Christmas morning was the typical frenzy of opening presents, squeals of happiness and Presley finding out Santa really did bring her a turtle like she asked! One of the gifts I received was a cute hand drawn picture of me and some girlfriends on the beach that Presley created. I didn’t really think much into it as Presleys favorite thing to do is create and give away artwork. Shortly after Chad had me read it aloud and helped me put it together, I was going to Gran Canary with two of my girlfriends for a Mom-Cation weekend!! Three husbands got together behind our backs to give us this amazing getaway and it was literally one of my favorite weekends!
We had the most darling AirBNB right on the beach (check it out here) with an absolutely beautiful view that I enjoyed coffee on every morning before we headed out to explore and relax all without our darling kiddies. We were also a short walk away to this amazing place called Juicy Avenue that we almost ate at for every single meal the entire weekend.
Its said that Gran Canary is like an entire continent smooshed into one tiny little island and it is so true! In a matter of minutes you can be at the beach, and then into cacti hills and rolling green mountains (we managed to see so much during our getaway!) We started our trip by hopping on a bus (which was easy to locate, cheap & we managed to walk up right as every single one was leaving and jumped right on!) and headed to Maspalomas – a more touristy side of the island compared to were we had our base camp. We explored the Dunes & then set up some towels to get some sun while cracking up at all the nudies flying kites and racing around. We all ended up getting in the water and it was FREEZING, our hubbies would have been so proud – even if we only did it to pee.
Our second day we rented a car, no joke – WITH CASH. The guy tossed us the keys and we drove off. We all looked at each other like ‘what just happened!?!” No pre-damage check, pictures, gas light check or copying of ID’s. It was insane! We drove on a tiny little 1 lane uphill road through this insane switchbacks to get to an amazing hike & I was so dang thankful that Chad taught me to drive a stick several years ago because it really comes in useful in situations like this. We met a nice couple who took all of our pictures and some hilarious videos of us – they were our personal little photographers during our hike, which was fun to leave with images of the three of us that didn’t need to be photoshopped with Holli’s mad photoshop skills. The Roque Nublo hike is 3km total and was an easy path to follow. We took awhile because we stopped to take 3 trillion gorgeous photos at all the viewpoints.
After we made it back to the car, we went to this amazing viewpoint called Mirador del Balcon’ that I could have set up a chair and read a book at for an entire day. Then we headed to this cute little fishing town to wander around, watch sunset & grab a delicious dinner.
Day 3 we enjoyed some lazy beach time in the morning and then an insane sand storm from Africa made its way over to us & turned everything orange. We were all covered in sand & it was hard to breathe! My contacts literally hurt because there was so much sand in the air. The sand didn’t stop Carnivale from happening through – the streets filled with dancers and music and we watched all the performers prance through the streets.
Afterwards, we headed downtown and stumbled upon a Drag Queen preliminary show and tried to get tickets but they were sold out so we just watched from the fence line – it looked INCREDIBLE, we were all super bummed we couldn’t get a close look!
Day 4 we headed to the Old City and wandered around the still orangey with sand streets. We found our way over to the Casa de Colon (It was the governor’s home when Colombus asked for aide for one of his ships on his way to America) and found out that entrance was FREE that day so we went in and explored. After we had a quick bite to eat, we headed to a mall that said it was open. Jokes, the mall was open – but all the stores weren’t! Super bummed because a lot of the stores looked amazing!
Flying home the next day was a bit of a disaster – 95% of the flights were cancelled/delayed because of the sand storm. I had a connecting flight that I barely made & Holli waited in line for hours to try to get on her flight which she ended up making because it was 4 hours late. It was a bit insane that we all actually made it home that day…..and we all came home to the COVID craziness. SOOOO thankful our husbands new we needed some alone girl time & that we all had such a great time.
You can see Hollis blog post HERE & more pictures & videos on my highlight reel on Instagram labeled ‘Gran Canary’. Can I go back already??
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