South to West - Puerto de la Aldea

After leaving San Nicolás de Tolentino and continuing your westward journey towards the coast for some 3 km (approx. 2 miles) you arrive at the tiny fishing port of Puerto de la Aldea, where small restaurants serve simple, but ever so delicious, fish dishes. South to the port, there is a long pebbled beach - Playa de la Aldea - and a pretty tiled promenade.

At the far end of the beach is El Charco (The Lagoon), which only really gets busy on weekends as well as the 11^th of September when the Fiesta del Charco takes place.  The origins of this festival, where locals try to catch fish with their bare hands and splash each other with water, hark back to an aboriginal past. There are also Canarian wrestling matches and stick-fighting competitions.

Some 9 km (approx. 6 miles) further up the coast you will come across two viewpoints, the Mirador del Balcón and the Andén Verde, where you can relax a bit from what, at times, can be an extremely demanding coastal road. Perched on the edge of jagged cliffs at up to 500 m above sea level, these viewpoints allow stunning views over the north-eastern part of Gran Canaria.