Gran Canaria [antikvár]

It's the same picture every morning: men armed with machetes at work In the banana plantations, tomato harvesters picking their aromatic crop, fishermen setting out to sea in their boats, or shepherds in their traditional w/oollen cloaks taking their flocks up to higher pastures. Whether in La Aldea de San Nicolás in the west or Agüimes in the east, life follows a relaxed pace in most towns and villages on the island. Houses are clustered around churches and the shady plazas in front of them serve as playgrounds for children and meeting places for the elderly. The capital, Las Palmas, with its networks of streets, seems light years away. The holiday resorts in the south, where a virtually invisible but perfectly functioning machinery ensures that the almost 2.5 million guests from all over Europe feel at home, seems similarly far removed. An armada of people - from the taxi driver who takes guests to the airport in the early hours of the morning and the cleaning woman who makes sure that the hotel rooms are 'like new', to the lifeguard who keeps an eye on the beach from his watchtower - take care of all of the holidaymakers' wishes. The Photo: The dunes of Maspalomas