The Cunning Canary

If you fancy a bit of sun at Christmas (and let’s be honest, most of us crave it by then!) what about a holiday in Gran Canaria?

Daily sun is not guaranteed as such but when you have a cloudy day here the next day is often nice. Also, you get some days with a few cloudy hours and a few sunny ones, but mostly you can expect sun!

The weather and climate in Gran Canaria are pretty good throughout the year in general and the weather in Gran Canaria at Christmas tends to be good.

Average Temperatures

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If you have a holiday in Gran Canaria Playa del Ingles might well be your resort. Fortunately there are plenty of things to do in the area. You might be interested in car hire in the Canary Islands and then the whole island is your oyster!

Also, there is no harbour (so no boat trips!) in Playa del Ingles so you will need to make a trip to Puerto Escala in Puerto Rico if you want to do dolphin trips in Gran Canaria or a fishing trip.

1. Walking and Hiking

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A number of airlines and travel companies have gone out of business recently, including Futura, Zoom Airlines, XL Airways and Seguro Holidays. XL Airways went into administration last Friday morning, annoyingly one day before my sister was supposed to be flying out (with them!) and about 85,000 were stranded overseas with no flight home.

Photo By Andrei Dimofte

Another 200,000 people lost their holidays or flights. If they booked a package holiday, most would have been covered for most or all of the price on their insurance but it will take up to six months to process all the claims.

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So much for the recent heatwave. This week we’ve had RAIN!! Now whereas that might be exciting for ex pats like me who only see rain a couple of times a year, it might not be all that amusing for sun-seeking tourists! Typical Gran Canaria weather usually keeps them happy.

Today seems to be bright and clear though and the rain has definitely stopped. When I say “rain” I mean light drizzle. I was only person in Puerto Rico carrying an umbrella! Rain is unusual at the end of August and more common in January or February. When I say common I mean a slim chance, but it made a nice change anyway (and I didn’t have to water the banana plants that day!)

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Some sobering news here about illegal immigrant boat people coming to Gran Canaria. This seems to be becoming more and more common.

Illegal immigration in Gran Canaria seems to be at an all time high and few of the illegal immigrant boats seem to make it to one of the islands, if they make it at all.

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Every Friday about a thousand people walk past my desk (OK, at the moment about a hundred - see my what happened to the summer?! post). When asked “do you want to go fishing?” their reply is always the same.

“No, we’re going to Mogan Market.”

What is so popular about the market in Mogan and why do 99% of tourists seem to go there?!

Photo By CeesJW

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