The beach
The town council measures it at 2,710 metres long and 55 wide on average, with a Blue Flag since 1990. Services (sunbeds, parasols, showers, kiosks with toilets) cluster at the lighthouse end, next to the promenade; the further you go towards the Punta, the more space and the fewer people. The naturist stretch is in the area the council calls La Punta or Cañada de la Penca, in front of the dunes, and surfers gather on the bend that links up with Playa del Inglés. The sea is usually calm, but this is the open Atlantic: respect the flags.
The Charca de Maspalomas
A couple of hundred metres from the lighthouse, between the beach and the palm grove, lies the Charca: about 4.3 hectares of water fed in turn by the ravine's floods and by the sea, a metre and a half deep on average, with a salinity that shifts with the seasons. The Cabildo calls it the island's most important wetland, and it belongs to the Special Nature Reserve and the Natura 2000 network. There is a bird hide on its western bank; on a good day more than twenty species can be counted, among them grey herons, little egrets, sanderlings, moorhens and coots, and now and then an osprey or a Barbary falcon. Watch from the walkway, without entering the water or the inner shore.
When to go
For the birds, first thing in the morning and, above all, in winter, when the Charca takes in the migrants; in May there is still plenty going on. For the beach, any time of day with sun protection: there is no natural shade. Sunset from the shore, with the lighthouse cut out against the sun, is the postcard everyone takes home.
Tips
- Watch the Charca from the walkway and the hide: do not enter the water or walk its shore.
- The kiosks have public toilets and are numbered: number 7 is the LGBTQ+ meeting point.
- At low tide you can walk on the sand round the lighthouse to Meloneras beach.
- Bring water and your own shade: between the lighthouse and the Punta there is nothing but the kiosks.
