For me, Gran Canaria sounded like a place for sunbaked, wrinkly retired northern Europeans (sorry to say, but true), and it definitely did not sound like a place where I would voluntarily spend a certain amount of weeks.
However, I kept on reading about the Canary Islands as a perfect digital nomad destination, and fellow surfers kept telling me that the island has some great surf spots. So when Norwegian Airlines created a nicely personalized Facebook ad, offering 50,- round trips from Malaga to Gran Canaria, I decided to just give it a go for two weeks.
I found a hostel right at Las Canteras beach, one of the most famous surf spots in the capital city of Gran Canaria, Las Palmas: La Ventana Azul. They promoted their selves as a surf hostel, so I figured that was a good sign.
I also found a co-working, ReStation, just around the corner. So with these ideas in mind, I checked in my board (yes, Norwegian charged me 40,- per trajectory to take my own board, considering that renting for a month was 65,- I figured I´d prefer my own precious board that I am so used to).
Finding my way around surfeable Las Palmas
All went smooth, I took a bus right from the airport to the Santa Catalina square and walked from there, with my board, to the hostel. I got welcomed and showed around the hostel right away by a nice German surfer, who gave me info about the tides and where to go. Though exhausted, I of course could not wait to go into the water.
Still confused about where the rocks where hiding, I walked up to a local Canarian surfer who explained me exactly which waves works at which tide and where the rocks were hiding. I was totally amazed about how easy going and friendly the locals were. I already noticed, and would notice many times more afterwards, that the Canarians are a fun mix between Spaniards and Latino´s. Their accent is a lot more Latino Spanish, but also their way of being: open and a thatch more dramatic, relaxed and passionate. This is my kind of people!
A ´normal´ working week in Las Palmas
And so my working weeks started: the co-working turned out to be a great place to work. Especially since everyone else started around 9 or 10, I myself started at 7.30 (due to the time difference, this meant 8.30 in mainland Spain) which gave me some hours completely by myself. With a little Skype room, there was lots of opportunity to work hard and on your own, but if you wanted to grab a coffee or lunch, there was always someone around who was up for that. I got along super well with the two Canarian girls running the place and we definitely shared our nice lunch or coffee every once in a while.
Sharing a space also proved to be convenient, once again, when I had some issues with my Excel (´anyone around who knows about Excel?´, ´yes, I do´, ´great, it´s fixed´.. something that otherwise would have taken me ages looking into YouTube tutorials).
I usually closed my computer around 4pm (5pm in Spain) and rushed over to the hostel to change into my wetsuit and make my daily 15 minute walk with my board to La Cicer beach, a nice surf break with different places to enter. As I went into the wáter every day around the same time, I kept on meeting the same people in the same spot. After a week we (mostly locals) become buddies and encouraged each other to take waves, asked about our days and shared our enthusiasm. There were also some local surf schools going into the water, teaching the Canarian kids. Luckily I made friends with some of the teachers who then slipped me some feedback on how to improve my technique whenever they saw me making some mistakes J
Only women in the line-up
Surf keeps on being mostly a male sport, unfortunately I would say. But in a way it´s also fun, the few women out there, we stand up for ourselves. As we were mostly 4 or 5 women (all Canarian), every once in a while they told the local guys to just back off for 5 minutes, because ´these waves are for us girls now´. And of course I was invited into the line-up as well. Gotta love these Latina type of women 😉
We met up a couple of times out of the water to get a wine as well and I quickly learned that women need to stand up for their selves out there in the water, as there can potentially be some ego´s
Fun fact, the international surf world really is small. One day, one of my new friends invited me for a beer in a surfer place around 30km outside of Las Palmas. When we got there, I thought the name reminded me of the name of a surf camp my friends back in Salobreña had been mentioning. After a short research I did find out that the owner of this camp/bar is indeed the brother of one of my surf buddies from back home in Salobreña.. such a small world 😉
Canarian Carnival celebrations
Carnival is also a ginormous thing in the Canary Islands. To be honest, I did not know this, but I would soon find out. Not just four days such as in the Netherlands, but three whole weeks it lasted, with the biggest parties in the weekend. The big parade meant you hád to go dressed up, you would feel like an idiot if you would not go dressed up. Over 100 wagons pass with different music, and when you like the music or the vibe, you walk along this wagon until you´re getting tired of it, hop out of the parade again and stand by the line, until you find a new one. This whole parade went over 6km and took around 5 hours, ending in various big concerts across the city. It´s been a while I had been partying various days in a row, but it seemed like there was no escape from here.
In between the full working days, the surf sessions and the carnival, this was maybe why I slept so well in the dorm rooms, despite having to share it with six other people 😉
Explorations during the weekend
Since I work Mondays to Thursdays, the long weekend I would usually take to ór do two long surf sessions in the morning and in the afternoon, ór explore the island a bit.
Maspalomas and Puerto Dorán
Puerto Dorán is also in the south and we went to watch a rather gorgeous sunset here. It´s also called the Venice of Gran Canaria, and with the cute little harbor and the flowers I can see why. Again, too touristy for my taste, but definitely nice to see.
Forests and lakes
Another day we also rented a car (definitely the easiest way to get around the island, and a car can be rented for around 25,- a day, so fill it up with people, share the expenses and you´re good to go!), and went around the mountains of the island. Exploring little forests, and lakes, this was a totally unexpected side of Gran Canaria for me!
Agaete
Another day I took the bus to Agaete, a little town on the West coast of Gran Canaria. About one hour away, I found a nice little hostel and strolled down to the beach. Here they have these natural little pools that fill after high tide, as well as an amazing sunset. The little town itself felt super peaceful and quiet. Having a beer at the roof top terrace I met two fellow Dutch travelers who ere planning on a hike for the next day, and of course I was welcome to join! We hiked around the valley, into the mountains and ended at the coast. Though Wikilock confused us a bit, and we ended up in a huge cactus valley (with the resulting scratches all over our legs) we managed to find our trail back. After this we visited some more view points and ended up at a wine and coffee tasting farm (of course, after having lived in Colombia for so long, no coffee will ever be the same, also not this one. The wines were nice though, and their coffee marmalade was mind-blowing!).
Finding surf spots at the north coast
A final trip I took with a Swiss and an Italian fellow surfer to check out the different surf spots on the north coast of Gran Canaria. Though I know that most of them would be too advanced for me, I wanted to check them out anyways. Once again we rented a car, put our boards inside and drove off with our Magic Sea Weed app at hand. We managed to go in at some places, and the Swiss Alain having over 10 years of surf experience, I felt that I could try and cross my boundaries. Always a good feeling 😉
Totally recommended!
In the end, though I had planned to only stay for two weeks, I ended up staying four weeks. The combination of a very social hostel space with lots of fun people around me, a work space where I felt comfortable and met lots of people, the waves right in front of me where I met lots of people made that this kind of work/sports/outside/social balance was exactly what I needed right now, and I would recommend anyone to not judge Gran Canaria on the image that we have, but to give it a try. It really is a digital nomad/surfers haven and I will for sure be back for a little bit next winter.
