Day 6 - Camello? In Maspalomas? I don't know...

We found our camel, Richa, today, down at the southern tip of the island at the Dunas de Maspalomas. We headed straight for Maspalomas in the morning after breakfast to pack in as much as possible. It took a little while to locate the camels, and we ended up at a different outfit that we had first intended. In any case, the camels were hilarious. While waiting in line, we saw a previous group (a tour group) mount and head out. One lady's hair scent was determined to be extremely disagreeable to the camel behind her after she mounted. He yelled and yelled for a at least a few minutes, while she panicked, biting her nails. We saw a few other panicked folks as well, and were also amused when the camel wranglers had to tie on large weight bags to balance out the loads when one person was much more heavy than the other(s).

After the camel ride, we went in search of the elusive Palmitos Park. There are a few signs around town, but the intuitive following of these signs tends to leave one at a dead end more often than not. We stopped for directions at the police station and after a few more wrong loops, we finally found the canyon leading up to Aqualand, a huge waterpark, and Palmitos Park, our target destination.

Palmitos Park is a plant and animal zoo, which last year suffered severe damage from a fire, but is well reconstructed. We saw a huge variety of parrots, including a really fun parrot show. Who would have thought that you can teach a parrot to pedal a mini bicycle (with training wheels of course). You can see it here.

After watching the parrot show, we toured the rest of the park. We saw lots more birds, reptiles, cacti, orchids, butterflies, gibbons, and very briefly, and orangutang.

Then we headed down the canyon to Maspalomas and went to the Playa de Ingles to check out the beach. The water here today was quite warm and we played in it for a while, going out and floating back in on the big waves, getting completely drenched when they rolled over just before hitting us. We went to a nearby Mckee Dee's to get reliably good french fries, difficult to come by otherwise. Then we drove back to Las Palmas in the evening.