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Las Palmas, Gran Canaria. Teror & Arucas

Tuesday 1st January 2013.

The ship's noise woke us at 0625, as it berthed in Las Palmas, Gran Canaria, on a rather dull day.

Las Palmas from the ship

We were on a tour which left at 0930: to Teror & Arucas, up in the hills towards the centre of the island. Las Palmas is on a spit of land & quite large: 400k people & has sprawled inland. The courier bemoaned the shrinking of the banana industry because of competition from the USA but forbore to point out that the bananas from the US were grown by virtual slave labour in Latin America. There were a few banana plantations left. The road wound alarmingly along the steep valley side up to Teror, which has maintained a quaint old centre.

Teror views

Teror in tiles

Typical balconies

Town Hall

Up the High Street

The Church from the main square

The Church Square

In the Church Square

Front of the Church

In the church, service on

Across the quite steep & deep valley

Las Palmas from Teror

We were walked around this, noted the Canary balconies & had a look in the large church. After, we were served honey rum in a rubbish shop, where I bought a bottle, having failed to do on the April cruise. Then, down to Arucas, which has a 20th C 'cathedral' rather similar to Burgos but in black basalt & utterly gross. This town had an old centre too & honoured a local poet.

Arucas views

The hideous church

Inside the church

Up the valley to Teror

The Poet's House

The poet Joaquin Bianco

Off to some gardens, with a snack & more spirit tasting before returning to the ship at the time we were all supposed to be aboard, as it sailed at 1400. I was on at 1500 with my talk about Spanish-temed music by non-Spanish composers & doubled my numbers: 40 this time. Word must be getting around. A discussion group developed after & I dashed for tea. Halfway through an eclair, Roberto, the audio-visual engineer, came up & said Ricky the Cruise Director & Connie wanted me in the cruise Office asap, asap being after the eclair & a cup of tea. No Ricky but Connie said I was on at 0945 tomorrow & I had to pick a talk. I thought Ricky was going to pick one & accused him of laziness (!) at the evening show after thanking him for the bottle of wine her sent to our dinner table. I chose the Grieg talk, printed it & marked it up. The evening show was an improved version of the Rock 'n Roll one we had seen in April, which I told Jane who said, dismissively, that that had been 'the other lot' but which had included Steve.


Port 1 - Funchal,
Madeira

Xmas Day

Port 2 - Praia,
Cape Verde Isles

Port 3 - Mindelo,
Cape Verde Isles

Port 4 - Santa Cruz,
Teneriffe

Port 6 - Lisbon,
Portugal


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Next page - Lisbon, Portugal

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Contact: Ken Baldry at 17 Gerrard Road, Islington, London N1 8AY +44(0)20 7359 6294 or e-mail him
URL: http://www.art-science.com/Tourism/Cruises/CV2012/CV7.html Last revised 7/1/2013 ©2013 Ken Baldry. All rights reserved.