The Rude, The Nude, and the Labyrinth in the Dunes

I’ve been enjoying my time in Gran Canaria immensely.  It has, for the most part, been a nice respite from the constant sensory and emotional input that is Morocco.  There is plenty to see and do here, however.  It’s also nice to be in Spain, because I’ve been able to pracctice my Spanish quite a bit.  I didn’t have too much opportunity for that in Morocco, as there are only pockets of the country where that is spoken widely.  For the most part, it’s Arabic and French there, neither of which I know.  So I’m able to get around in this country much more easily than in the last.  My host Zuri has been practicing his English with me, so I get to speak English at home in the evening with him and the rest of the time (for the most part) I have been getting around town by speaking in Spanish.  That’s been exciting.

One not-so-exciting thing that happened yesterday was when some old guy actually propositioned me on a street bench outside of a castle.  That’s right – he actually offered me money to come to his house and have sex with him!  Now my Spanish isn’t flawless, so I didn’t actually hit him, but I’m pretty darn sure that when he told me he was rich and asked me how many Euros I wanted and tried to name a price, I wasn’t misunderstanding what he wanted.  This, of course, came after he had been asking me who I was staying with (I tried telling him I was staying with a friend, who was currently at work) and why I was here (I said I was travelling, not that I was whoring), and I tried to discourage him from conversing in general.  I was just sitting on a street bench, looking at my city bus map, clearly not trying to befriend a creepy old dude.  So when he actually offered money,  I calmly gathered up my belongings, called him an asshole (in English) because all the curse words I know in Spanish are a bit too rude to use, just in case he was actually saying something else – although I doubted it, and left immediately.  Asshole!  At that point, I’d gladly have gotten on a bus to Timbuktu in order to not have to go home with that slimeball.  (I didn’t get on the wrong bus, by the way.)  And here I’d thought I’d gotten away from that kind of harassment when I left Morocco!

Zuri was stunned when I told him that story.  He said his sister had never had that problem in all the time she’d lived here.  He told me she’d had some interesting run-ins at the nude beach with a couple of exhibitionists but that was it.  Then he told me some funny stories about that and we had a pretty good laugh about the whole thing.

The next day happened to be the day I went to Masopaloma.  This is a town in the south of the island where there are some huge sand dunes just next to the spectacularly gorgeous beach.  Like most of the beaches in Europe, the whole shoreline is generally considered a topless free-for-all, but there are a few areas designated as full nudist areas.  One of these areas is just near where the dunes meet the beach.

After arriving at the beach, I decided to walk in the dunes and reminisce over my recent Saharan adventures.  I climbed up and laid out on a hill where I had a pretty good vantage point of people coming and going from the beach and into the dunes.  Partway through the dunes is an oasis-like area, where Zuri had mentioned people liked to go naked as well.  What he didn’t mention was that people just went back and forth between the beach and the oasis that way.  I saw several people wearing a backpack (nothing else) go by.  I found it interesting to note that there is a very fine line between nudist and exhibitionist.

One guy I saw specifically went out of his way around a large group of trees as he was leaving the beach in order to ensure that he would pass by a couple of people coming out of the desert.  He strutted by them, and I could hear them all exclaiming about it after he passed by.  I was quite entertained by the whole sociological side of the thing.

Then, I saw another guy go by with his backpack, leaving the beach for the desert.  When he saw me on the dunes, I saw him check his pace for a second.  I didn’t think much of it until about ten minutes later when I heard a throat clear on the sand above me.  I had been dozing, but I turned my head and opened my eyes to see this guy silhouetted against the skyline, hands on his hips, free as a bird.  I “went back to sleep” immediately.  He hung around for a while and when he left, walked directly in front of where I was sunning.  I murmured a brief “Hola” and let him continue his overly deliberate strut-hike.  Um…thanks for unwanted the show, guy twice my age…?

I think that families on the nude beach are great.  It’s fun seeing the young kids running around, happy as can be.  You just know they would be having naked time if they were at home in their backyard, so why not do it on the beach?  And it seems that the parents are just as comfortable with their bodies as the kids are.  It’s such a foreign idea to the United States, but I think I like the concept.  I suppose there’s probably an age when it becomes awkward going to a nude beach with your folks.  I’m not sure, it might be different if you grew up going.  An interesting thing to ponder, anyway.

Another thing I found fascinating at the beach that day was a cactus I passed.  I had been hearing a popping noise for a little bit and as I came upon the cactus I realized that the pods on it were actually bursting in the sun, rather like popcorn.  When they popped, the seeds were released.  Really cool.  I even videotaped it.

Before I left the dunes that afternoon, I stumbled upon a labyrinth someone had laid out in the sand with stones.  Time and wind had made some of the path a bit tough to follow, but I walked it as best I could.  A pretty neat find in the middle of the desert!

I also found a great chair to sit in along the beach near the lighthouse where I could watch the sunset.  I had a good time, swinging and eating a delicious sundae as the sun set.  All in all, a beautiful day!