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As with our Lanzarote trip this programme played more towards the fun and less towards the history. Gran Canaria does have a reasonable amount of history although as with all the Canary Islands, it does revolve around the Guanches and the Spanish invasion of the 15th century. Showing his usual level of class, Eye had booked us on an 18.30 holiday which, for reasons far too complicated to go into just now, gave me all sorts of problems. But away from the pool parties, pub crawls, discos and Club Entertainment! we did manage to slip away to look at a few points of interest.
The Guanches first settled the islands in around the 1st or 2nd century BC. Tall, blonde, North Africans, Guanche means 'Man' (Guan) 'White Mountain' (Achinech) which probably referred to Mount Teide the snow capped mountain on Tenerife, although it could have been a double play on their tall blonde features. Originally Guanches meant native of Tenerife but soon spread to meaning all of the islands. This makes sense as they probably first settled Tenerife and then spread out.
25 BC - AD 23 Roman ships arrived and named the islands Canaries after the native dogs "Cants", which is Latin for dog. The bird the Canary actually took it's name from the island not the other way around.
1000 AD onwards Arab merchants were trading with the Guanches in Gran Canaria. The Guanches appear to have lived a simple and peaceful life right up until the arrival of the Spanish in the 15th century. It took the well armed Spanish Knights or Conquistadores very nearly one hundred years to eventually beat the 'simple' Guanches. Today, although part of Spain and Europe, for an islander to be likened to a Guanches is a great honour indeed.
It took the Knights five years to take Gran Canaria led by Juan Rejon who then founded Las Palmas, named after the large number of Palm trees there. Queen Isabella of Spain made it a Free Port and swift trading soon made it one of the most important ports in the world.
Our first stops were to the very modern ports of Puerto Rico and Puerto Mogan. Both are massively developed for the tourist industry but some care has been taken in Rico not to make it too offensive and Mogan is actually very nicely done indeed. It looks like an ancient Spanish harbour town with beautiful, brightly coloured, low level buildings and cottages. In fact I am probably older, though that might not be too good an example!
One interesting fact about Mogan, apart from it's charm, is that the port is the driest part of the island and yet it backs on to a valley which is the wettest part of the island. Clouds form over the mountain behind the port and rain falls in the valley beyond. Clearly it made sense to grow goods in the valley and then drag them down to the harbour and ship them off from there.
Dunas De Maspalomas are the famous spectacular white sand dunes that start at the southerly end of Playa del Ingles and run up to Maspalomas. Until quite recently it was believed that the winds had lifted sand from the Sahara Desert and dropped it on Gran Canaria. However careful study shows that the granules are of sand created on the island itself. Boring but true.
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