Index
Day 1 - Inaugural
Day 2 - Arrival
Day 3 - Lanzarote
Day 4 - Island hopping
Day 5 - Island hopping
Day 6 - Tenerife
Day 7 - Return
Canary Islands
Spent the morning exploring Las Palmas, since that seemed like a reasonable thing to do. Instead of going east, over the freeway, to the mall and then to the harbor, walked a few blocks northwest to the beach on the other side of the city. Some sandy stretches, some rocky stretches, all pretty windy, and all lined with restaurants of varying quality. Some scary looking Chinese buffets almost suckered me in (for science!), but instead got rescued a place that specialized in Iberico ham-- might have been the best meal of the trip.
Drove out to the little town of Valsequillo next, to the sun-dried canyons that ended up being too hot and dry to be appealing for hiking. There's more to see on Gran Canaria, but unfortunately ran out of time (see: being overly ambitious!) to head to the third (and final) island of the trip.
A super quick flight to Tenerife from Gran Canaria, and unlike the scammers at Hertz on Gran Canaria, the Hertz at Tenerife South were much more relaxed. As it was dinnertime by the time I got out of the airport, tried find some arroz con mariscos but it turns out that's mostly for two people, so it was time for plan B. Ended up with another casual dinner at a very touristy mall, but the fried rice was surprisingly decent and the shu mai were edible (the har gow were... bad). Almost did a flashback to Madrid by getting dinner at 100 Montaditos, but a proper reliving of Madrid with tiny sandwiches and cheap beer seemed like a poor mix with narrow Spanish roads.
The last hotel of the trip turned out to be the only decent one. Booked a standard room but got upgraded to a Club Ocean View Villa upon check-in, and it did not disappoint.