MONTH IN GRAN CANARIA

When I was in during the Christmas in the quarantine because of Covid, I knew that the year 2021 will be probably as tiresome as the previous one. Eventhough I am the person who tries to not really be upset with all the negativity around and who wants to stay focused have the sunshine in the head, the winter quarantine in the Czech Republic was pretty hard also for me. When the government decided to close the districts in the Czech Republic which meant basically that I was supposed to stay in Prague for the next month and couldn’t leave the city. That scared me so much that I decided to go to the Canary Islands. This idea came to me pretty randomly when I saw Instagram stories of a friend which looked amazing. I asked in my work if I could work remotely and because it was actually recommended by the government to work from home, it wasn’t a big deal. I bought my one-way airplane ticket and packed pretty fast my „carry on“ backpack, did the PCR test and went through the snowy and rainy Prague directly to the airport in a jumper and thin leggins. The airplane was full of families with small screaming children and I was just really excited with the whole situation. In the Czech Republic it was forbidden to even leave one’s town but to travel in the completelly packed airplane to the country 4000 km away was OK. Anyway, this journey was the best investment that I have done in my mental health so far and I definitely don’t regret it.

LAS PALMAS

I was most of the month based in the capital of the Gran Canaria Island, Las Palmas. I wrote to the Facebook group „Digital Nomads Gran Canaria“ that I am searching an accommodation for a few weeks and got some offers. Most of them were either expensive or only available for the whole month. I found a woman which offered me a room for 300 €/ month which seemed to be a good price. However, when I arrived to the flat I didn’t feel secure and safe there at all. It was located near some gas station and many junkies or so were chilling around. The flat also didn’t have any proper table for work so it was clear to me that I cannot stay there for the whole month. With fear in my eyes I said to the woman that I just cannot take it and went back to the streets. I called to Juraj, which was a guy that I met through a Facebook page when I searched for my accomodation. He offered me to stay at his place, which I gratefully accepted. When we met, we went together to Veguetta, which is an old part of Las Palmas, that many people actually never visit because they stay all the time at beach (Las Canteras). It was actually pretty late, so we didn’t really manage to go to any café or pub, but it didn’t really matter because I realised, that Juraj was not really the type of person that would love to spend nights in pubs. We talked about drugs, about us and I asked many questions which were not really answered. I was for examply really interested in programming and Juraj didn’t really feel comfortable to answer questions regarding that topic, probably because he wasn’t used to talk about it that much with girls.

One of my first experiences with surfing. Somehow I wasn’t too excited about it, probably mainly because it was cold and I enjoy moving through the landscape rather than staying in one place.

Wine in one of the most beautiful apartments I’ve ever been in. Tom’s hideaway for a few months.

As is my habit in every new city – I go to all the fitness centers and always go for a free “trial” workout. Unfortunately, in Germany for example, I’ve already done this in all the big cities, so this trick doesn’t work there anymore.

Juraj’s favourite restaurant – he oves fine dining and at this restaurant he loved the way he was served. I loved how excited he was about it.

El Confital – my favourite place for running in Las Palmas. Behind this sign was a military zone that was forbidden to enter

TEROR

Next day we went together to Teror, which is a small city close to Las Palmas, with wonderful market every Sunday. We bought ourselves bread with pasty and it was super tasty! I felt a bit bad that I am eating junk food but actually not that much anymore as I felt all those previous years after my eating disorder. We hiked around and talked basically about everything. I loved that contrast to the Czech Republic. Freedom, nice spring weather and just no worries. I was so happy that I escaped that lockdown.

GUI GUI BEACH

Gui Gui Beach is a very famous place that mostly young people love to visit, because it is supposed to be hard to get there. It is an „abandoned“ beach close to the Tasartico village. We borrowed a car and went to the beach. In the middle of our way, the sand storm called „calima“ started but we kind of rejected the reality and continued. We parked our car close to the spot where the hike to the Gui Gui Beach started and went up the hill. Around 8 p.m. it started to be dark and we didn’t even reach the top of the hill. The rest of the way we hiked in darkness and talked about relationships and romances etc. We came to the beach at night so we could only hear the ocean and drink wine ( which was actually a bad idea because in the morning we had hangover and didn’t have any water to drink and had to walk the whole hike (for about 4 hours) back. We were saying, that „everything what we can see right now in front of us is the 8L water bottle that was waiting for us in the car“.

Tasartico Beach – And the mythical Teide in the background. She kept showing up throughout my stay. And I also remembered a sentence that Petr Š. said: ‘Teide is like a woman, she only shows up from time to time and you have to wait for it and conquer it’.

In Patalavaca, we slept in the most fancy apartment that I have ever been to. I found it as a really cool experience to see how rich old people spend their vacation:D We went for a walk to Ayagures where was a dry dam, talked again about life, my family and random things (like writing e-mails).

Next day, we went for a wonderful hike in Inagua. I loved the landscape and also the weather. It was foggy and it made the whole experience very mystic.

On the way back to Las Palmas, we visited Caldera de Bandama which is a volcanic crater close to Las Palmas. It is pretty easy to hike around ( it takes about 1-2 hours to go through the whole area). I ate a chocolate during that trip which was probably for the first time since my eating disorder as well. During that day, I decided that I want to leave Las Palmas and go to the South with other guys which I also did.

I moved to a house in the middle of nowhere with 2 guys from Prague that I met in Las Palmas. The house was really weird and even more weird was the surrounding. I think that I hadn’t visited uglier place in Gran Canaria than the village and its surroundings where we stayed. Wifi also didn’t work there so it was really hard to focus at work since the connection was falling all the time.

**Puerto de Mogán** – a place where we came with K. and T. to have some barbecue. I realised during that event how much I don’t like spending time in a group. I feel anxious, sad and not fitting.

**View over La Aldea** – place that we got to randomly, late and didn’t have much time to enjoy.

Hike that was pretty short but wonderful.

T. and K. – at that time still kind of unknown 2 guys

**Playa de Tufia** – veeery local place. which I was discovering on my own – regreted a bit that I didn’t take shoes because the rock was pretty sharp.

K. in **Maspalomas** – run. I remember that tempo of K. and T. was so inconvenient to me that my hips hurted the day after.

In Maspalomas, I slept 1 night in a **squatted watchtower**. There were two other hippie people sleeping with me. I was on the ground, and I was a little worried about things. But it was great! I was hosted by a sculptor who makes sand sculptures. He was Czech and pretty chill.

The description of my whole stay would take several pages, BUT unfortunately I am writing this post retrospectively, about a year after I was in the Canary Islands, so I am not in the mood to describe the whole month in detail. Sooo I will express my experience only with photos and descriptions of them.

**PICO DE LAS NIEVES** While watching this sunset, I realized that this trip to Gran Canaria was the best investment in my mental health I’ve made so far in my life.

…it got dark and I was still mesmerized by it’s beauty.

Anyway, I’d like to put down here a few points that this month’s stay in the Canary Islands brought me:

1) I am independent and can take care of myself. I don’t need to be in a toxic relationship just because I need to feel “supported” and that someone will take care of me.

2) Everything can be done if you want to. Combine school, work, vacations, experiences. That’s how I always want it to be!

3) Even if you want to run away from problems, you can’t. Most of all, it reminded me of the endless nightmares I had for a month in the Canaries. I thought I’d get rid of them when I left Prague, but I didn’t. Almost every night I woke up screaming.

4) When I’m alone, I get anxious.

5) I don’t like surfing.

6) I love my bike and I want to ride it as much as possible (I didn’t know what the next few months would bring me in that regard).

7) I want to love and fall in love. I’m afraid of stereotype.

A lot of things have changed for me since coming home from Gran Canaria. I moved and started to kind of live a different life. On my own and independent. And it felt great and free, although very confusing in many aspects.

And here are more snippets from that liberating month:

TAMADABA

2 days hike with Tom was the last one of that trip and also probably the most beautiful one. Great talks, fun, listening to Czech rap and a bit of saddness that it all of it is coming somehow to an end.