believed that the islands were named for the large populations of seals which were mistaken for dogs or after large native dogs which are now extinct.

Our first visit today was an aloe farm. The climate is so dry that it is perfect for growing aloe which only needs a small amount of water twice a month. It does take a long time to- 10 years- for it to grow though. And they can only harvest the outermost leaf, one at a time. There are 300 types of aloe! Who knew. They do flower, and the flower bud looks like a tiny banana. They cut the flowers off because it it takes too much moisture from the plant.

We heard about the many things that aloe is good for. We know it for sunburn but our guide explained that it is very good for the skin and serves as a base for other substances and is used instead of water. He demonstrated cutting up a leaf and let us use the gel to rub on our skin.

I did buy some products! They had a wide variety.

After this visit we went on to Finca Los Olives, an olive farm. Here we got to see the process of making olive oil and preparing olives for sale. This is a small farm and all harvesting is done by hand. Olives stay in metal barrels with only salt water for 2 years before they are ready for sale. The owner took us through the farm. He did not speak English so Vera interpreted.

We had a tasting of the olive oil (with salt added – something I have never done) with cheese, French bread and of course olives and wine. Delicious.

We were served by women wearing the traditional dress of the area.

They have a small zoo there and we saw a train carrying school children. They were excited to wave to us.

A beautiful parrot is also in residence and he was very friendly. They live an average of 16 years.

Our last stop was the Bodega San Juan, a small winery. We walked through the grounds which were just beautiful.

They had a few animals here.

We toured the winery which was like a small museum and very interesting. The actual operation is in the lower level of the owner’s home.

Tomorrow we will arrive in Santa Cruz de Tenerife. It is the port where the passengers who only sailed for this trip will disembark and new passengers will arrive. Most of the people we have met are staying on for this next trip to Southampton which ends on April 22, and some, like us will be on board until May 3. Some people will stay on longer, to Rome. We don’t have a tour tomorrow but will explore on our own.

We will have 11 port days in a row now, so I will try to keep up with the blog!