Gran Canaria: Then and Now
Five years ago Timea and I visited Tenerife for our February end-of-winter getaway. One of the highlights was recreating some of the old photos from when I used to visit there with my family when I was growing up. Here’s the results. Five years later we booked Gran Canaria for our winter break and decided to do the same.
We went to Tenerife a lot as a family in the ‘80s as my parents shared an apartment there with my dad’s business partner and his family. We only went to Gran Canaria once and I’m guessing that it was 1983 when I was 7, going on 8. That would put it at exactly 40 years before I returned with Timea. I only had one memory of the inside of the hotel that we stayed in, plus a small collections of scanned in photos.
Flight to Gran Canaria
1983: Small boy, big window
2023: Big boy, small window
Hotel Paraiso Maspalomas
Coming back to Maspalomas after 40 years I assumed that the hotel that we stayed in might not still be there. As it turned out there’s a lot of very old hotels in the resort, mixed with some very modern luxury ones. After having a walk down the sea-front and not finding it, we decided to ask one of the older gentlemen who worked on reception at the hotel where we were staying. As it turned out he knew it well and actually worked there in the ‘80s, maybe at the time I was there before. He pin pointed it on a map for us and we visited there a few days later.
When we drove towards it the white and yellow curved balconies were obvious. Very little had changed since 1983 and much of the décor probably hasn’t been updated since then. The major difference is that it’s now a private apartment block rather than a hotel.
1983: View to the hotel rooms from the pool
2023: Same view. Rooms are now private apartments
1983: Dad looking out to the pool bar from our hotel room
2023: Pointing at the approximate location of the original room
1983: The big atrium inside the hotel
2023
1983: Me and Lisa (sister) in the atrium
2023
1983: In the pool
2023: Slightly pained expression due to sun in my eyes
1983: Me and dad in the pool
2023
1983: Me with my Nintendo Game and Watch. Likely Super Mario Bros. and Donkey Kong
2023: Nintendo replaced by iPhone. You can’t see it but I have the original photo (left) on the iPhone screen
1983: The water slide between the pools
2023: Slides barred off, presumably due to a health and safety incident
Barranco de Guayadeque
Apart from the hotel the other batch of old photos that I had were from a ravine where we went on a donkey safari. The only clue that I had was one photo displaying a sign for Bar Vega. I looked it up on Google Maps and it’s still there, although now called Restaurante Vega. The roads have had an upgrade in the past 40 years and it now takes only 35 minutes to get there from Maspalomas.
The ravine is famous for its cave dwellings where people have lived in the rocks for 100s of years. As we drove up the ravine road I remembered walking along a path past some of the cave houses. The road is only passable to tourist traffic until the restaurants, after which it continues as a narrower local road further up into the mountains.
Our first stop was Bar Vega where we easily found the spot from the original photo. We stayed there for lunch and showed the hold photos to the son of the owner. They told us that the other bar photos that we had were from the Restaurant La Era next door so we visited that too. The owner of La Era was very excited to see the old photos as asked to send her copied. She also told us about the Donkey Safari which we did in the ‘80s but no no longer operates.
1983: Bar Vega overlooking the Barranco (ravine) de Guyadeque
2023: Same view, same bar
1983: Restaurante La Era, next to Bar Vega
2023: Restaurante La Era. Original table and music area is now a bar
1983: Restaurante La Era overlooking the ravine
2023: Same spot - notice the stone pillar behind me
1983: overlooking the terraces just down the hill from the restaurants
2023: Old stone wall replace by a fence
Here’s a great clip from the 1980s travel show Wish You Were Here? featuring Playa del Ingles. I remember watching this show when I was growing up and it’s likely that we would have seen this clip before we went to Gran Canaria in 1983.
Playa del Ingles is the older part of a now continuous resort that includes the towns of San Agustín, San Fernando and Meloneras and is most commonly referred to as Maspalomas. For our return trip in 2023 we stayed in a newer hotel near the Dunes. We walked the 2 km to the centre of Playa del Ingles to find it looking much the same as in the Wish You Were Here? clip. The old hotels and bars are still there and still as tacky as you’d expect.
Don’t get put off though as the newer developments to the west are much nicer. We’re definitely not into beach holidays but found Maspolomas to be a great location for exploring the island by car. You can access most of the island within an hour’s drive.