Above – Caldera de Bandama (the Bandama crater)
Another sunny day, about 23 C. The weather is pretty constant on Gran Canaria. At this time of year it stays around 20-23 C. We are on the north side of the island which gets most of the cloud. We have seen some light cloud in the morning and evening, with solid spells of clear blue sky in between.
We set out late in the morning after a substantial breakfast for the short drive to the Caldera de Bandama, the crater of an extinct volcano. There is a small peak alongside (about 500m above sea level) that gives a good view to Las Palmas and all around, but the much more interesting part is the crater, about 1km across and 200m down to the bottom. We let the coach party of German tourists, complete with man with monster HDV camera on his shoulder, disappear before we drove down to the hamlet of Bandama and walked part way down the crater side. There is a good viewing platform part way down.
Back in the hamlet we found a well stocked Farmacia where we bought sun screen. Next door, almost hidden from view, was a village shop selling all sorts, even with a pick n’ mix sweet counter, where we bought water.
We drove for about 45 minutes up and down winding roads to the town of Teror, marked as 3 stars in the guide book. After circumnavigating the town once, and not seeing much in the way of parking spaces, we drove up a small side street and the Barry parking karma sprung into action as a car pulled away from a prime spot and we drove straight in. This street turned out to be right next to the church and main town square.
The main square and the streets leading off from it are pedestrianised. It had a wild west feel to it due to the almost complete lack of people or street furniture. The old buildings were well maintained, but almost look like a film set from some angles as you could see the hills rising up behind. We sat in the village square eating a vegetable paella for lunch and watched as, every 15 minutes or so, another coach load of tourists arrived. Strangely, each group had its own video man who followed the group around with his monster HDV videocam on his shoulder. We concluded that these were groups from cruise ships and that they were being filmed for some video log of the trip.
The church was an antidote to the beautiful town square. Inside there was a desk taking €1.50 from each person. We assumed that this was the entry fee and dutifully paid up. But no, this was the charge to visit the upper gallery, behind the altar, containing a hideous, brightly lit silver statue of the virgin Mary. We quickly passed by and had a quick look at the church, very plain apart from an equally gaudy, gold clad altar focussing the attention the the silver virgin Mary.
We drove off up the mountain to a town called Artenara, perched high up in the hills. A spaghetti western movie again came to mind. The roads up to Artenara were good, but the roads on the return journey via Cruz de Tejeda were superb. It looked as if they had recently been constructed – wide roads, even round mountain bends, well marked and smooth. Cruz de Tejeda is the nominal centre of the island and the highest peak is nearby. Out of the blue we came across vehicles lining the roads. They were apparently there for some sort of motocross event down in the gorges that we could hear but not see.
We though that we had worked out our eating timetable well and went down to dinner at the hotel at 20:30. The small meal that we chose was reasonable, but the total lack of atmosphere made it a chore rather than a pleasure.
