The charco is a brackish lagoon where the La Aldea ravine meets the sea, and for one afternoon a year it belongs to everybody. The tradition is older than the Spanish conquest: the island's original inhabitants used to stun fish with the sap of the tabaiba and cardón plants — embarbascar is the local word — then take them out of the water with their hands. The plant sap is long gone, but the plunge is not.
What to expect. The morning is a walk down to the charco with music, dancing and traditional songs, and it takes its time. At five in the afternoon the mayor fires a rocket and several thousand people throw themselves into the water at once, grabbing at mullet with bare hands and baskets. You will get wet, you will not stay clean, and nobody minds. It falls inside the wider patron-saint fiestas for San Nicolás de Tolentino, so the town is busy either side of it.
Practical bit. La Aldea sits on Gran Canaria's remote west coast, and the drive over from Las Palmas or the southern resorts is the spectacular GC-200 clifftop road — an hour and a half of hairpins with the Atlantic below. There is no useful bus for an evening event out here. Hire a car, set off early, and treat the road as part of the day.
