Las Palmas, Gran Canaria

February 19^th, 2025

We are back in Europe! I must say that the port didn’t look very exciting, and there were no souvenir stalls in sight, no dancers or drummers, no cranes or rusty ships, just a very non-descript dock.

I watched them lower the gangway, and as soon as the ship was cleared we went ashore to join our tour.

We are again doing a Seaborn tour. This one was more energetic than most. It was a hike at the Bandama caldera, and then wine tasting.

We had received a map, and it looked like this would be an easy 2 hour hike around the top of the caldera. No hiking down into the caldera and then having to hike back unlike a hike we had done in Hawaii.

The caldera is about 20 minutes drive from Las Palmas, and we drove through the historic center of Las Palmas and surrounding residential areas

We were soon in the lush hills where agriculture flourishes.

And then we arrived at the caldera.

Now I had imagined that this would be a flat 2 hour stroll, but I was wrong. Of course the rim of the caldera isn’t horizontal, and when I looked at it I realized that there was going to be some significant changes in elevation, so it wasn’t going to be as easy as I had thought.

We set off on the road to begin with

But soon we left the road and joined the trail.

The view was wonderful

We followed the trail around the rim, climbing up high at times, and then heading back down again. The path consisted of loose small stones so it was difficult not to slip, especially when going down. It was becoming more of an ordeal than I had anticipated.

Then it started to rain, It was already quite cold, so being wet on top of that wasn’t fun, and I was beginning to think I must be mad to chose to do this when we could have taken a nice bus tour around the island.

Still the views were beautiful

And we saw some interesting plants along the way.

Way down in the floor of the caldera are the remnants of a vineyard. The last resident there, a gentleman in his 90s, left a while ago. Here I am fussing about walking around the rim in the drizzle, this man had to walk from the floor of the caldera to the rim on a regular basis. Now that’s impressive.

One thing about walking around a rim is that you have to be careful you do not plunge to your death. The path was fairly wide.

But to your right was the almost sheer drop into the floor of the caldera

And to your left was the steep slope of the mountain.

All in all this felt quite unsafe, but the views were nice.

Finally 2 hours later we reached the end of the trail – strangely enough it was a golf course.

However, we were on firm ground again, and we had survived. Despite the terrain it was actually a wonderful walk..

There was just a flight of stairs to negotiate, and we would be back on the bus.

By this time it had stopped raining, and the sun had come out. Perfect for a visit to a winery.

The winery we visited was called Finca el Mocanal, but also Bodega San Juan.

Our guide Pierre showed us the grape vines and explained the history of the winery and the family that owns it.

The family had lived on the estate for generations, and have a beautiful garden.

We visited the museum

And then stopped ofr wine tasting. They only make red wines, and I don’t like red wine, but as it turned out, the wine was actually very pleasant so I ended up finishing off Brian’s glass as well as my own.

They served delicious olives and cheese to go with the wine, so all in all it was a very pleasant experience.

The wine is grown organically and the fertilizer comes from a donkey and a horse. I wanted to get a look at these two.

As I got to their pen there was this sign:

Then I looked at the horse.

It really didn’t look like a killer pony to me.

They have a rather rudimentary cruise terminal, and the 120 guests who are joining the ship today had to check in on board as there are no check in facilities. However, they did have this poster in the building, so they do have taste.

After all of that exercise we decided to soak in the hot tub when we got back to the ship.

The view wasn’t great

And there was a very noisy machine moving pallets around, which detracted from the serenity I was seeking.

Still lying in the sun

With a pina colada in hand, you really can’t complain.

When we got back to our suite it was time indulge in some caviar and then sit on our balcony to watch us sail away.

It was a beautiful evening.