Tag 12, from Las Palmas to Las Palmas

Tag 12, from Las Palmas to Las Palmas

First of all: today was our king stage, 175 km in 6:13, which means an average of 28 km/h, even though there were almost 4000 meters of elevation gain. We wanted to explore the corners of Gran Canaria that we hadn't seen yet on our last day. This included the mountains, the Pico de las Nieves as the highest point on the island (1950 m), and the entire west and north coast of the island.

So after our morning tea, we left the apartment that we really liked because of its beach view at 9:30 a.m. and started cycling. This time only until the Orlando car rental, where we picked up our reserved Citroën C3 and exchanged it for the bicycles.

Then we drove up into the mountains through Tafira, Santa Brigida, and San Mateo, passing incredibly beautiful landscapes. The weather: the higher we went, the more rain we encountered. And we thought, it's a good thing we're not cycling, but in a protected car. The route was so steep and difficult that we wouldn't have been able to ride it with the bicycles anyway, not even with the e-bikes, even though it was amazingly beautiful.

Just before we reached the Pico, we drove into the rain clouds, so we were in the clouds at the highest point of the island and therefore had no view. Not a big deal, but it's certainly even more spectacular in good weather. I also realized, standing in the snow rain at 3 degrees, that I had imagined a trip to the Canary Islands in winter a little differently.

Then we drove down the other side towards the south, out of the rain clouds and into the sun. It became drier and warmer, from 3 degrees on the Pico to 20 degrees at the Atlantic. A stark difference.

The mountains between the center of the island and the southwest coast were spectacular, rugged mountains, deep ravines, dangerous switchbacks. We saw so many road cyclists coming up the switchbacks, fighting their way uphill, without realizing that they had only covered a fraction of their route and elevation gain. We almost felt a little sorry for them.

Then we left the mountains and drove onto the coastal road that runs along the west side of the island. We had the Atlantic in sight and enjoyed the view.

So we drove along the western side of Gran Canaria to the northwest and then along the north side towards Las Palmas again.

Now we are sitting at the city beach, having dinner, enjoying the view of the sea, and around 9:30 p.m., we will head to the port to catch our ferry to Lanzarote.

The next stage is from Las Palmas de Gran Canaria to Arrecife overnight.