A Week in the beautiful Gran Canarias

We spent a total of 5 nights and 6 days in the Gran Canarias.

Day 1:

We arrived in the afternoon at around 2PM. Susan, Tim’s stepmom and Frank, Tim’s Dad picked us up from the airport and we headed to their home located in Mogan. When we arrived, we were welcomed by Frank’s cousins and Tim’s sister and her husband. It was a week of family get together to celebrate Frank’s 70th Birthday. Our first night, we all had dinner at a restaurant by the beach called Amadores. Tim and I shared a Paella Negra and just had a wonderful time chit chatting with everyone.

 

Day 2:

Susan booked an activity for everyone. Tim drove the buggy and we all adventured to the volcanic mountains of the Gran Canaria and tried a cactus fruit. The guide warned us all to be careful from the spikes on the fruit and not to get our hands dirty when eating the fruit,. Tim did a terrible job, he got spikes all over his mouth and his hands were pink and I the clumsy person managed to eat it perfectly. Later that night, Susan ordered 2 types of Paellas. She ordered a mixed paella and a seafood paella from a restaurant down the road to their home. It was extremely delicious.

 

Day 3: Easter Day

Tim and I went to the beach with Lucy and Steve. The water was quite cold so I avoided swimming the whole holiday. It was April and I consider it to be a cold weather LOL.

Later that day, Susan arranged a lovely lunch BBQ for everyone. Tim and I made lazy cake for dessert. At night, we all watched a movie in the entertainment room.

 

Day 4: Frank’s Birthday

Susan arranged a cruise to celebrate his birthday. It was located at Pasito Blanco Harbour. I, the half Middle Eastern girl who lived her whole life in the desert suffered a heatstroke for the first time EVER. I kept throwing up constantly and felt dizzy the whole cruise. I wasn’t sea sick because I got on a lot of cruises in UAE but the heat in Gran Canarias was a lot to bare and not just that I did not wear a hat. I felt horrible. Ever since I’ve learned my lesson to always wear a hat on a sunny day.

Susan, an amazing organiser, planned a tapas night. Everything you could imagine was served that night. We had shrimps, cheese and many other delicious food.

Day 5:

Frank’s cousin travelled in the afternoon, Lucy, Steve, Tim and I went to Puerto Rico Beach to buy some souvenirs. We later went for a walk and checked out a few stores in the town and headed back to Frank and Susan’s place.

 

Day 6:

Steve and Lucy travelled back to the UK. Susan and Frank dropped us to Mogan Beach for more shopping and to check out the beaches and local areas. Susan later picked us up and we went grocery shopping and purchased the cactus sauce and canary sauces. Later that night, we had dinner at a seafood restaurant overlooking the sea.

 

Day 7:

We left the house at 3AM to catch our flight to Tenerife.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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2 Nights and 3 Days in Tenerife

Tenerife is a well-known holiday destination and the most visited Canary Island. It is also famous to be a honeymoon destination. Since it’s a 15 min flight from Gran Canaria we thought well why not visit it.

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We made a huge mistake by booking a flight that lands in the North and the apartment we booked was located in the South. There are two airports in Tenerife and we kinda missed that information.

Our apartment was in Costa Adeje so we rented a tiny car and drove South. It was a 1 hour drive. Regretfully, I forgot my driving license in UAE so Tim had to drive the entire trip. We landed early in the morning and arrived at Costa Adeje at 10AM.

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The Landlord can only arrive at 4PM to handover the keys so we kept our luggage with a gentleman who was guarding the compound and we were picked up at 1PM to quad bike. The tour picked us up and introduced us to our group and we all drove to Mount Teide. We stopped at one of the villages for snacks and later that day, we went to the beach for a walk and to explore the area and had a proper Spanish dinner.

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The next day, we woke up quite early in the morning, bought few items from the supermarket and drove to Jungle Park. We saw a lot of animals and actually enjoyed the Exotic Bird Show and the Seal Show. Afterwards, we drove around the island and checked out other resorts and hotels. As it got darker, we decided to head back to Costa Adeje for dinner. We ate at an Indian Restaurant which was packed with people, we actually had to wait for an hour to get a table. The restaurant is called Delhi Darbar and the food was delicious. We later went for a walk around the area and did some shopping.

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We got back to the apartment quite late, so we packed our luggage and woke up early the next day to handover the keys to the landlord and drove back to the Northern Airport of Tenerife and flew to Alicante.

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It was quite a short trip and we kinda wanted to stay a little longer because there were other activities to do on the island but we wanted to explore mainland Spain together.

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UAE – Christmas Eve by the Desert and Beach

UAE: Christmas Eve by the Desert and Beach

Ever since we were children, Tim would celebrate Christmas with his family back in England while I celebrated it with my mum’s family in UAE. This year was a special kind of Christmas for both of us. Tim’s mum ‘Shirley’ is visiting us for the holidays and my uncle and cousin are staying in UAE to enjoy the festive season.

What more can you ask for than celebrating with the ones you love. We love everyone back home in England and Philippines but it was nice to have some of our families celebrating together. 2 months before Christmas, I made reservation at a hotel located by the Indian Ocean in another Emirate called Fujairah. We booked 4 rooms in Sandy Beach Hotel & Resort at a place call Al Aqqah which has a strip of amazing resorts.

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We took two separate cars, my brothers and uncle ‘Alpe’ accompanied my cousin ‘Mark’ and of course Shirley and I rode with Tim. We had an unfortunate moment when one of Mark’s tires broke down and found it difficult to find a tire shop open on a Friday morning. FYI, UAE’s weekends are on Fridays and Saturdays because Friday is a Holy day not HOLIDAY but HOLY DAY and the majority of the country attend the Friday prayers. Luckily they managed to find a shop that was about to close so they quickly got their tires fixed and we all continued our road trip to Fujairah.

It took us 2 hours to reach our destination however since check in was at 2PM, we decided to stop at a historical site. We visited Al Badiyah aka Al Bidyah Mosque and my brothers performed their Friday prayers in that ancient 15th century mosque. It’s the oldest mosque in UAE and was built with stone and mud. The view of the farms from the towers and area was spectacular and although you are surrounded by dry nature such as the rock mountains, the place is a must to visit. It’s located near the mountains and farms overlooking the sea.

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Anyway we continued our journey to check in at the hotel. Tim and I went kayaking around snoopy island * while the others went to nap because they needed the energy for the mini party we were going to have late night. At around 7PM, I borrowed Mark’s car and drove 20 minutes to another area called Khor Fakkan with my uncle and mother in law. We bought KFC and Pizza Hut family meals for dinner and also picked up a third cousin who lived there to join us for the Christmas party. The night lasted till 1:30AM after playing cards against humanity. My uncle won the game and YES he is dirty minded LOL. (google the game its hilarious)

The next day, we got up really early to have breakfast and also went for a morning swim and afterwards said our goodbyes and checked out from our rooms.

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*Note: it’s called snoopy island because it looks like snoopy laying down.

Below are the location maps of the hotel, the mosque and Khor Fakkan for your reference.

Hotel:

 

Mosque:

 

Khor Fakkan:

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