Early January was cold. Horrifically cold – by Irish standards. Nighttime temperatures plunged to minus four degrees Celsius. There was snow on the footpaths. Compared to Canada or Finland this may seem tropical but for Ireland this is catastrophic – snow, ice, frost. There were colour coded warnings of ‘multi weather hazard events’ to terrify the nation. I was not scared of the weather. My fear was that Dublin Airport wouldn’t be able to de-ice the airplane on which I was due to fly. To Gran Canaria. In June last year a Finnish friend had asked whether I was interested in spending a few days in the New Year in the volcanic, mid-Atlantic, Spanish archipelago off the coast of Morocco. My response was in the affirmative. Little did I know that as the motherland hunkered down to deal with the cold spell, I’d be jetting off to enjoy BigTourism – Spanish style.

Until January 2020 I had a snooty aversion to mass market tourism – preferring a nice city break where I’d get a false idea of what living in another European city would be like. My nose curled in contempt when I heard of the sun, sea, sand and sangria trips. ‘It’s just like Ballybunion, except with sunshine,’ I would sneer to myself. In 2020 I took the plunge and visited Gran Canaria for the first time. That trip was amazing – partly because I travelled with a friend who rented a car meaning that we saw the island from all angles – the western cliff coast, the volcanic centre, the capital city of Las Palmas, as well as the industrial tourist town of Maspalomas and its beach – Playa del Ingles. It was also because mere weeks after my maiden voyage to Gran Canaria the world shut down. My memories of that trip grew even fonder as the nation locked down. Thankfully the pandemic didn’t halt my wanderlust and I continued to travel throughout that bizarre time – just more discreetly so as not to attract the ire of the online twitching curtains. My first trip after my inaugural bout with Covid 19 was the day I came out of quarantine – to Gran Canaria where I met up with the Finnish friend I was visiting this January.

This time she would be accompanied by her daughter. I was joined by my regular, Irish travelling companion.

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