Surprise, surprise!

"Seen it all before!"

There followed three calmer weeks, during which not much happened, other than Ruth trying to recover from the plane-inflicted cold and get somewhere with the bike!  There was not much progress with either:- bronchitis eventually set in and despite three sessions a week at the Sports Clinic and growing knee flexibility the mounting into the saddle just wouldn't happen! In contrast the weather was wonderful and we did a lot of walking, and we did a lot of travel planning, including setting up the Goa trip for Jan/Feb. This is to be via London and Mumbai:- two places we would rather avoid, but the Qatar option seems dodgy at present and Greyrocks has accumulated a large number of Avios:- one of the most useless loyalty schemes around - and they can be used (expensively) on BA flights, so they have been! This led to the saga of Indian visas! The good news is that these are now available on-line for 60 days and are very, very much cheaper than before with Madrid involved. It is not, however, an easy process with photos and scans to be uploaded to strict guidelines, peculiar questions and complicated payment. By the time you have struggled with this you need a holiday!

But we succeeded and had the acceptance back sooner than suggested, so we could get on with preparation for the rather simpler trip:- Bob's birthday in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria.  The hotel we wanted was full for some related dates, so we tinkered and got three acceptable nights, then went to the new Inter-Island airline - Canaryfly - and got return flights at an absurdly low residents' price You couldn't say no!

That can't be right! Well, maybe!

And we had a great time with several surprises!
First was the weather! It had been pretty nice in Fuerte - except for chilly evenings and nights - but Gran Can prospects were looking a bit dodgy! In fact the forecast was revised several times, and we had three days that were amongst the best Greyrocks recalls on the island. There were a dozen spots of rain but otherwise the beach (Las Canteras) was well-populated and there were plenty in the sea:- including many surfers without wet-suits! But we weren't there for that sort of thing!!

We wanted a bit of culture, so took the bus down to San Telmo (the older part of this city of two parts) and went to CAAM, not knowing quite what to expect. The Centro Atlantico de Arte Moderno is in a historic building near the cathedral, but inside is a large light-drenched space, and it is free to enter! Greyrocks concentrated on the seasonal exhibition "Interference" by Canarias-born Concha Jerez. (If you Google translate beware - it assumes she is male!) We spent an age going round the installations - many of which were accessible in spite of language and hit many Greyrocks spots: dealing with human rights, women's history, and the media.

 This was- despite the depressing world events portrayed -  an uplifting experience for Greyrocks as we have been feeling a lack of soulmates in Fuerteventura! In addition to much-exhibited works Concha has some Canaries-related installations, the most intense of which tells the story of La Sima de Jinámar, (page 12) where Franco-supporters threw leftists dead or alive - over many years! Victims included some of her family. As in the rest of Spain the Canaries is still coming to terms with events of the Civil War.

We walked a great deal around the city, and also made good use of the new style  "bono"  card for urban buses, which takes the prie down to 80 cents per ride! We visited the Vegueta market, Triana shopping street, El Corte Ingles department store on Black Thursday, La Isleta area near the port, and located for future use the cinema where films are shown in V.O. The full (long) extent of the promenade of Las Canteras beach was walked many times, and amongst the stops was a branch of 100 Montaditas on a Wednesday when each little filled roll is just 1 euro! Several nice surprises there!

We also had good dinners as planned, but had trouble finding any lobster for Bob's birthday, and needed to do some learning about lobsters. The obvious translation into Spanish is langosta but that refers to the spiny sort. The one found locally is a bogavante, which is what we eventually sourced - thanks to Trip Advisor - in a very popular but small and simple restaurant close to the beach, We shared one and the claws were indeed, particularly lovely!

With time to kill on the last day we found it had rained overnight and it was dull! Never mind we walked around the ferry and cruise port and came across two Belens. As most visits to GC have been near Christmas we are used to seeing these public nativity scenes, but this year we were impressed. On the beach construction of vast pyramids was under way, and in the shopping centre was  a very traditional one with lovingly produced (and historically bizarre) figues some of which are mechanised!

We flew back that afternoon taking with us a re-emergence of Ruth's bronchitis. A nasty surprise!