Imagine this: you wake up in a colorful port town with white houses drenched in colorful flowers wherever you go.

Imagine you could almost taste the salt water in the air, as you walked past boat after boat after boat.

Imagine cloudless skies, summer sun rays …

And you have the whole place to yourself.

That’s how my trip to Puerto de Mogán started.

Puerto de Mogán is called the Little Venice of Gran Canaria. I’ve never been to Venice, but I know it’s a city surrounded by water. And while Puerto de Mogán is surrounded by water, I don’t think these canals are up to par with Venice . . .

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Nevertheless, it’s an adorable town, and was absolutely worth the hour and a half bus ride to get here.

(Living in the Canary Islands has me so spoiled! I used to think an hour and a half was a short trip. Now, it means a trip on the other side of the island, or through the mountains.)

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Have you ever been one of the only tourists in a city that looks like it should have a lot of tourists? I arrived on a Monday, the first week after I’d arrived to Gran Canaria. I was worried that, given I’d arrived at around 11 in the morning, it would be packed.

Not at all. Apart from a few French and German tourists, this adorable town was shockingly bare.

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In fact, it was so bare, that a waiter said hi to me when I passed a seafood restaurant. Not even to lure me in. He just wanted to say hello.

As I walked through the town and took hundreds of pictures of these houses, I did what I often do in small towns, and wondered what life was like here.

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I could hear dogs barking, children shouting, and the sounds of TV shows, and people cleaning their homes. It was interesting to see daily life happen. The town looked so pretty, that it was hard to imagine mundane life happening here.

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Eventually, I went to the small beach in the town. There were some people swimming. I decided to take a rest, and eat freshly cut papaya and a vegetarian sandwich that was customized just for me at the minimarket.

I felt happy. I felt calm and relief, which is a nice feeling after spending a week finding a new place to live, in a city where I knew no one.

And now I had spent a morning with a cute town almost all to myself.

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Three days before I left for the Canary Islands, I couldn’t sleep. I was hot, someone had taken my fan, my neighbors were noisy, and I was praying my antigens test would come back negative so that I could take the flight.

As I laid there in sleepless frustration, I told myself, in a few days, I’ll be at the beach, and none of this will matter anymore.

And here I am, at the beach in an adorable port town a week later. All that matters is this moment, this joy.

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