GUANCHE CAVES ON GRAN CANARIA

On Monday we traveled to Gran Canaria with 10 Elders from Tenerife to attend Zone Conference.  This time we took our car on the ferry, which turned out to be very reasonable, about $20.  The ferry is quite large and holds many cars and even transport trucks.  It is super easy to drive up the ramp and park your car and then sleep or eat or whatever you want to do for the next 21/2 -3 hours.

The Elders returned home on Tuesday evening but we stayed at the old mission home with the Buhlers for a couple of days.  The house is way up in the hills from Las Palmas and it is always very cool at that altitude, even a little chilly at times.  On Wednesday morning we got up to walk and it was hot outside.  There was a white mist in the air and we knew these clues say "Calima."  This is our second big Calima since being here, but we hear they can be worse.  The Sarah Desert, which is about 100 miles away, blows hot sand to the Canaries.  They usually last about a week.

We planned to visit the Guanche caves, which are not far from Las Palmas.  Hot day or no we went.  The Guanches were the indigenous tribe that inhabited the islands from about 400 BC.  They were white and lived in natural caves formed in the mountains by volcanic tunnels.  There is a very nice museum at the bottom of the canyon where you can see many interesting dioramas of their living conditions.

There is a path around the Mt. with the cave houses connected to the trail.  There are a dozen or so people that live here now.  There are a couple of restaurants and a gift shop.  On this hot Calima day the interiors were pleasant and cool.  There are springs in these hills that provide the water source now and in ancient times.

This is one of the old caves uninhabited now.

This is a restaurant, which has been hollowed out in modern times to make it bigger. 

This is a life size statue in front of a restaurant of a Guanche man.

This is a statue of the Guanche woman.

This is taken from the path of the caves across the baronco.  You can see the rock terraced planting areas.  The hills here are covered with the old rock terraced gardens.  Actually, both Tenerife and Gran Canaria have so many of these terraced areas on very steep hills that it amazes us, especially since nothing grows in them now.

One of the caves with a gift shop.  It has 3 small rooms. 

This is a look at the canyon with the large volcanic hills.  If you look carefully you can see caves all along the canyon walls.

If it hadn't been so hot that day we would have liked to hike around some of the paths like here to see the old caves but we are wimps in our old age.

On our way back we stopped in the little village of Aguimes.  It had the most charming plaza I have ever seen in Spain with many life size bronze statues and lots of trees that made the plaza amazingly cool on this hot day.

Very fun piece on a wall close to the plaza.

 

Many cities in Spain have tile murals.  This one is very nice on the Aguimes plaza.