Gran Canaria: the rocky island

Last Monday I made my way to the Hague and Utrecht for a last visit to my friends before leaving for the big trip. I left the Hague with a happy belly full of sushi! Dennis and Rianne took me to a Sushi restaurant: all you can eat in 4 rounds and a real surprise desert! For this surprise desert we could choose from three different flavors of ice so it turned out not to be a surprise at all and we greatly had to laugh about it. Also the waiter had to laugh about the joke. Later, with an other waiter serving our ´surprise desert´ we again had to laugh seeing the small cones with one coupe of ice-cream. We asked the waiter - not being aware of our jokes - with a sarcastic surprised tone of voice ´hey, we asked for the surprise ice-cream! So the guy serving us made a face ´ah of course! how stupid that I forgot´, and he pulled away our three cones of colorful ice-cream, turned his right arm with the ice behind his back, took the colorful coupes with his left arm from behind again and wide smiling he said ´Tadaaaa!!!´. With many after-laughs we enjoyed our Surpricecream.

The next morning I took a train from Utrecht where I stayed at Emilies place, to Nijmegen. In Nijmegen an 8 person pendel-bus was supposed to be waiting for me to bring me to Weeze Airport, about 40 minutes across the border in Germany. I was the only passenger making use of this service and I had a nice German conversation with the driver, who told me about this taxi service.

Once arrived in Weeze, I took a Ryanair flight to Gran Canaria. This mend 4 hours stuck between two chairs. I was sitting next to a young Dutch family who didn´t stop talking about the cheeseburgers on the Ryanair flight. Soonest we were sitting in our chair, with the airplane still connected to the gate, the boy, about 14yrs old, said ´Ah! Now we can have a Ryanair cheeseburger! Do they serve them on this flight dad?´ The father replied with even more interest and assured his son that the food menu would be given shortly. During the flight, the stewardess received an order of three cheeseburgers and a warm croissant from the family sitting next to me. Many co-passengers in the plane were receiving their cheeseburger, but the family didn´t get any...reason enough for the boy to keep asking his dad ´when do we get our cheeseburger?´ with the un-changed answer: ´I don´t know´. Unfortunately Ryanair forgot about the order and put some extra in the oven.

Together with my book of Paul Theroux writing about his 2nd train trip through Asia, and some music of Peter, John and Björk in my ears i did fairly well in the 4 hour flight. At some point in between two chapters in my book I glanced to the left, seeing the father of this family with music in his ears falling asleep. Earlier he put his well-filled wallet on the table tray. Now, falling asleep, the wallet was still there, well filled with as many as 10 banknotes of 50 euro´s I could easily take hold off...some people really don´t care about their possessions. Once in a train in Belgium from Antwerp to Mechelen going to work, some guy tried to steal the wallet of someone else who hang his jacked on the little hook just above the window. A scruffy guy behind hang his coat on the same hook, and leaving at the next station, he pretended grabbing his jacket, but putting his hand into the inner jacket pocket of the other guy. The owner noticed it and looked around, but left his jacket hanging, allowing the scruffy guy to continue stealing whatever was in there. The owner kept looking from time to time why his jacket kept moving and what the guy was doing, but didn´t take action. Arrived at the station the other guy left the train. Only 10 minutes later the owner put his hand into the inner pocket of his own jacket and took out a well filled wallet and put it in his bag standing next to him, but again didn´t close the zipper! Unbelievable!

On Gran Canaria I was visiting André and Marta. Arrived at the airport of Las Palmas André was there to pick me up with a big van! He was driving artists from hotel to theater for a show organized by Marta and her colleagues.
André was very kind to leave me the keys of his own car, and in the afternoon I decided to drive to the beach. My backpack containing a towel, a book, a bottle of water and a snorkeling set I found myself a nice spot at the beach.
The next day I took the car out to some small villages. First I arrived in Moya, a small quiet village not touristic. At the center you have a nice view over the mountainous landscape, right behind the church. The church is build on top of houses. People are actually living below the church, it was very interesting to see this. I walked a little more around before driving to the next villages called Firgas. Firgas was a much more beautiful village with a waterfall in the middle of stairs up the hill, and colorful decorations showing images of the Canary islands. A maguette of each island made out of stone is was build on the stairs as well.
After this beautiful little village I moved further west heading for the coast. Earlier at home André pointed out a few locations on the map and telling me about the ´piscines naturelles de las Nieves´. Natural swimming places.
In the evening I found my way back via small winding roads through the mountains back down to Las Palmas.

I wanted to go hiking, and the following day I ended up back in the mountains at Cruz de Tejeda, another small village, and a big dam at Presa de Los Hornos. By crossing the dam, I started to climb into the mountains, walking via Llanos del Garañon and then heading south. This afternoon hiking was for sure one of the most routes I have made. So peaceful, quiet, dry and green at the same time. Not a single person I met, no sounds of traffic or other civilization. Just a few little insects screeching around and the soft wind blowing in my ear. I wanted to enjoy this quiet moment so I just sad down for a few minutes to enjoy this piece of nature. The route was mainly going downwards. At some point it felt like walking the Great Wall in China, as the half a meter wide path was on top of a mountain going down very steep on both sides!
I spend about 4 hours walking through the mountains. It is a route going straight to the south so I knew I would end up completely wrong from where I parked the car. Once back to a random road somewhere in the south I decided to hitchhike back to the car. After about 5 cars ignoring me, a little van with 2 Spanish guys and a girl of my age did response to my thumb. They gave me a lift back to the car and we had a nice chat, half Spanish, half English, half Italian :)
Once back at the car, I was about to drive away when 4 Dutchies came up from the dam where I left 4 hours before. After a quick chat and showing them the map where they had to go, I drove back home very satisfied about a very nice day! I will not forgot the magnificent views from the top of all these mountains where I found this beautiful walk.