Normally i do not go to Zoos or animal parks, unless it's Safari parks. Well i had the friday still free and did not want to spent another day on the beach, or at least not the whole day. Getting to the inner and top of the island is not easy without a car. Anyway i wanted to see the mountains of Gran Canaria, since they are so green and different from the coast and worse a visit.

So i decided one evening before, quite spontaniously, to go to Palmitos Park, which is known as an oasis far up between the mountains. They host a lot of different animals and numerous plants in a botanical garden.
 One can take the bus from Faro de Maspalomas or Playa del Inglés. It's about a 30min ride i guess and this tour is really nice, since you can see the endless suprisingly green slopes while going up and up in the mountains. (Price for both ways is around 4€)

If you take a car you can stop on the way and visit a real ranch or go in some really tiny restaurants with more local food. Otherwise the bus only stops at Aqualand as well, which is a lovely activity with kids.

The main attractions in the park are actually the animal shows, that take place in different times during the day. There is the birds of pray show, which is featuring huge eagles in free flight. To see this show one has to climb up the steep mountain, but the view is absolutely fantastic. It was around lunch time it started and i was so hungry, but very scared that the eagles would want to steal my lovely prepared sandwiches. Instead of bringing your own food, you can of course eat in the parks restaurant, which is offering almost anything, but for a quite high price.

Furthermore the park offers another really funny parrot show, where the birds drive tiny bycicles and do different hilarious tricks.
 The most adorable show by far is of course the dolphin show. They do a lot of different stunts, together with their caretakers, so one girl was actually surfing on a dolphin! Also they always integrate kids, that are allowed to train and swim with the dolphins, which is super cute.

More features of the park is an endless garden of cactuses, a butterfly house and an orchid house, which is really fantastic for photolovers. I just took countless shots there, because you can see all beauty summed up in one place.

The entrance for the park is 30€, which is quite a lot, if you are not that into animals and plants, i would not recommend it to you. (You can also buy the tickets combined with aqualand or online, which makes it a bit cheaper)