Review Gran Canaria:
from Puerto de Mogan to Puerto de Las Nieves
Review for better to like? Trap or magic, as the case may be.
In any case, we will have reviewed in particular for the occasion the sites Agaete, of Puerto de Nieves, from Puerto de Mogan, from the mill in the valley ...
Gran Canaria,
Puerto de Mogan
Here is an example of improvement by time and by the layers of experiences accumulated tourist attractions, in the south-west of the island in Puerto de Mogan. The unpleasant impression that we had given way to a kind of feeling of opulent beauty, now draped in a serene and quite beautiful legitimacy.
Five years ago, we regretted the factitious character of the port, the houses too carefully decorated with bougainvillea, the relentlessness to seduce at full force the tourist.
Even while remaining reserved for tourism almost exclusively, instead of unpleasant artifices of the origins, it is now a seduction that is still easy and enticing, but which has taken on a beautiful patina, to which the small fishing port adds its guarantee.
As if everyone had found their marks, with a new and surprising pledge of authenticity.
If accommodation has been further developed on the main avenue which comes from the motorway exit, overflowing with bad taste architecture, this is for the benefit of the comparatively sober and elegant center today, next to the fishing port. .
A new balance after everyone has appropriated their space and lived there for a few years, after the probably redeveloped fishing port, which is more spacious, has found its due space.
If we find the large fishing traps, they are there neatly arranged, in an enclosure dedicated, orderly.
Even the water in the small marina is amazingly clear, where small schools of fish slowly roam (but where are the sewers whose smell we smelled 5 years ago ?).
The only bas-relief gallery-passage that we appreciated the first time is intact and still remains original.
Shops, restaurants, brasseries are there, but peaceful, almost languid, without that annoying eagerness of before.
The size of the bushes and decorative trees (in addition to the bougainvilleas, they are the hibiscus, the superb blooming jacarandas ...) reached respectable dimensions, which con (i) make a beautiful scale to small parks.
Everything has also been done to get to this site faster: the highway that encircled the coast to the east has been extended from the southeast until there, piercing several folds successive rocky. And for the moment it is interrupted precisely at the interchange which allows to go south to our port, and north to the village of Mogan.
Alone the arid contrast of the background buttresses reminds the forced nature of the site.
Gran Canaria,
a bit of Mogan and its small region
In the barranco de Mogan which stretches to the north, the mill on the road still stretches its immobile wings, dapper, free to access, with its garden of succulents of beautiful dimensions and its giant reproductions of old household appliances which entertain young and old.
Some have even been added since our first visit.
And suddenly, Lilliput is seized with a great fright between these objects for giants and the sharp thorns which are dressed in deceptive quilts, treacherous terrestrial anemones.
But interest wanes on the 2nd pass here.
And we are perhaps more intrigued by the aloe vera in bloom, lost in the middle of prickly pears which are peeling.
Elsewhere, fields of this succulent can be seen from the road, intended for the production of juices, essences, gels, oils ... which can be extracted from it.
We had avoided the very village of Mogan. This time we take a break there, looking for information on hiking possibilities in the area.
What we manage to achieve in a sort of village school association.
On a very steep hillside, this one has a certain appeal.
Like many others on the island, great efforts are made to promote old heritage, refresh it, decorate it with attractive and neat playful or educational decorations.
Everywhere in any case, even greater care than 5 years ago, almost meticulous, is put in the maintenance of ancient testimonies and the illustration of folklore from the last two centuries.
Even to the point that the sustained effect becomes too strong, the appearance too new, too clean, too smooth. And that we lose a little in fantasy and spontaneity.
Even the beautiful little one typical church dominating a place shaded by venerable trees where runs a charming but cold pergola appears very severe.
So when unexpectedly arises the bohemian charm of a thick wall in a bright decrepit color, well forgotten, it is a small happiness. And the profusion of wild plants, often succulents, which grow on its ridge, is ... a celebration.
Thanks be for once to the severe holders of the purse strings: the subsidy, the means of the owner were not enough; here is an abandonment, a very spontaneous rural wink estimable.
Elsewhere, it is a hovel with a dented roof, under a palm tree escaping from an oasis, or a now wild bush of bougainvillea or hibiscus.
Often a house with a red roof, a chapel, a small square, offer coarse facades painted in white whose decrepit rubble stone is a surprise for the eye.
As in Lanzarote, the corner stones so colorful and contrasting, the intense and yet harmonious colors that some facades dare, the series of short alleys increase the picturesque.
The remarkable thing is also in the cleanliness of the places, hamlets, small villages. So clean that you'd think everyone was holding their breath for fear of tarnishing, of staining.
Even the smallest toilet whose sharpness would shame that of a brewery basement Parisian even wealthy ... (and no fallacious argument from attendance!).
Gran Canaria,
towards Agaete by water tug
Towards the north-west, beyond Mogan, one suddenly recognizes in the ample laces of the mountain this place of colored strata, named for this reason "Azulejos".
But there it is under a small pouring rain, and therefore almost at a run, at least as much as our old, cramped lungs allow.
Even under this dull light of misty peaks, the magic of colors still works.
We then recognize this well-maintained road which crosses two or three small passes through as many mineral mountainous bars of a dark ocher, passes the large uninteresting village of La Aldea de San Nicolas, to finally reach above the black cliffs. that plunge into the ocean.
But this time the sky is heavy clouds and no wind at all.
The balcony road sometimes vertiginous keeps its promises, with in the distance on its low coastal plateau the white town of Agaete and Puerto de las Nieves the small port of departure for boats to the other islands.
There, no more today than ever, no snow but a beautiful abundant and fresh rain which violently underlines the contrast between the dark brown of the mountain and the white houses.
Hasty crossing of Agaete where the traffic is more complicated, almost breathless (it will have been enough of unfortunate one-way streets) to the port.
A ferry leaves, the swell is strong despite the absence of wind. Regret of our first bright and drossy memory.
You can quickly recognize the configuration of the bright village, where only two restaurants welcome noisy and thirsty cruise passengers. The rest of the village seems dead.
Ermita Nuestra Senora de Las Nieves
March 2014
march 2019
And here is the little church (Ermita Nuestra Senora de Las Nieves), next to the large parking lot. It appears well isolated and cramped in this sad light. We had seen her dapper and proud the time before.
Let's go! What am I saying, let's run away !!