Yumbo Centre
Almost all gay bars and clubs in Playa del Ingles are located in the big Yumbo shopping centre. This is the place where it all happens at night!
In day time, Yumbo Center is nothing more than a tourist trap, offering cheap souvenirs, clothing and other stuff you don't need to old people from Germany and Scandinavia, too old to bake in the sun all day. But at night, Yumbo transfers into the center of gay nightlife!
Starting off
For dinner, Yumbo offers a scala of gay owned restaurants, where you can have cheap and rather decent food. And mostly, the menu is there for you in your native language!
The bars
Then, around 11 at night, most people sit down at one of the terraces on one at the big gay bars on the ground floor for a beer and some entertainment. Everynight, Ricky's Cabaret Bar hosts a very popular karaoke show, followed by a drag queen comedy show. Bar Junior has live strippers on its terrace (beware of some hard object in your neck...). Real tough guys (and often the younger ones) go to the Construction bar to have a beer, while the older Germans massivly run into the Na Und Pils Bar next door.
Between midnight and one, people move up to the second floor to hang around some bars for drag performances, German and Dutch schlagers (Macho Macho), some darkrooms (Cruise) and a lot of cheep Spanish beer.
Dancing
After one, most of the young people are off to the video bars at the top floor like Mykonos and Tubos. To finish the night of, the dancing crowd ends at club Mantrix or in weekend to Heaven, the Gran Canarian branch of the famous London club (which attracts a lot of local straight boys as well). On the other side of Yumbo you'll find club XL until the late hours, only to be filled really in the early morning.
Outside Yumbo
There are some bars outside the Yumbo Center. At the Avda de Tiranjana, a 5 minutes walk from Yumbo, you'll find a bar called Detox Retox, next to a new and trendy gay owned restaurant called Mundo.
CITA is a smaller commercial center south of Yumbo and features also a couple of bars in the basement, as well as a men's sauna (Construction Sauna). However, this area does not attract as many gay visitors as the Yumbo, the ultimate symbol of straightforward gay pleasure.
The gay beach
Gran Canaria isn't famous for its architecture, shops or museums. So how to spend your day then? What about laying in the sun all day?
The main gay beach can be found between Maspalomas and Playa del Ingles. Here is where the boys (and slightly older gentlemen) lay down in the sun, hand around at the bar or swim in the ocean.
How to get there?
The gay beach can be reached by a 10 minute walk from the Maspalomas lighthouse or via a 20 minute walk via the dunes from the Riu hotel in Playa del Ingles. And that walk is entertaining (but more about that later).
The gay beach is easy recognisable at the the rainbow flag at the little kiosk near the water. If you want to be comfortable, you can hire a chair. You can also lay down between the men near the water on the dune at the right. As every gay beach, you're able to get a sun taint right all over, bath clothing is optionable. And therefore, you'll be able to see the beatiful young boys and the not so beatiful older guys in all their glory....
Playing at the dunes
However, the main attraction of the gay beach (and maybe of the whole island) are the sand dunes behind the gay beach. At around four o'clock, many people leave the beach for a short and refreshing walk trough the the dunes, to explore the beauty and magnitude of gay nature. A lot of men camp here for the day instead at the beach, being out of the wind at wait for the catch of the day. This is really to place to get to know your fellow tourist a little bit closer...
