Las Palmas, Canary Islands – On the Road with Don and Paula

Las Palmas, the view from the first overlook on our Tour. We all love seeing our home in the harbor! (Center, right)

As barren and lunar as Lanzarote was, Las Palmas was just the opposite. Nicknamed La Isla Bonita, “The Beautiful Island”, this last (sniff!) stop on our World Tour lived up to its name.

We couldn’t quite figure out what Princess was up to as there was only one tour available, called Panoramic Las Palmas and it did not have a description attached. Our little group searched both Viator and Tours By Locals for anything available. Neither website had anything to offer on this little gem of an island.

We had a few weeks yet before we arrived, so time was not critical yet. We finally booked an outing with a newer unknown start-up called Tours by Strangers. The guide seemed to know something about the place, at least more than we did and he promised us a full day guaranteed to see stuff that no one else on the ship would experience.

He was correct.

We met our Guide, Donaldo when he pulled up in a slightly beat, nine passenger Renault diesel stick shifter van. He had a name tag identifying himself so that we felt completely at ease immediately.

He even had a little flag (fashioned by Darla and Sandra) for all of us to follow him with. It turns out that this was unnecessary as we never went anywhere that had more than six other people there.

Here you see our Guide holding the little flag and in his other hand is the Dark Chocolate used for payment in return for his services. It was a fair trade.

Our first destination was the highest point on the island the summit of Roque de los Muchachos, which is just eight feet shy of 8000’ above sea level. In the middle of the Parque National de La Caldera de Tamburiente, this extinct volcanic mountain has the distinction of being one of the best sites on our planet for astronomical observations. There are a total of thirteen different telescopes up there along with an incredible “crater” that seems to plumet from those star-strung heavens to a bedrock deep abyss.

When you approach the edge…. It sucks your breath away.

My apologies here, I’m afraid as good as the photograph is, it cannot convey the drama that a personal visit will induce. You will need to come here for yourself!

This venture took way longer than our intrepid (and inexperienced) guide thought that it would. Google maps calculated that it should take a little over an hour to travel the 42 km from the bottom to the top. That would normally be correct, the speed limit was an official 40 kph, so that makes sense. What the Google Gal forgot to fold into her calculations were the (approximately, but I counted) 262 (mostly hairpin) turns in the road. There was no way that we were making that trip in an hour!

A small portion of the road to the summit! It shows 53 of the 262 turns in this road!

But the scenery was spectacular and watching the flora change from sub-tropical sea level, up through deciduous, and then pine forests, to alpine mountain was quite a treat! One of the reasons that the observations are so good here lies with a combination of factors having mostly to do with location. It is not uncommon to have the base of the island covered in clouds and the summit in constant clear air, with no light pollution (it’s in the middle of the ocean!). While it is quite common to have clouds around the world at 8000’, here the combination of the surrounding water temperatures and other meteorological factors, keeps the clouds usually below the summit and those thirteen telescopes. You will notice the cloud layers below us in the photos.

This photo shows the MAGIC array of special “telescopes”. MAGIC stands for *Major* *Atmospheric Gamma Imaging Chernakov*. This parabolic, hexagon-shaped collection of mirrors help fill in the blanks of information gathered between optical observatories and radio-telescopes. There are only three of these arrays in the world.

The slightly chilled (usual) members of the Expedition.

If you look closely, over the far ridge in the distance, you can make out one of the neighboring Canary Islands. Note the path that extends way out to the castle-like overlook at the end.

After our Summit Sojourn, we deftly picked our way back down the mountain by the route we had come up, trying our best not to smoke the brakes! Good thing it was a shifter-car! It was while pulling into one of the most spectacular overlooks on this road that our guide and driver managed to just slightly (?) come in contact with another vehicle parked there. Luckily the folks (from Switzerland) were very nice, and it was a rental also, so we exchanged some paperwork and we’ll let the companies fight it out when we’re all far away! It really wasn’t bad; I was more dismayed about the time that it was eating up!

You can barely see the slight scrapes on the corner of the bumper.

Here, it is slightly more obvious. But this car was beat when we got it! All the Warning Gauges were lit, and there were other dings and such quite evident. (Maybe not quite as apparent as this one!)

The view from “Bumper-Cars” Overlook. It was worth it!

By now it was apparent that the rest of the Tour of Las Palmas was not going to take place. There was just not enough time to get to the other sights that had been planned, including a nifty lunch on a beach-side (sandy floors) restaurante at the end of the island.

No worries!

We found a cool local harborside place that only spoke Spanish, so our adventures continued as we struggled, laughed, and cajoled our way through the menu and ordering process.

We had mostly a Fish n’ Chips type fish but without the Chips. Instead, we had Wrinkly Potato’s which are those little round guys on the small plate. They are small potatoes soaked and cooked in seawater, with local sea salt added. The salt sticks to the skin and makes for a delightful potato!

It all turned out great, the meal was fun, and the wine was good. The driver was verboten to drink so he had a Coke, which he would have ordered anyway! Our all-aboard time was 4:30 PM and it was already late in the afternoon so we high-tailed it across the harbor to our waiting ship.

The folks at Tours by Strangers are anxiously awaiting the reviews from our group!