Barranco de la Mina, Gran Canaria

For Tamara’s birthday, we went for a short walk from (more or less) Las Lagunetas to Cruz de Tejeda. We often heard that Barranco de la Mina is one of very few — maybe just three? — barrancos where there always is running water. The previous attempt to reach it had to be cancelled thanks to roadworks. The advantage of this route is that it’s almost pure ascent. So my knees did not complain this time.

Elephant tree

Unfortunately, Tamara’s camera, which was thought to be fixed at long last (it spent good five months in coma), turned out to be not quite. (Now it is fixed for real, but that day, Tamara managed to take only a handful of pictures, and even that was some sort of miracle.) That would be the reason behind me posting here some of the pics made with my Lumix.

The path

Aeonium. Most of these succulents are native to Canary Islands)

I am happy to report that water was indeed running. There even were some waterfalls. To see the highest of them, you have to get off the path and climb down the slippery slope using an old rope loosely attached to the bushes.

Waterfall

UPD: Finally, after a year or so, we were able to repeat the route and photograph one of the waterfalls properly

The dearth of the photo output was compensated by the foraged foodstuff: figs, blackberries, walnuts and even some edible mushrooms (but too few for a dinner). That’s another difference between Finland and Spain, if you are still looking for these. Here, you find stuff in the forest and can leave it right there with your conscience clear. There, you don’t collect enough pine cones, next thing you know, a family of visiting voles freezes to death.

Now for cute stuff: a chestnut...

...and a mushroom!

As we were approaching Cruz de Tejeda, we were lucky to see our iconic Roque as Nublo as its name suggests, to the extent that sometimes it was completely disappearing beyond the clouds.

On the right, Roque Nublo as I’ve never seen it before; on the left, El Fraile peeks between the pine trees.

It is a short hike but, as we were not in a hurry, it took us about three hours. Moreover, knowing that there is no bus from Cruz de Tejeda until 5:30 pm, we could have walked even slower (and gathered even more walnuts). But the cold beer was beckoning. We’ll be back.

Aeonium close-up

Walnuts!

Route

Distance: 4.91 km
↑ 499 m
↓ 172 m

Pictures of inland Gran Canaria on Shutterstock — here

Photos and text by Tamara and Kirill