Campaign to promote public transport

CAMPAIGN TO PROMOTE PUBLIC TRANSPORT

For the last three years the Colectivo Turcón-Ecologistas en Acción (Turcón-Ecologists in Action Group) has created a programme of hiking trips within the framework of the Campaign to Promote Public Transport. The aim of the programme was to visit all 21 municipalities on the island in the first year, to see the island’s archaeological sites in the second year, and, in the third year, to discover places with water as an element that appeals to everyone. All the excursions made use of the public bus routes that cover the island.

Designing the campaign was a long and painstaking task because it entailed combining the old highways, tracks and paths with the timetables of the public bus routes. The result was a perfectly organised network of routes that were followed by more than 75 hikers every month.

The campaign aimed to show hikers and the entire population that it is possible to go on a hike without using private transport, visiting leisure areas and natural spaces without having to take the car.

The basic objectives of the campaign were:
1. To encourage travellers to use public transport.
2. To make the public aware of the regular bus services.
3. To show that it is possible travel the length and breadth of the island by bus.
4. To discover that there is a social life to be found on public transport.
5. To take advantage of the bus to discover our countryside and natural values.

This book is the result of all that experience and aims to continue along the same lines: to, guide, teach and help and to inform everyone wishing to walk and learn about Gran Canaria that public transport makes it easy.

HIKING:

Hiking is the most relaxing and leisurely of all the mountain sports. Hiking can take us to places of natural, landscape or historical value. Just walking or strolling through nature is a healthy, invigorating activity, but it is necessary to learn to take it all in slowly and to enjoy everything. Then, we can better appreciate our surroundings.

This activity requires no special preparation; just a positive mental attitude. When we are surrounded by nature, almost forgotten instincts are awoken, old sensations surface again and new sensations are discovered. The mountains still guard vast, open spaces that are peaceful and remote.

Apart from getting people out into the country on public transport, the intention of this books is to suggest that the reader collect and read books from the bibliography, and to encourage the habit of making notes and charts before and after each route, in the belief that this is the best way to complement the information and so confirm the long-held premise that “everything that one knows, one respects and loves”.

Gran Canaria receives numerous visitors from abroad, many of whom love nature and hiking. With those visitors in mind, the Colectivo Turcón-Ecologistas en Acción is publishing this third edition with an appendix in English giving a summary of the most interesting things to be seen on each route. Although our limited financial resources prohibit a translation of the entire book, we wish to offer some service to the thousands of foreigners who visit our island every year.

Signed: Alvaro Monzón Santana
Discovering Gran Canaria: in search for the canarian willow