Tips on exploring Gran Canaria. Part III - Aquarium ''Poema De Mar''.

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Toady I come back with another Gran Canaria Post. There might be another one but I have to check if it is worth making as my archive of photos is not so big on the activity I want to talk about. It has been a while since I made one of these posts as this one required a little more for me to do. I filmed some material of quite a lot of wonderful marine life and couldn't get myself to make that short clip for a while. But I have done it today as I am full of energy and you can check it out in this post.

Now, I will be writing about a lot of fish living in a new place that was opened recently in Las Palmas, the capital of the Island named Gran Canaria. Opened recently, thus is a sister project to the Loro Parque that is located in Tenerife (another island). The place has the same owner, the same logo color scheme and the same vibe even though it is not nearly as big or grand and breathtaking as the Zoo park that has existed a good while. That being said, the place is still beautiful and worth checking out, especially if you are with kids and have a Canarian resident card.

Here are the two previous posts I made:
Tips on exploring Gran Canaria. Part I - Mogan
Tips on exploring Gran Canaria. Part II - Día de Canarias

Now, the first thing that I would like to mention is that you do not need a lot of time to check out all the things that the aquarium has to offer. It is not huge however, it is interesting and spacious. It has a cafe somewhere in the middle that you can sit down in and a reastaurant that did not seem to need reservations as most tables were empty and the waiters just walked around to kill the time. I can not comment on the food as we did not stop by to have any but rather went to the close by shopping center (5 minutes walking) and dined in one of the many small restaurants there.

They have many tanks and the animals do not look mistreated. They have quite a lot of space and you can observe lizards, crocks or alligators (I did not read the info plaque therefore, I amnot sure), terrarium animals, fishes, and even seahorses. As my aunt mentions, there are seahorses in the North Atlantic Ocean but they are very hard to spot while snorkeling. There were also turtles and those were the ones that I thought lived in too small of a tank. I am not sure if they were there only during the day or all the time but it made me sad to think that they shall spend any time in that small fish-tank. I also do not know if the majority are rescue fishes and animals in this aquarium or bought ones so I have no comments on that part.

The tank that was too small for two turtles. Catch a better glimpse of one in the video.

The park is built like a cave system. Of course, those rocks ain't real but I liked to play pretend and I think the kids would love that pleasure as well. There are a lot of fake greens and trees, and corals. I would have preferred real corrals but the thing is, those do not grow on the coast or near the coast of the Canary islands. The substitutes looked beautiful and the only thing that did give away that they were not real were the few corals that had fallen to the ground and were visible to be supported by a tall screw.

The semi-fake plants are also a mixed emotion thing for me, but again, this was an aquarium not a botanical garden and it is very hard to keep trees and bushes alive indoors. And then, on top of that, to clean water from leaves and seeds would be impossible so I understand why it is the way it is. And, I do make it sound worse than it is with my nitpicking, I promise, the fun part is coming! The whole place is breathtaking. It is clean, colorful and mysterious, there are just some things I bring to light that I found interesting and I will talk about the last point to take into consideration before moving on to the beautiful and spectacular.

The last topic to talk about is the pricing.

• For adult tourists (Non-resident) the ticket price is 25 €.
• For a child till the age of eleven (Non-resident) the ticket price is 17,50 €
• For a local resident with a NIE number the ticket price is 18 €
• For a child till the age of eleven that is a resident the ticket price is 13 €

The prices are a little salty. I have my resident NIE number so I went for the local price but my stance on this is, a local will only visit this place once and never return whereas if the prices were a little lover, it would be worth returning to the place. Yeas, that is what I am saying. This is a place to visit once, admire, and move on. It is nice, it is clean, and it is new, but the shareholders are really milking the cow here.

However, I am not saying it is not worth going. In fact, I would say, everyone should check the place out at least once. It is just, with the prices, I do not intend to return for the second time but I would if they were actually reasonable. And, that is something I consider a bad business model. Also, let me repeat this this again The place is worth visiting!. It is overpriced but when you are on holiday, it should not be discounted from your plans. So, without further ado, lets explore the park!

Among many interesting aquariums, there was this pearl that really caught my attention. The tank that was imitating the ocean environment at the coast. This was a long pool stretching by a wall and located close to the end of the park. There were various fishes swimming against and along the man-made currents. It was a fun observation, too, as the fishes we saw in this water body were the ones me and my aunt had seen in the ocean, while snorkeling. It is an accurate representation of what marine life lives at the coast of Gran Canaria and I was impressed.

Also, the green fishes in the second image can be easily found while snorkeling in a beach. They are the most colorful of the fishes I saw and come in various sizes. They do not travel in big schools of fishes, at least not at the coast, but they are very alluring and captivating with these deep saturated colors that you would think belong in a colorful coral reef. I saw them on all my occasions snorkeling (around 5 to 7 times in different beaches) and they are native to the waters of Gran Canaria.

I called this one aquarium the ''Nemo cartoon''. You can guess why. :D All the fishes that you see in the above pictures live in the same tank. This aquarium is right next to the cafe that is in the middle of your journey and it is a great hit with the kids as they immediately recognize Nemo and his friends. I, too, was brought back to my childhood. This tank grabbed me and did not let go. It also had a hallow middle that you could get to. You would have to get on your knees and crawl in there. There are two ways that you can go, and it is possible even iif you are a full grown adult. My aunt can attest to that as she followed me inside the tank.

It was marvelous, too, all the little fish that feature the magnificent colors, swimming above you and looking fly. I imagined myself in the tank, among the fishes and a hero of the Nemo story. It was s fun experience even though I do not know if any of these fish breeds live anywhere near the Canary Islands. What caught my attention was this cute stingray in the tank. It was a different and new breed that I hadn't seen before. Much smaller than the gray beauties and a lot of WOW. I know, all things small, are cuter :D

This is the place right next to the exit. You are greeted with an enourmous cinemy that shows ''animal life'' 24 hours a day. There is something calming in this place. I sat down and marveled in wonder. How this huge tank was just a fraction of the real sea-life. How big the ocean actually is. Here, I also wondered if the fish in the tank were rescues or not. If they had been taken from their home and placed in the aquarium for our pleasure or their own benefit. I know, that is not very cheerful but my thoughs were provoked by some odd looking sharks and stingrays with broken tails.

I hoped that the fish had acquired their injuries in the wild and we had rushed to help them. I hoper the weirdly bent shark needed our help and I wondered at the same time if it was just pregnant. No matter how many jokes me and my aunt made about these fish belonging on our dinner plate (yes, we joke like that), at the end of the day, I hope these are happy creatures as I do like food and fish but I would never take more than I need.

There was a diver in the tank the whole time we were close to this aquarium. He seemed to be changing air tanks bt I have no knowledge of what the divers in these establishments have to do. What are heir duties. My aunt told me about some of them as her boyfriend is a professional diver and did this sort of work a while ago but it was nothing certain and, captured by the sight of fish, I was listening just with one ear.

All of these pictures are taken from the ''screen tank'' and you can see that there is a walking path cutting through the middle of this tank. In this aquarium you can not loose your way or get lost yourself. There is only one path that takes you from the entrance to the exit. There are some toilets but they are all on the side of the main path. We passed through this tunnel in the middle before reaching the big screen and it was quite interesting to see the fish from there and then from the other side. Still, nothing challenged the big screen.

This must be one of my favorite shots

You can see all of the fake corals here. They are colorful and beautiful, and I did not realize they were not real in the beggining. But, after a while, the truth revealed itself to us. You can see that the plastics have a flat bottom. They are held on to the rocks by one single nail/screw/neredle. I have no idea what it is. There was this one tank that went on for three storyes and was full of the corals. It was in this cylindric form like many other fish tanks and the fisk and other creatures were swimming around it. The tank was not overcrowded, it looked nice, especially since the walk from one floor to the next had been built all around the tank.

In the spot, you were periodically walking through tunnels under tanks and out, in the open. Sometimes you would look up on the fish. Other times, down, from the top, where the waterline was touched by various fins. Other times, you would have the opportunity to check the swimmers out sideways as the glass cut the tanks and you saw what was seemingly going on underwater.

Those things were huge! They were one of the first fishes we saw and featured a size between one and two meters. They swam lazily, in circles, and looked as majestically as a unicorn might be. In this tank, there was a huge tree in the middle, they would swim around it. It reminded me of The Tree of Life somehow even though it was anything but alive. I am a dreamer, that must be it.

There are several different worlds in this aquarium. It is really A Poem of the Sea (translation from the Spanish name of the place). You were in a cave one moment and under the ocean another, feeling like captain Nemo exploring the deepest corners of the Sea.

There was also a nice bridge on top of one of the tanks. It was built of ropes and wood and made you feel like an adventurer while crossing. That reminds me, for most of the tanks, there were multiple viewing points that you could look at the fish from. You wouldn't know it at first but later you would return to the same tank but underwater.

A huge ''Nope''*

There were also a couple of terrariums that we found. In most of them, however, we could not find the inhabitants. I knew they were there but these creatures are great at hiding and so we missed out on around 4 to 5 tanks. I do not recall now what creatures were supposed to live in these but I remember being excited trying to spot them. That being said, there were not many of these tanks so we did not miss much. We even saw an employee open the top of one tank and spray water in it.

There were more tanks in another place and we found the ''Nope'' in the top picture. There were also scorpions that glowed in the dark but they did not pick up well with my phones camera. It was also reflecting my own image so my attempts to take a decent picture of them were further spoiled.

A very Russian fish in the corner

Majestic creatures



The treasures living underwater


More Nemo and fake corals


The closing act

That is most of it. Feel free to check out the video, you can spot some more of these wonderful and weird ocean creatures in it. That are so majestic floating through water and some of the things that were not captured in photos were caught on camera.

Me, Linda, the explorer of the aquarium
Have a great day, today, tomorrow, and forever!

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