When gay men find a place they like, they tend to stick to it. That’s why Gran Canaria is still pink Britain’s winter resort of choice after 30 years
Neville Walker
At about 10:30pm every night of the year there’s a shift change at the Yumbo Centre in Playa del Ingles, Gran Canaria. It’s not the staff who are changing over, but the clientele. Before 10:30pm, families browse cheap leather goods and sportswear. German couples with lemon sweaters over their shoulders relax with an after-dinner drink.
After 10:30pm – curfew time for families and yellow sweaters – the centre fills with a very different, more hedonistic crowd: higher spending, better haircuts. It may be the archetypal package-tour resort, but Playa del Ingles/Maspalomas is also the biggest gay resort in Europe. And the Yumbo Centre is its epicentre.
Drag artiste Sandra Lumumba’s map lists 47 gay venues there, mostly bars. It’s more than either Soho or Canal Street in Manchester can offer, and it’s also very much a male scene.
For a while, the two worlds meet and mingle. A few straight tourists stay longer to take in a drag show, safely risqu and – performers aside – not particularly gay. But the two worlds are, for all their peaceful co-existence, astonishingly separate.
For gay tour operators, Gran Canaria represents up to 90% of their winter business. Despite new trends in gay travel, Gran Canaria and the other gay favourites – Ibiza, Sitges, Mykonos and, to a lesser extent, Torremolinos, Palma and Benidorm – show no sign of losing popularity. For these places, gay tourism is an important part of the local economy, which translates into a welcome for gay visitors rather than just grudging acceptance.
Rob Harkavy, director of gay tour operator Respect Holidays, says, “Hoteliers love the fact that we’re a gay company because they tend not to get their hotel rooms or apartments smashed up, and they tend not to get complaints from other residents about terrible drunken revelry at 4am.”
The established resorts offer facilities on a massive scale for gay visitors. Sheer size creates a safe and welcoming atmosphere, and there is little if any reported homophobia or violence against gays. It would be hard for new destinations to muscle in – the promise of two gay bars isn’t enough: 22 and you might be in business. It’s one reason the list of gay favourites changes so little.
The gay visitor’s typical day in Gran Canaria doesn’t start early. Most exclusively gay accommodation isn’t in the concrete jungle of Playa del Ingles but in its bungalow suburb of Maspalomas, which is quieter, leafier and easier on the eye. But Maspalomas boasts one of the most spectacular beaches in the Canary Islands and gay visitors take full advantage.
Gay beaches tend to be quieter, more remote and less spoilt by mass tourism. Maspalomas offers seclusion in abundance. There’s a gay section of the rather windy beachfront, but there’s also a substantial gay section in the vast dunes behind it. The dunes are the daytime counterpoint to the Yumbo Centre, big enough for everyone to have a dune each if they choose.
Trees act as windbreaks and help create suntraps as well as offering privacy. It’s no coincidence that the gay section is adjacent to the naturist area: both groups crave privacy and many gay men like to sunbathe naked.
After a day on the beach, many gay men make their way to the public terrace in front of the Riu Palace Hotel in Playa del Ingles. It’s a chance to see what the people from the next sand dune look like up close and to watch the sun set behind the Maspalomas lighthouse. Some go on to the Cita Centre for coffee and cakes at Caf Wien. It’s one of the few culinary highlights of southern Gran Canaria and suggests Austrians are rather better at patisserie than they are at politics.
After sunset, many take a disco nap to prepare for the night ahead. Dinner tends to be late, and it’s often nothing special: few restaurants in Playa del Ingles rise above the steak and seafood mediocrity of the tourist menu.
Soon it’s 10.30pm again and time to go back to the Yumbo. It offers gay bars of every type – convivial places, cruisy ones and even bars for gay pensioners, who can have a waltz and a schnapps at Na Und.
While straight visitors lap up the drag cabaret at Caf Labelle, gay men prefer the leather and feathers at Centre Stage, where every night is Julie Andrews night.
But the nightlife doesn’t really get going until around midnight, when the slicker, more international bars on the top floor start to fill up. Each pumps out the Euro- hits on video: Ricky Martin, Aqua, maybe something with a harder edge. Tubos is the first to fill, then the crowd moves around to Mykonos before reaching the Metropole Disco. The process takes three hours. The crowd is younger than in the downstairs bars, with more evidence of time at the gym.
Despite the absence – except at weekends – of Canarian men, this procession from one bar to another is the most Spanish feature of Gran Canaria’s gay nightlife. Drinkers who linger too long in one bar will find it empties as the in-crowd moves on. At 4am, the upper level winds down and the large disco bars on the opposite side of the centre – XL and Kings – crank up the energy. Kings dances on until 6am; you haven’t really done gay Gran Canaria until you’ve been there at the bitter end. No wonder the gay presence seems to melt away during the day. Gay men rarely have the best suntans on the plane home.