A visit to a viewpoint is a must, says the Gran Canaria Tourist Board bulletin. Not a watchtower for the lookout, not a balcony for the solitary poet, but a viewing platform with benches and lights, a 500-meter extension for the tourist, after the beach and before the buffet, to look out upon that sort of work of art that nature created with the patience of time, the wind, and the tides. It will be said that it is a gift for the soul, a platform for serenity, but deep down it is the culmination of a process, the final domestication of a wild landscape, because there is nothing modern man enjoys more than contemplating the grandeur of nature from the safety of a cement floor, and if possible, with a good frame for the mobile phone, because that is what it is all about, certifying with a photo that beauty exists and that we have seen it.
And in this new mainsail of tourism, among dragon trees that have grown over the centuries and wild olive trees that smile with the wisdom of history, the visitor is invited to pause, to breathe life from a height that is ultimately a distance. Néstor Álamo and his song, "Maspalomas y tú," are quoted, but they forget that the song was born from the soul, not from an urban design with xerophilous landscaping. They sell us tranquility, the calm of sunsets and sunrises, but the truth is that a place of obligatory happiness has been created for us, a place for tourists to know that their trip has been unforgettable, not because they felt it, but because they saw it from the official perspective, from the point of view that has been prefabricated to fit all the postcards.
And it's curious, isn't it, how the coastal desert, which was the glory of the place, the untamed space illuminated by the brilliance of the sun, has now become the backdrop for a viewing platform. The desert, the sand, the immensity, the endless Atlantic, have become the perfect backdrop for a scene that only seeks to make the viewer feel a little closer to paradise, but in reality, what it's doing is creating a little distance, a necessary distance, between true beauty and its consumption. From now on, we will no longer look at the sea, but rather at the viewing platform, which is ultimately the last and greatest attraction, the one that reminds us that everything, even the sacred, is susceptible to being sold and framed.
