11 facts about GRAN CANARIA - european PARADISE of RUM, sun and WAVES

Despite the fact that Canary Islands are still Europe, they can surprise us in many ways. Time flies slower, people seem to be appreciating everything bit more. Sound of the ocean seems to be the rhytm of their life.

Here I’ve got a list of a few facts about Gran Canaria and people living there which surprised me the most or just seemed the most interesting to me.

1. CACTUS AND TOMATO MARMALADE. It’s kind of special thing which you can try there. I can’t say what I think of the cactus one, because that one was just sweet. But I loved the tomato one ! It’s quite weird taste at the first moment because you’re not used to eat the tomato in this way but it’s really delicious. It’s sweet but you can still taste the tomato.

Las Palmas

1. CANARIAN RUM.. Comes in many flavours. The banana one, the limon one, you can get what you just want. It’s really tasty and cheap, and when you’re drinking it on the beach with the sand brought from Cuba – you can definetely feel like you were on Caribbean Islands, not Canary ones.

2. That’s not like surprising thing, but did you know that BANANAS grow also on Canary Islands? The thing is that they’re not imported to the mainland of Europe. The European Union has forbidden it, just because that their bananas are a bit sorter than these ones from Ecuador or Costa Rica which we buy in our supermarkets.

3. This is the fact about the whole Spain, not only Canary Islands, but – Spanish people don’t use kettles in their house. If they want to prepare a tea, they just heat the water up in the microwave. The same thing they do if they want to make a coffee – either they make it in the coffee machine, or they just heat it up in microwave.

4. Gran Canaria is really small island, but also it’s really diverse. You can go from the north of island to the south side in just 30 minutes, but in the north sometimes you may want to put a leather jacket on and then, 30 minutes later, in the south side it would be too hot event in a bikini.

You can see the difference in the weather even in the picture. Left side - north, and the right side of this photo is more towards the south side

1. The north side of the island is less touristic than the south side. The truth is that beaches are definetely better in the south, but it’s also quite pricy there , and there are just some hotels and restaurants.

Las Dunas de Maspalomas

1. The dunes of Maspalomas. They’re real wonder of the world for me – you can feel there as in the desert.

2. And about the desert, one more thing – sand storms. Sometimes there’s a sand storm in Gran Canaria and the sand is brought above the ocean from Sahara. You’d better not leave your home at that moment, unless you want to be all in sand.

3. The accent on Canary Island. I was wondering what their accent will sound like, but it was just really similar to Andalusian one – they cut the endings of the words, etc. For example, you won’t hear there „Gracias”, but just short „Gracia”.

4. Lifestyle. People are really chilled out, and even though I know this is the feature for people of all south countries, in my opinion they’re more chilled out than people of the Mediterranean countries in the mainland. They smoke cigarettes where they want, timetables of the public transport exist, but don’t seem really useful – for example once the bus was supposed to leave at , let’s say 12.30 pm , but at 12.30 pm the driver left the bus for a few minutes to smoke a cigarette. People leave their cars in places where it’s forbidden. Once I also saw a new way to rep air your car. There was a car with a really destroyed back door. How was it repaired ? Just with an adhesive tape.

You may remember, there was an old Windows' wallpaper looking the same. But that's just photo of the dunes, taken by me!

1. The last, but not least – there’s a duty free area on Canary Islands. That means you can buy alkohol, cigarettes or petrol much less expensive than in general. For example for petrol you’ll pay 0,77 €, for cigarettes – for example menthol Lucky Strikes 2€, but there are also some Canarian brands which cost about 1€ for a pack. Alcohol in restaurants and pubs is sold just for normal prices, but in a supermarket you’ll pay 8€ for 0,5 l of rum or 1€ for a bottle of wine. Of course these ones are not really good , but definetely better than famous boxed Don Simon. And I think that for 3€ you can already get really tasty wine.

To sum up, I think even though Canary Islands are still Europe, they can surprise us more than the mainland, so it’s really worth visiting it – especially if you’re living in Europe, then you can find some really good flight offers from , for example, Ryanair.