In the middle of the Sahara? No, this is...
Gran Canaria
Gran Canaria makes a wonderful holiday destination almost all the year round, but particularly in early Spring, when the climate is comfortably warm and the vegitation on the mountains fresh and green.
It's also a great place for photography - as usual, I took my trusty Nikon D810, with a 24-120 f4 lens, a useful combination for travel photography. (Along with another body and four lenses, most of which stayed in the bag. More sensible by far to travel light, even if a zoom lens cannot match primes for absolute quality. )
Watching the sun go down... a wonderful spot for lovers, mystics, poets and naturists!
Hotel Servatur Waikiki. Some are quite happy to spend their vacation round the hotel pool, supplied round the clock with food and drink. Personally, I have a low boredom threshold, so we took a hire car and headed inland.
Driving north from Maspolamas, the road winds upwards into the mountains and into a world far removed from rash of hotels along the coast. Here the main hazard on the road comes from the cyclists, who use these mountains to push themselves to the limit. It makes you feel almost guilty changing gear as you struggle to overtake the muscle pumpers as they sweep round one hairpin bend after another.
The little town of Fataga, spreading out below its church and square, sits in a valley made more fertile by the careful use of water and terracing of crops.
Get above the clouds!
When its cloudy on the coast, just drive up into the mountains. Here's the view down from the route up towards Roque Nublo, fine weather above the clouds.
One of the most publicized walks on the island is up to Roque Nublo, a massive rock left by erosion from the centre of the original volcano, from which you can look out, above the clouds that shroud the sea, toward Tenerife, and the snows capped Mount Teide.
Puerto de Mogan
The water in the harbour at Puerto de Mogan is remarkably clear.
Troglodytes of Guayadeque. The valley – green and leading us up into clouds on the day we were there – is remarkable for the number of troglodytes who occupied its steep sides. Their caves, almost inaccessible high on the cliff faces, were easily defended but must have made daily life quite precarious. There is a very informative museum in the valley, well worth a visit for the information about the geology and fauna as well as its history and the remaining troglodyte inhabitants.
I assumed that the simple stone tools were the relics of a civilization from a couple of thousand years ago at least. In fact, the value has only been settled for 500 years ago. People were still living quite a primitive, neolithis lifestyle in this isolated part of the island at a time when missionaries and traders used the Cararies as a staging post for the exploration (and exploitation) of the New World.
To enjoy the valley on foot, drive as far as you can, then park and follow the track into the upper part of the valley. You find yourself in a world that is utterly different from that of the hotels on the coast.
