How did I miss this thread when it was started in February?
I have two opposite experiences of hiking in Gran Canaria.
One was of getting a bus to Palmitos Park, the zoo for the tourists to visit, from where I set off on a long circular route. It was nothing but bone dry ground, sand and dust, there were a few arid vistas but a major part of it was walking down a dry valley, I think they were called barrancas, where as I progressed huge dark lizards dropped out of bushes with startling crashes onto the dry leaves on the ground. Like Reg, I was glad of a few beers at the end of it, partly to wet my throat and partly to steady my nerves!
My next walk was intended to be in the green of the mountains, for which I boarded a bus in sunshine for the long ride. Now, they only get about three days rain a year on the island (well, that's what I was told) and that's what it chose to do that day. All I saw was thick black clouds, wetness and dense ragged mist through which there were brief glimpses of hillsides and little white villages. I didn't have any waterproofs of course, apart from which route finding would have been out of the question in those conditions. The bus dropped me off at a folorn and deserted village square, where I mooched about in the rain for a bit before catching the next bus back down to the sunlit coast.