Noche de San Juan in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria

Wow. I'd never seen a firework blast like this before

Every Year, Saint John's Eve is celebrated in the beautiful city of Las Palmas. It has something to do with the foundation of the city, although the idea that it was founded precisely on Saint John's day seems unlikely to me.

Anyway, the celebration is a part of "Fiestas Fundacionales", associated strongly with Saint John (i.e. San Juan) and is most certainly of pagan origin. It is basically a Midsummer midnight madness, except it is shifted by a couple days.

Botanic Gardens - Triana walk

 Globularia sarcophylla, globe daisy endemic to Gran Canaria. Apparently it grows only in Tirajana. I've never seen it in the wild, have to look for it, it is sort of cute.

Couple of days ago, Timur and I decided to check out a relatively new walking path. It links one of the old areas of Las Palmas - Triana* to Canarian Botanic Garden in Tafira Baja (Jardin Canario).

I have no explanation as to why I have never written about Jardin Canario before, since we've visited it many times. As the name suggests, the emphasis in planting is on the native flora, but it is not exclusive - Canaries used to be a testing ground for plants from different parts of the world, mostly from the Americas**. There are some rare, vulnerable and endangered species, some of them beautiful, some less so. So, let's start with some pictures from the garden.

Fuerteventura, November 2017 - Kite festival and some other things

The octopus keeps turning up every year. He is one of the biggest kites at the festival.

Every year, in November, мы с друзьями ходим в баню I go to Fuerteventura to see the kites. There is a festival in the dunes, and I have covered it already a few times. It started when we were living on the island, and that was when I got hooked.

I missed the year when we were living in Finland, but apart from that I always caught the festival, at least partially.

Sharks are beginning to fly in the morning

Las Palmas carnival

By now we've been living on Gran Canaria for long enough to get a reasonably good idea of how the carnivals go here, and of course to take a decent amount of pictures. So I felt like writing it up. I've already done it once here, but now I know a little bit more.

Las Palmas carnival 2015

I was looking forward to my first carnival at Las Palmas and was not disappointed. While perhaps not as spectacular as the carnival of Santa Cruz de Tenerife, the Las Palmas Carnival nicely combined both the show and street party, with audience participation levels very high. It is also very accessible - if you want to, you can see all the events for free, get a good view of all the participants - including the carnival queen and dames, or even ride on one of the floats in the main parade - there are places for hire, I didn't realize it before.

Tejeda, Las Fiestas del Almendro en Flor – Almond Blossom Celebration

This Sunday me and the kids went to the Celebration of almond bloom in Tejeda. In the morning I was very much in two minds about going — the day started really gloomy in Las Palmas, with short but intense showers of rain. We procrastinated for a goodish while, but then figured that we could go to San Mateo, and re-think again there.

When we arrived to San Mateo the drizzle was constant and it was “freezing” by Canarian standards — one of the chemist shops was showing +11 on their clock, plus the roads to San Mateo were very busy because of the Sunday market so it took a long time to get there. Everything was looking grey and flat, with only outlines visible. I was all for going right back, but the kids, to my surprise, wanted to carry on — and I am very glad we did.

big fish and good shopping

Today we walked to the tourist information to find out if there was anything interesting planned for the Sant Joan. There wasn't, or they didn't know about it, which is always a possibility with our tourist information. Anyway. There is a restaurant nearby, which has a fish cleaning table outside, right by the water. Today they had a bahamut being cleaned there. The table was surrounded by people taking pictures, kids staring as only kids could, and seagulls waiting for scraps.

Assorted week

Here are just some assorted pics from the last week or so. First one is our nearest proper beach, which I photographed many times - the Flag Beach. This time we came there when the tide was low, but was just coming in, and the sharp rocks in the foreground were being covered with water. When the water is higher, they might be lurking just below the surface, so beware when you go swimming. Water is beautifully clean, so when you can see that there is something dark under there, proceed with care. Isla de Lobos in the background.

assorted Sunday

This cat, although different in color, in attitude and expression is a spitting image of Muta from "The Cat Returns". From his position of perfect safety he was observing the street, mostly right in front of him, that is, not bothering to even turn his head.

Festival de Cometas

Today there was the last day of kite festival. This year they weren't very lucky with the weather - out of three days in the dunes, only today was sunny and warm, with at least some wind to keep the kites in the air. But never mind - today was great.
What with the background  of sand and blue sky, the bright sun, large but weightless objects in the air and small figures underneath, it was all very Dali-esque.

more dunes, new pair of shoes and observation about postal services

Here Timur's doing what he likes to do best.

Festival de cometas — unexpected preview

We went for a walk in the dunes today and unexpectedly got ourselves a preview of upcoming kite festival (festival de cometas). the festival itself starts on the 10th at El Cotillo, and will hopefully be a lot bigger, but looked like participants are arriving and starting to fly the kites already. Today they were on a beach past RIU hotels as you go from Corralejo towards Puerto del Rosario.

A few more pics follow.

events of unknown nature and birdwatching

While we've been staying on Fuerteventura, there always seems to be somethings going on and almost always that mysterious something is not very obviously advertized, so it's practically impossible to find out any details. Or maybe I lived in England for too long, and got used to the fact that every tiny local event will announce itself well in advance. Today, for instance, there were at least two of those somethings going - one a watersports event in the harbor, and another skating (?) one in the skatepark. What were they exactly, I can't say. I just can say that I like this boy's helmet very much

Puerto del Rosario - cow on the roof, new dress and my lens's still missing

We went to Puerto del Rosario again on saturday; Timur, who is very unlike Yuri in this respect, demanded some new clothes. I also bought myself some stuff, including rather funny little dress below (photo taken by Kirill). In my defense I can say it was on sale, plus our container is still out there somewhere (!), so we have to survive with a very limited wardrobe.

sand art - professionals

Couple of days ago I've posted a picture of sand iguana on Corralejo flag beach. Now let's have a look at how professionals do it :) I must say I was really impressed with the skull. Less so with a pyramid below, but still impressed.

Plus the guy who made a pyramid has interesting tatoos.

Have a look

Fiesta del Mar (queueing for)

We went towards the port of Corralejo to see what was on offer at Fiesta del Mar. We knew that it was starting at 10, but I can't bring myself to get up this early on saturday, so by the time we got there, it seems that fiesta was all about queueing (funny spelling innit).

It was not, of course, even though it did look from the distance that a mass christening was occuring on  one of the boat slides. The queues were for free watersports - normally quite expensive. We saw sea kayaking, jetski and what looked like a start of snorkeling trip. There was probably a lot more stuff happening. and of course there were freebies from sponsor - green straw hats especially noticeable

A few more wet pics follow

visitor that walked by herself

 Meet our new neighbour. She moved in, with her accompanying humans, a couple of weeks ago. Two weeks seems like a long time for a cat, but she's still confused as to which house is hers - or maybe doesn't really care. We tend to sleep with windows open, so she feels free to drop in any time.

Couple of unrelated pics follows

windrose roundabout

Today, while checking out the schools, we walked to the roundabout that is completely covered with Claudine's wind flowers. It looks somewhat odd with volcano and malpais in the backdrop, but I liked it a lot. She keeps fixing it - in the strong winds of Fuerteventura plastic flowers keep propelling away. It lacks scale and permanency of Cesar Manrique's creations for Lanzarote, but I think it's part of the deal - make something ever-changing with recyclable material, rather than something permanent with metal and stone

unlimited supply of blue sky

Picture above is taken from the top of small artificial hill in botanic gardens of Corralejo. I'd say to call them "botanic gardens" is a bit of overstatement, but that's what they are according to a little plaque next to one of the gate. Basically, there are cacti, palms, olive trees, some other low-growing plans with no nameplates yet, water feature, playground, little skatepark (below) and that's pretty much it at the moment. What is remarkable about it is that it's almost brand new - opened in march this year. It was a wasteland before. They keep doing small adjustments to it - adding tables, planting more stuff, but I never managed to catch the work in progress, although we pass it every day.

Race for Life - Cambridge

we came to Cambridge today to spot two friends that were taking part in Race for life event. Needless to say, we were sort of late, as we tend to be, so Kirill managed to spot one, me - none. What we did see was a lot of ladies of all ages, all without exception looking lovely in their (mostly) pink outfits, enjoying a run, jog or stroll under sunshine. I liked it a lot. I like it when anybody can join, and here it is pretty much the case - unlike marathon, for example, where even strolling the whole distance is a huge effort. Granted, it's ladies-only event, but apart from that, very inclusive