Back in February I spent a lovely 2 weeks in El Medano with Geoff. before he went on his travels to Africa.

We decided to see what it was like to stay in one place for 2 weeks and El Medano offered winter sun,biking, walking  and beaches but being a wind and kite surfers paradise also means it also always very windy !!

We stayed at the adult only hotel Arenas Del Mar, a little isolated but only a short walk into El Medano village.  A lovely hotel with a great buffet breakfast , and a pool ,although unless you went out and bagged a sunbed by 9am you could never get one !!

There are 2 small volcanoes to walk up, Montana Pelada and Montana Roja, we enjoyed walking up both of these but they were not hard walks just a fews hours stroll for us. We never got to swim in the sea because it was always wild and choppy due to the wind but we did enjoy watching the wind and kite surfers.

We hired bikes for 6 days from the excellent Bike Point who were very friendly and helpful. The plan was to do the famous Teide climb, the longest climb in europe. The Biking was fantastic , always climbing and always windy but we enjoyed rides to Vilaflor, Los Abrigos, Los Cristianos and San Isidro,though the highlight of our holiday had to be the Teide climb, which was totally amazing and had me close to tears with emotion when I realised that I had reached the top !! Riding back down was another experience altogether and one that I need to get used too !!

After we returned our bikes I felt quite sad and wondered how we would fill the rest of our holiday but we spent the rest of our time walking in and out of town basking in the sun out the wind, watching the wind and kite surfers and reading.All very enjoyable but i do think one week in El Medano would have been enough.

A fab holiday but i do miss our long distance walking adventures.

This summer we decided to visit Gran Canaria so Geoff could decide if he would like to spend the winter months over in the sun.

We had 6 glorious days up in the mountains at the Parador Cruz de Tejeda. We spent these 6 days walking, enjoying the spa and eating steak every night, well I ate the steak while Geoff being a vegetarian had fish and he will never no what he missed out on !!

The parador is in a very remote spot offering some fantastic walking with amazing views, from our bedroom we had the most fantastic view of the volcanic rock, Roque Nublo, the highlight of our 6 day stay was walking to this Roque.

Its a  tourist hot spot although most people drive there and park in the carpark , before taking a short walk to the Roque, most people thought we were mad walking the distance we did in the scorching heat !

Then we moved down to the coast to Port de Mogan, where we had a bit of a shock, after spending the week in such a remote place and hardly seeing soul, the coast was packed with people and very touristy.

The plan was to do some biking and more walking but it soon became apparent that not much of either would be getting done.

We did finally find the Freemotion bike hire shop hidden in the grounds of  the Cordial Mogan Playa hotel, so we hired 2 of the most fabulous Cannondale Synapse Ultegra bikes for the day and in 34 deg heat enjoyed an amazing days biking.

Our hotel  Puerto de Mogan had a lovely pool and private access to the sea and I found it amazing that people would lie by the pool from 9am till 7pm , I enjoy a swim and can relax by the pool for aprox an hour but only after a good ride or walk.

As we had a hire car we did spend some time driving round the coast as far as Las Palmas but none of these places really took our fancy although I did like the Sand Dunes at Maspalomas where we enjoyed a swim at the Nudist beach .

I loved spending 2 weeks with Geoff, its the longest I ever get to spend with him and although we had a fab holiday It’s not the place for Geoff to spend his winter months !!