8 March 2004. Today is our last day on the MV Carousel as she sails on the Atlantic Isles cruise around the Canary Islands. Today we are visiting Gran Canaria.
We dock in the large port of the island's capital, Las Palmas. Then we are on a morning excursion today so we get onto a coach which takes us for a look at the Sahara-like dunes at Maspalomas - or as we say; just like St Annes near Blackpool!
Then we have some free time at a wonderfully picturesque little resort called Mogan. It's an absolute delight with a colourful harbour, whitewashed buildings but with colours running in vertical and horizontal lines over their architectural features. The harbour is ringed with bars and restaurants and colorful tropical fish are playing over the rocks on the bed of the harbour.
This is one of the most beautiful resorts in Europe I think and all this without a great heritage of grand buildings to bring people to it. We were reluctant to get back on the coach at the end of our 45 minutes there.
We arrived back at Las Palmas to find an older two-funnel cruise ship moored in front of the Carousel.
We had lunch onboard and then decided to get off the ship again for the afternoon and walk into Las Palmas.
Las Palmas forms a peninsula and so by walking in a straight line from the port, in fifteen minutes we crossed from one coast to the other and found ourselves at this beach - Playa de las Canteras. We found a couple of people from our dinner table and spent a while chatting. A signpost was reading the temperature - 34 degrees! It was warm and we needed a drink. I could count up to five in Spanish and say "please" and "thank you" (and thanks to John Wayne "Where is the booty?"...) so we wandered into a shop and I asked for "Dos Coca-Cola por favor?" feeling ridiculously pleased with myself until a stream of unintelligable Spanish came back at me. We were in a Burger King and Coke came in three sizes...
The Carousel was our first taste of cruising and we were undoubtedly hooked! Since that first cruise in 2004 we have cruised every year, looking on it as a great way to wake up in a different place every day, have a choice of going looking at places or relaxing on the ship and with all food free of charge, it's not as expensive an option as many think.
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