Canary Island Remedy part 2

Another early morning start for me as I drove down to the southern part of the island to check out and photograph the sand dunes and Playa Del Ingles. Again there was "fun" between the reality of the road in front of me and what the TomTom was directing me to do. Also, there is a serious lack of consistant signage to guide one along without a navigation device. All of this coupled with my obvious unfamiliarity with the area was cause for more head scratching, audible WTF's?, u-turns, dead ends, "I just passed that" moments, and the like. Luckily I used my pea-sized brain when I thought to mark on the TomTom when I came to a place that I figured I would want to find again (like the damned parking lot near our hotel which was always an adventure when returning to it). This area is much more "resortier" than where we were staying in the north. Las Palmas is a combination of business, residents, and tourism, where this southern area looks to be 99% tourism, with quite the older set from Europe being the main visitors. Plenty of topless areas and a few "all naturale" ones. Seems like the older crowd like to let the sun hit as much of their epidermis as possible. Nothing really out of the ordinary with the exception of one older "boyfriend" greasing up the privates of his younger companion with much gusto! I'm sure it was all about protection from skin cancer. Not to my surprise the men "from fit to fat" loved their "speedos" as did the women and their 2 piece bikini's. It is really quite the norm here, whereas on Canteras Beach in Las Playas there were others than myself wearing swim shorts. But most of the above 60 set had on what American's call "speedos". I spent about four hours down there walking around and making pictures before heading back to Las Palmas between 12 and 1pm. All of us spent time on the beach in the afternoon, and we made plans to return to Playa Del Ingles that evening for dinner and partake in it's nightime festivities. We spent our time on the beach, and a windy day it was indeed with sand finding its way into all sorts of places on/in the body. Jamie and Elena took a drive out to the big Media Markt near the airport while R and I hung back at the beach and hotel. We probably left for Playa Del Ingles around 7pm after Jamie and Elena returned.

Once we were all in the car and close to our destination, that's when the fun started again. Jamie seemed to think we should park in one area near where their "ant" apartment was, but Elena felt it was in a different place. Elena sounded the more confident one, so we went with her recommendation. Oops! Well, you can't win them all. Jamie gloated for some time (yeah, about the rest of the night), as we had to walk a little more then needed from where Elena had us park. We made it to the promenade area where all of the shops, restaurants, and bars are. We walked from about the middle of it to one end checking out the menus and enjoying the sidewalk solicitors who stand out there trying to coax you into their establishments. Jamie took the business card of one guy and told him we'll come back, with the guy responding if Jamie didn't he would come looking for Jamie!! That was pretty damned funny, so when we hadn't made a choice and closed back in on this guys restaurant, we parked ourselves at a nice table outside near the beach and had a great meal. The service was a little "dutch" (for those of you who have forgotten, dutch service is like "military intelligence"). The guy put on one hell of a show as he joked, cajoled, and charmed people into eating at the restaurant! After, we walked to a bar that had a guy playing electric guitar and a woman singer who were doing a pretty good job of entertaining. Better than that they had a huge gas heater right next to our table and we had them fire that up. Soon the jackets and sweaters were coming off of Elena and Radhika as we drank, talked, listened to the music, and played some lively "Connect Four". I started off with a 4 game win streak and Jamie couldn't buy a victory. Then fortunes changed and I was on the losing end. When we left we were all pretty much even in the win column, so there were no bragging rights in the Connect Four championships that evening. We moved to another bar where it was one dude, his guitar, and music machine backup. Not as good as the first bar, but okay. We then moved on to a small place that was playing some techno dance, so we just went out to the dance floor? area? spot? and stayed out there for what I would say was 30 minutes getting our exercise for the evening. There was one guy out there dancing around with a sock on his hand - - what lonliness will do to some people! I want to say 3am we got back to the hotel, and tomorrow was our last full day. Bummer! So we went to sleep, with me having the usual "get up early to shoot" plan, which would mean 4 hours sleep. Would I be able to do it? Stay tuned for part 3!