Category: Spain – Canary Islands

And so it begins! We left the Madrid airport early – it’s a beautiful building. This time our flight was clockwork. Our baggage arrived, sim card installed in phone, keys to BnB in hand, car rental sorted out – all is good! Once we arrived here, Miriam gave us the rundown for our AirBnB rental (beach towels, pool key, wifi – all the amenities + more) and oriented us then off we headed. First to the small supermercado in the town to get the essentials – beer, wine and breakfast stuff. Then off to the nearby beach town with lots of great restaurant options. So after walking the dark sand beach – with the freezing cold water, and spying on Neptune who floats out in the bay, we picked up some beers at the “variety store” and drank them seaside while we waited for our lunch reservation. It took almost an hour, but was well worth it.

The four of us shared 2 appetizers – traditional local options – Gofio – corn and other grains pureed with lots of salt and served with red onion wedges and Papas araguadas – Canarian wrinkled potatoes which came with a cheesy garlic sauce (we later learned that red mojo is more common). Dan had garlic shrimp, Suz had planked shrimp, Michael had planked fish, and I had the catch of the day. Along with still water and a bottle of wine the total bill, all in for all 4 was 74 Euros (or 110$cdn). We had planned on more expensive – so a nice surprise!

By then the sun was setting and it was cooling down, so we bought a couple of take away pizzas from the same restaurant to take home.

Dan & Suz skype with Natalie in London every Sunday, and it was her birthday today – so we got to sing for her! And then the mandatory euchre match with guys vs. girls and we had beer & pizza. Think I’ve already gained 5 lbs… need to get more mobile tomorrow!

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Day 1 – Madrid Spain

Our 3 week journey started with a test of our resiliency with an “itinerary adjustment”. Dave very kindly dropped us at the airport in perfect timing and our flight was on schedule. By the time we checked in and made it through customs, our flight was 3 hours delayed – just enough for us to miss our connection to Gran Canaria. Thanks to Suz for catching the announcement of a free coupon for food/drink for the delay. It seems Suz has an ear for freebies. So at 1am we finally caught the first leg of our flight – bodies well confused on when to eat and sleep. The upside is, it helps with the timezone change. One hour out of Madrid, the pilot informed us that we had made up 1/2 hour with a strong tail wind, so fingers still crossed to make our connection.

Apparently finger crossing is not an exact science. The delay was actually handled quite well by Air Canada, once we found the correct booth. Our only complaint was that Air Canada did not have an agent waiting to meet us when we disembarked in Madrid. So we had scrambled ourselves to the other terminal to try to catch our flight, where we had to wait in line to check in. In all the commotion we did not make it in time. That said, we suspect they had cut off boarding and perhaps even reassigned our seats by the time we arrived. At least our bags were confirmed to be reassigned to fly with us on our next flight, so that was a relief.

In the end, they had re-booked our flights for the next morning, set us up in a very nice hotel with exceptional food – dinner and amazing breakfast included. Dan even had some tempting moments checking out the well attended conference at the hotel which seemed to be some type of franchise pyramid scheme (think Amway). Perhaps his post-retirement plan….

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