Barranco de las Vacas: Gran Canaria's little Antelope Canyon

There is a slot canyon on Gran Canaria. Not a big one: roughly fifty metres of narrow, wave-curved rock in terracotta and pink, but the shapes could pass for a pocket edition of Arizona's Antelope Canyon, and it hides in a ravine most drivers pass without a glance.

When we went, almost nobody knew it. We had heard rumours of an Antelope of the Canaries, spent real time hunting for the entrance, parked where the road allowed and scrambled down into the gorge to find it. And then we had the entire canyon to ourselves: two people and the light moving across the curves. It remains one of my favourite finds on any island.

Honesty requires the update: that version is gone. The place became an Instagram phenomenon, and on a busy afternoon twenty people share those fifty metres, with a queue for the famous photo rock. The trivia suits the story: the celebrated section is not even in Barranco de las Vacas, it sits in the neighbouring Barafonso ravine; a media mix-up named it, and the name stuck.

It is still worth the stop if you play it correctly. Go early on a weekday morning, since roadside parking is a handful of spaces at best, and the visit itself takes half an hour: treat it as a stop on the mountain-road day, not a destination. One hard rule: skip it entirely if rain is possible in the mountains, because slot canyons flash-flood fast.

Hidden gems have a shelf life. This one's secret phase is over; what is left is a timing game, and timing is exactly what a tested route is for. The precise access point, the parking reality and where it slots into the driving day are in the guide.