Barranco de los Cernícalos — water!

A small waterfall a bit off the path

Finally, I’ve seen all three places where water always runs on Gran Canaria. Well, actually, there are just two left, poor Barranco de La Mina having been killed off by the owner of the water*. So, now on Gran Canaria you have just two places where freshwater runs all year round — Barranco de Azuaje and Barranco de los Cernícalos, Kestrels’ ravine.

Cenobio and Tagoror, Montaña del Gallego

Wonderfully weird and organic

Cenobio de Valerón, “Valeron monastery”, is one of the iconic sights of Gran Canaria. It is not really a monastery, and by looking at it now, it is hard to imagine why would anybody think it was. If you consider that the capsule-style hotels were unknown in the West when is was first named “monastery”, it seems even more puzzling. The caves are small and rather shallow, so that even Diogenes would probably grow claustrophobic and wish to move to New York.

Anyway, for one reason or other, the cave complex of Valeron was thought to be a monastery, till somebody realized it looked very similar to granaries in North Africa. Now it is thought to have been a collective granary, with posted guards and doors closing each storage space, featuring a pintadera, i.e. the seal of the owner. It must have been a fascinating humanhill.

Cantabria, short coastal walk

A Nevermore moment (see the black object on the top of the chapel? It is a raven, doing his thing)

This year on our holidays I wanted to do a bit of the Camino de Santiago, the Way of Saint James. As you can see from the Wikipedia map (if you didn't know it perfectly well already), there is not one path but many, all leading to the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela in Galicia.

I saw the scallop signs of the Camino on Santander's pavements last year and got curious, purely from the hiking point of view. A little research showed that the Santander route is not considered to be the "main" one, but that didn't deter me. What did though was the discovery that even the variation of the path that goes through Santander doesn't run along the coast. It is parallel, roughly, but not close.

So. What follows is not really a part of the Camino, it is just a possible way to go walk west from Santander. It (almost) links to the spectacular Costa Quebrada. Physically it links, you just carry on along the coast, it is just that I don't have the record for the linking bit. If you are looking for scenic, I reckon the coastal path is your best bet. And if you are intent on doing the "real" camino, it runs really close inland, so you can stamp your passport and  stay in pilgrims' refuges.

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

Cruz de Tejeda — Teror walk

So far Cruz de Tejeda is my favourite place to go on Gran Canaria. Somehow, even when the weather is terrible elsewhere, it changes by some miracle once I am on the pass, and there are views to die for in all directions. Only once did I catch the pass itself in clouds, but they were shifting and parting all the time, allowing the views down into the caldera, all the way to Teide on Tenerife and to the Gran Roques — Nublo and Bentayga.