Canary Islands-- Las Palmas, Gran Canaria

The Canary Islands situated in the Atlantic Ocean, close to North Africa were at the crossroads of 14th century explorations of Africa, transatlantic trade, the sugar trade, and was even a stop by Christopher Columbus en route to the “Asia”. The Archipelago occupies a position that facilitates navigation toward the west due to its Trade Winds and sea streams. That is why expeditions would land here to stock up on supplies before crossing the Atlantic. Fought over and colonized by Italy, Portugal, France, England, and Spain, and ravaged by bands of pirates and buccaneers, it was eventually proclaimed a Spanish province in 1821.

Today, we visited the largest and most popular of the 7 Canary Islands, Gran Canaria. With its balmy, sunny climate, lots of coastline, laid back feel, and outdoor lifestyle makes it ideal for tourism, which produces 80% of the islands revenue.

Via Hop-On-Hop-Off tour bus, we toured Las Palmas, capital of the Eastern Provinces of the Canaries, (Santa Cruz de Tenerife is capital of the western provinces). First we took the entire hour long 9-stop (15 Euro) circuit tour. The scenery of the layers of multicolored houses across the mountain side was spectacular. This is a popular beach vacation destination among Europeans. The 2nd time around, we got off at stop 4—The Old City—where we visited the 16th century Cathedral de Santa Ana and the Casa de Colon. Casa de Colon is a museum that houses scale models, panels, nautical maps, navigational instruments, 15th century globes, caravel models, and geographic documentation of collections on 1) Christopher Columbus and his Voyages, and 2) Gran Canaria and the city of Las Palmas.

I especially enjoyed hearing (again) about how Columbus made 4 expeditions to seek a new route to Asia (NEVER KNOWING he arrived at lands unknown to Europeans), the role that trade winds played in guiding Columbus’ routes, the secret treaty (by the Pope) that gave most of the Americas to Spain and only Brazil (and a few small islands east of European mainland) to Portugal, and how entire families from the Canary Islands were forced to emigrate to various parts of the Americas to help Spain maintain its control of the region. The most popular emigrant destinations were Cuba, The Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Buenos Aires, Montevideo, and Caracas. Venezuela is often called the 8th island of the Canaries and a high proportion of Cubans can claim Canarian ancestry.

By the way, it is believed that the Canary Islands’ name is derived from a kind of dog, popular on the island.