Gran Canaria lights up your dreams
The north-east coast of Gran Canaria welcomes adventurers in search of new experiences and lets their imagination run wild
Coastal plants are like the men and women of Gran Canaria’s fishing villages, looking out to sea every day. What’s more, a delicate film of salt coats their leaves, or skin. They could tell thousands of stories, recounting everything they have seen brought in by the tides, but they keep their own counsel. In the same way, the island’s north-east coastline is just as spectacular for what it displays as for what it hides among its folds. Hikers spot lights beaming into the night and this sparks their imagination. What will they discover the next day?
Dreams are the seedlings of ending plans, waiting to fly, just like the feather-shaped Kleinia neriifolia seeds, so light that the breeze can sweep them off elsewhere to start new life. In the same way, adventurous folk scatter along the fascinating coastline of Agaete or La Aldea de San Nicolás to explore new places.
It would be difficult to predict that seventy metres under the branches and roots of these shrubs, there is a stony beach of La Caleta or El Turmán hidden away, the wild sister of the natural pools at Las Salinas, exactly the point where the sinuous path leads to the steps down to the cove.
Balsam spurge, Kleinia neriifolia and Canary Island spurge look out over the Atlantic Ocean from a watchtower right at the tip of Llanos del Turmán, a flat break between the mountains. Wind and time have erased traces of the tomato crops or the livestock which used to pass through the common grazing fields on this arid, rocky land. Other signs remain, blurred but perceptible, such as cisterns, pens, irrigation channels or haylofts.
In the distance, an orange flash at the end of the mountain chain points the way as night illuminations make way for daylight. Now it’s time to rest and let dreams lie in the shadows before launching them into the sky again. In the end, worries are like Atlantic birds that hurtle over skies and seas from these ledges on the edge of the days.
