Skeddie Sauce and other Delights: December 2017

Yes! and if I had it my way, I would be there right this very second instead of sitting here at the computer dreaming away. I'm glad for my pictures however as a last chance resort. This story of course will be short and sweet as you have read and heard plenty already about Gran Canaria.

So without any further ado.............

The first 5 pix are of terminal 3 in CPH airport.

The next 5 pix is of our first meal.

You will find this to be a reoccurring theme as that was pretty much all we did.

We ate until our fat asses exploded and then we ate some more.

The next 5 pix are of the hotel - the day after we arrived.

If this hotel looks familiar, it's because we've stayed here probably on 5 different occasions.

And this is the 3rd new owner.

Later that day we took a 1½ km / 1mile walk down the main road to the beginning of the sand dunes. If you want to go to the water from here, the most direct way is about 3 quarters of a kilometer or ½ a mile. And that would be straight up and down, over some very high sand dunes. So just about everybody follows one of the set trails through the dunes in the opposite direction. The easiest of the tails is nearly double the distance. And then there is the other option - a taxi. It will bring you most of the way with just a short walk to or along the beach and for only the price of a bus ride in Copenhagen.

The above picture of the lighthouse is just about where the taxi would set you off. This is a new camera so I am fooling around with it; trying to learn what all the bells and whistles do. If you look in the lower right hand corner you can see 2 people on the trail through the dunes leading to the beach. The lighthouse is at the southern-most tip of the island and it is here where Colombus hung a right to find the back door to India.

Later that evening we played a round of mini golf. I know - how touristy can you be!? But actually we play because we like to see how Jens is doing with his concentration, control of body movement and balance. I was a total wreck because there were so many things to step up and down over and if Jens lost his balance then there was an excellent chance that he would fall face first into a brick and smash his teeth or fall into one of the very many cactus there. But I worried needlessly. He actually got 4 swings under par.

The following day we took another walk. Our goal was to have lunch at Restaurant Cactus Faro. It's our fav and we've been there a thousand times. We took a taxi from the front of our hotel to the very far end of Costa Melonaras. I don't know what Melonaras means in Spanish but it probably has something to do with Costal Melanoma - what you'll get if you don't use sun block and a hat. We took the wheelchair but Jens walked the entire way. I couldn't believe it. It was a 1½ mile / 2½ km walk. Our walk had a purpose. We planned it from home. We would do the walk and end up at lunch time at our fav restaurant in this part of town.

Lots of fancy hotels in this area. The above pix is one of them.

We have also stayed in one of them - twice. Very nice.

Almost there. We just need to walk about 5 minutes beyond the lighthouse.

This is actually the place where we have stayed before but they added this very fancy outdoor bar.

The place we were to have lunch is kind of a restaurant row. Cactus Faro is towards the end of the long row of restaurants before it ends up at another section of restaurants in a half round circle. "Where's that dang restaurant?", Jens asked me. "It's right here, Jens", I answered back to him. We weren't really sure because all the restaurants have been updated and they all looked alike. It was one long gigantic row of canvas, sun blocking awnings, hung up between heavy wooden post. It had a clean and simplistic look to it. But there was no telling where one restaurant started and where one ended. I ended up apologizing 20 times to Jens. I felt so dumb. We sat down and ordered and just as our food was about to be served, I realized we were in the wrong place. We needed to go just another 25 steps. Actually you can see it in the above pix. The wooden post closest to Jens' head, is the start of the restaurant that we were supposed to be sitting at. I'm so sorry Jens.

After a big lunch, we had a lite dinner.

The waiters know us after all the years we have been eating there. Very nice food at a reasonable price. In conversation with our waiter, he recommended that we go to a place called Guayadeque. I asked, "Where?" He repeated, "Guayadeque." I said, "What?" He said it again, "Guayadeque". I grabbed my phone, opened my map app and stuck the phone in the waiters face and said, "show me!". It starts with a G but pronounced more like Why-a-deck-eh. Much in the same way Guacamole is pronounced Walk-a-mol-eh. All these years that we have been coming here, we never heard of it and Jens was even a tour guide here back in the early 80's.

I was supposed to get up early to go to the auto rental shop to rent a car. But the night before, Jens opened the safety box to get his medicine and then he closed the box. The he needed to get into the box again to get his phone. But this time the safety box wouldn't open. It wouldn't even go on. We couldn't get to our cash or anything. We sort of panicked a little. We didn't know what to do. The flyer that shows how to set your 6 digit pin code said 24 hour service. But no number to call or any sort of info. Luckily my phone was outside of the safety box. I googled it and found out that the safety box is a Spanish product and they just happened to have an office right across the street from the auto rental shop. But it was almost midnight and no one answered the phone and the message was in Spanish. "Presso el uno por bla bla bla. Presso las dos por mas bla bla bla" Who the funk knows what they were saying. For all I know, they could have been saying - you stupid tourist - you're s#!t out of luck. We kept thinking, what if we had to leave early in the morning. Our return tickets were in the safe. But there was nothing to do. We would have to talk to the hotel owners in the morning when they arrive at 8.

We've done it a thousand times. We lock our phones into the safety box even though there is a sticker on the box that shows: No phones. My phone was out of the box but Jens' phone was inside of the box. That was what he was trying to get to - his phone.

In the morning we attacked the hotel owner. He said not to worry and that he will call the service man right away. He said this happens about once or twice a month. I googled some info about the safety box and they show how to break into them. I couldn't believe it. And that is exactly what the service man had to do. They have secret ways to break in. Of course we were not allowed to watch. But it didn't matter, I already saw how to break in on youtube while waiting for the guy to show up. The service man said to be sure to turn the phone off if when we put the phones in the box.

Anywhoo.... we reset our pin code and I was able to get to my wallet and passport to go rent a car and we were only 1 hour later than what we had planned on. I used google to find our way to Gauyadeque. Got lost as soon as we got off of the motorway but then turned ourselves around and came to the cutest village that was not part of our plan but it will be next time. Up a steep winding road and then suddenly we were in the middle of nowhere. With the peddle to the metal, the car would hardly move as the road was very steep. Eventually we needed a stretch and a smoke so we stopped here at this Walk-a-mol-eh museum.

Gauyadeque is a steep and narrow ravine where the original Canarian natives lived and they lived in caves. This museum is actually in a cave. They just built onto the mountain, a facade that acts as the entrance.

This is what Wikipedia says:

The site used to be the most populated valley on the island and contains hundreds of caves. All the people who lived there have left many mummies and other burial remains in some caves, well guarded by the difficulty of access of the caves they were left in. These caves include Labour cave ("Cueva Labra"), Numerous caves ("Cuevas Muchas"), Canary Cliff ("Risco del Canario"), Vincent Cliff ("Risco Vincentico"), Black Cliff ("Risco del Negro"), etc... The ravine is thus among the most important pre-historic burial ground of the island.

The caves were then used as dwellings, food storage and for fertility rituals. Sometimes burial caves were re-used, in which cases special care was taken to protect the skulls with stones and, in Guayadeque, covered with animal skins or covers weaved of reeds.

The 19th century saw much devastation from grave plundering; many items found on the site found their way to the Canarian museum of Las Palmas, who bought them. Subsequently, the site was designated as a nature reserve to stop the plundering and other damages.

The importance of water courses through the valley is shown by the many remains of water mills.

A museum has been built at the beginning of the GC-103 road: the Guayadeque museum - Centre of Archaeological interpretation (Sp.: Museo de Guayadeque - Centro de Interpretación Arqueológica). It shelters an exhibition on human activities in the valley, going back to pre-Hispanic times. Click here if you want to read more from the site.

I was amazed by these pre-historic drawings on the cave rocks. But I couldn't understand why the rocks looked different than the rest of the mountain. Then I read the description: copy bla bla bla...

Then we drove a little further and came to this little stop where we were going to have lunch. But 20 cars stopped along with us and out of the cars were all these young collage kids speaking Spanish at the top of their lungs. So we decided to skip this area altogether. That was too bad because it could have been interesting to eat lunch inside of a cave. There was also this walking trail that went to the cave homes that you can see in the above pix. Below is an figure of the pre-historic native. It is the entrance to the restaurant.

So we drove on and then the road got really steep. We came to an arched gate and a fork in the road but we could only turn right. So that meant you could only go one way. It must have been the road from the other end of the parking lot that we came to.

Boy we really got lucky. Who knew there was one more restaurant at the top and the end of the road. I wanted to sit inside of the cave but Jens wanted to sit outside because it was such a beautiful day. The patio was so cozy and pleasant. We ordered a ham and cheese sandwich but they didn't have that. They did however have ham and cheese and bread. So we said ok - give us 2 of those and 2 cups of cafe con leche. We've had the Spanish style air-dried ham and we don't like it but that is exactly what they came out with and the amount of chees would have lasted us for a month - especially since it was goat cheese. Well... it was soooooo delicious, we just sucked it up in no time. And then we washed it all down with a second cup of coffee.

After we ate, I went to go see what the inside of a cave restaurant looks like.

It was surprisingly huge.

Below is a picture from the parking lot at the restaurant. I wanted to drive through to go around the back side of the restaurant and come out on the other side where the fork in the road was at. But to my surprise, the parking lot didn't have a through road. So I drove back the way we came from the fork and drove the way that I thought was a one way road.

The road continued for about a quarter mile and who knew but there was another cave restaurant even higher up the road and here in the below pix, is the end of the paved road. I guess if it is a totally clear day, you must be able to see the Atlantic from here. We'll find out next time.

Now I am crossing my fingers that the breaks don't burn out because it was a very steep road and even in 2nd gear, I had to break quite a bit.

Now we are approaching that cute little town that I want to come back and visit.

From here we hang a right and head directly towards the center of the island. We came to a small town call Santa Lucia - which is perfect for the Christmas Season. She's the saint with the candles on her head. She's a big deal in Sweden. Google Santa Lucia or Saint Lucy if you want to see/learn more. Oh go ahead, it's Christmas.

This is Obispado Diocesis De Canaria church at Plaza Santa Lucia.

There she is; Santa Lucia with the candles on her head.

Here's the song. You'll get the idea in the first 55 seconds.

We have the car for only a day and it's been a full day with getting locked out of the safety box and mile high cave hunting and Santa Lucia. So we have to get moving and we still have a way to go. Here we are now at this amazing look-out spot. It's is this point that we usually drive to first on our island tours. But this time we are making this our last stop as we drive down the mountain road back to our hotel.

From this point we can look down the mountainside and see tourist on a off-roading tour.

The mountain road is very narrow in many places and here there is always a traffic jam when a city bus or a tourist bus passes through.

There are beautiful rugged mountain in all directions. Directly behind the camera is the Atlantic. But I didn't snap it this time as the sun is setting and it would just be glare.

All that driving has made us hungry.

Sizzling shrimp in garlic.

When it came time to ordering dessert after our huge meal, I didn't really have space for more. But Jens had to have his daily supply of sugar. I just wanted a bite. I learned a new Spanish word and put it to use: Dos cucharas, por favor!

Today is the last day. After packing I decided to go out and snap a few pix in the neighborhood with my new camera. I don't really know what I am doing with this camera. There are over 300 pages in the direction booklet which is only on-line - drag. The day is hazy but the weather is very warm.

This camera has an amazing lens - I am actually quite a ways from the yellow building in the top picture and this lens let's me be a peeping-tom from a safe distance. You can almost see right into the hotel room in the blow pix.

This is one of those fancy hotels that we passed on our long walk. From where I am standing and shooting, the hotel is 1.75 miles away / nearly 3 kilometers away. Pretty amazing - eh? Now if I just knew what I was doing, maybe I could get some decent pix. My last camera had a button to take away all the haze. I'm sure this camera can do that too but I'll have to read 300 pages to figure out how.