And then.... FINALLY, we're back out on the road! Only 2PM... 3 hour lunch. Jeez...
I think we've only got enough time to do one run up and down the mountain before it gets dark, so we settle on this route.
We ride the main highway south to the town of Telde, and then take GC-130 west up to the summit. At the bottom of the run, we pass a labyrinth of small towns, managing to get lost because I'm still not used to navigating with my phone. I find it so annoying not being able to scroll and tap the screen with my glove. We have to stop often so I can rip my glove off, mash at the screen angrily with my finger to try to figure out where we are and where we're headed.
I miss my GPS.
Finally, we clear the towns at lower elevation. As we make our uphill climb, the scenery around us quickly transforms to heavy forest as the twisty ribbon of road cuts through the dense network of pine trees.
Most of these trees have been replanted only in the last 70 years. When people first settled onto Gran Canaria, they gutted the almost 100,000 hectares of pine trees and palms to make space for agricultural use. The resulting wood was used to fuel sugar cane mills. At its lowest point in the 50s, only 6,000 hectares of forest were left.
Glad to see the pines are back once again!
Bike seems to be running a little lean..
About halfway into all the great curves in the road, the forest opens up to a huge crater to our left. This is the Caldera de Los Marteles. We stop to check it out and take some pictures.
There's another couple on a scooter also taking snapshots, so we ask them to take our picture. We have so few photos of the two of us together.
Posing with our sweet rides at the Caldera
I originally approached the couple and spoke English to them, thinking that they were also tourists, since they were taking so many pictures. They replied in Spanish that neither of them spoke English, so we reverted back to the Spanish we learned in
Latin America at the beginning of our trip. I'm so glad we took the time to learn the language. It's spoken in so many places around the world and those lessons have paid themselves back in dividends, so many times over.
So it turns out that the Spanish couple actually live in Gran Canaria. That's cool, being tourists in your own town! We returned the favour and took pictures of them as well.
I talked to the guy about his scoot. It's a Honda X-ADV. Very cool looking. I read up on the specs awhile back, Honda intended it to be an Adventure scooter, rugged styling, long-travel suspension, wire-spoked rims. Although it's a bit heavy at 520 lbs though, if I were to buy a twist-and-go, this would be high on the list just based on looks alone.
We hike around the lip of the crater for a while. It's about half a km wide
The Grand Canary Islands chain was created by volcanic activity about 15 million years ago, but this crater is from a volcano that erupted a bit more recently, only 2.8 million years old.
The Gran Canaria couple wave good-bye to us as they ride off to do more exploring
Also the place where I got my first motorcycle license.
