Mirador El Mulato

The viewpoint sits on a natural balcony in the uplands of south-western Gran Canaria, 687 metres above the sea and right beside the GC-605, at the very head of the Barranco de Mogán. From the platform your eye runs down the valley until it opens into a narrow window onto the Atlantic, with the town below. The peaks around it carry their own names: Montaña de Tauro, Cruz de Mogán and Pinar de Ojeda. The whole territory belongs to the Inagua Integral Nature Reserve and the Nublo Rural Park, inside the Gran Canaria Biosphere Reserve that UNESCO declared in 2005. Before today's roads existed, this was the way people climbed from the south towards the north of the island.

After sunset El Mulato takes on its second job. It is one of the island's astronomical viewpoints and counts at least 300 usable observing nights a year. Facing south, it clears a horizon you cannot see from mainland Europe: the Southern Cross appears between January and June, along with Canopus and the Omega Centauri cluster. In summer the core of the Milky Way rises over Montaña de Tauro. Ridges and ravines block the trade wind, so the air stands calmer here than at the northern viewpoints. Bring a layer anyway: the winter night average is around 15 degrees and can drop to 8.