Gran Canaria walk 15th Feb 2015 Artenara to San Nicolas de Aldea

The final walk of my week long trip was planned to coincide with staying in Las Palmas near San Telmo guagua station so that I could catch the 220 "Sunday bus" which leaves at 8.15 am and goes right through to Artenara without changing buses (but with a handy 20 minutes coffee break at Teror).
Quite a long walk through the mountains to the west side of the island today ,with the need to keep going in order to catch the 17.30 bus back from Aldea via Galdar along the north coast.Otherwise it would mean waiting for one at 19.45 via Puerto de Mogan on the south coast with a late evening return to Las Palmas.

I arrived at Artenara at around 10.20 and had time for a coffee and cake before setting off on the path to Degollada del Sargento.Most guidebooks treat this as the start after a taxi ride from the village but I was quite happy to walk for the extra hour and then chip away at the timings on the rest of the route.
 (click on any photo to view series in a larger format)

Looking west over Vega de Acusa

First of many views over to Tenerife

Roques Nublo and Bentaiga

The path follows the ridge across Risco Alto to a route junction  before Altavista where the old camino to Aldea then sidles above a ravine on the north side of the mountain and after following a lower ridge becomes less obvious on the ground with the way being marked by occasional cairns.

Altavista from the north

A rude shelter

 

The path then crosses moorland before passing through some strange mineralised areas on the final descent to Aldea.The town is surrounded by vast numbers of  rather ugly looking "greenhouses" which presumably help to grow our winter salads.

Aldea from Degollada del Morro de las Tocinas

San Nicolas de Aldea

 I'd made quick work of the day's walk and arrived with masses of time to catch the bus.San Nicolas had very much a one horse town feel about it with only one bar open,so after locating the bus stop I settled down for a couple of beers and watched most of the Barcelona match on the TV. The 101 bus to Galdar is only large minibus size to cope with the narrow winding roads on the side of the steep northwestern coastal cliffs.Once it reached Puerto de las Nieves I was back on familiar ground and on arrival at Galdar shortly after seven only had a short wait for the connecting bus for the half hour journey back to Las Palmas.
A pretty good day altogether with the weather and timings working perfectly.