Gran Canaria: under a little sun,
Agüimes, Temisas
and the Roque Bentayga
Gran Canaria,
Agüimes, charming, well licked
This large village which follows a slow side of the plateau at an altitude of 280 meters has a beautiful perimeter historic, in the center of which sits the "Temple of the parish of Saint Sebastian", a church with three naves and two bell towers, in pure Canarian neoclassical style. The interior is of a wise baroque.
So imposing that it is difficult to have a global view of it.
Agüimes is one of the first sites of establishment of conquerors of all stripes from 1491. After the first bishop Juan Frias, the Catholic Monarchs assigned the lordship of the region to his successors from 1487; 45 prelates will follow one another for three centuries.
What remains of it probably explains after a remarkable restoration that it exudes a strong charm.
During our visit, it is impossible not to be struck by the calm, perhaps explained by the almost total absence of visitors, and perfect cleanliness.
Very colorful old walls highlight and bring out the stones, contrasts in leopard spots on funds with variable tones.
The crenellated design of the edges of houses, the walls blend elegantly with the simple color of wooden shutters, or woodwork facades fauves worked.
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Sculpted groups (bronze? Or ocher plaster like terracotta), original and beautifully crafted, to scale and very realistic, populate certain corners and plots, historical or everyday figures, musicians with their instruments.
In the light, their dark silhouette immortalizes a frozen slice of life.
But the one that represents a full-size camel in the middle of a crossroads of alleys, the most famous they say, will nevertheless escape our hurried passage.
In any case, in front of a table outside the only open cafe, seated limply on our chairs, the sunny silence invites a gentle pleasure that we cannot resist.
But the frame is so well licked that one feels almost embarrassed to take advantage of it alone.
It spontaneously comes to mind that he is "staged".
Good intuition and retrospective self-satisfaction: since 1988, the Festival "Sur-Encuentro Tres Continentes" has been held here, where companies from Africa, America and Europe exchange scenic experiences.
Even "everyday life", a single café open with an English-speaking regular, a few children playing ..., seems barely daring to participate, timidly.
Gran Canaria,
Temisas, the modest coquette
At the same time as a group of hikers leaves for the small more distant summits, we leave Agüimes, which here turns short and gives way to sparse fields, cultivated in terraces.
Towards the west, for almost 10 km, a winding road without much interest climbs a slow grassy slope.
Then, after a few more nervous switchbacks, here it is, at 700 meters above sea level, the village of Temisas, framed with picturesque by clumps of endemic palm trees. From there, one can contemplate a vast panorama towards the sea in the distance.
On one of the peaks to the south, an astronomical observatory has existed since 2008, at an altitude of 850 meters.
The observatory
The village leans against a brown, mineral cliff, which further north exceeds 1000 meters.
The tiny historic center is nestled around the very pretty square of the church, itself irresistibly charming.
Even if the sky is cluttered with cloudy passages, it is easy to understand what led the Government of the Canaries to name Temisas "hamlet. representative of the Canaries ".
Its whitewashed houses lime in the past (what is it really today?) scatter through balcony paths that other paths cross on a steep slope.
Some of them are recent, quite opulent, certainly leisure residences.
Elsewhere, others have not (yet?) Benefited from the advantage of the "representative hamlet"; sagging roofs, huts old ones burrow under an invasive vegetation: for the amateur visitor, the happiness of abandoned recesses, of the unusual which enchants.
Temisas is also known for its olive groves that line the hilly slopes. The first oil mills date from the 16th century.
There again, there is total silence, barely a few noises or a barking dog, in the houses and farms below.
Gran Canaria,
the Roque Bentayga , a steep site,
historic stronghold of resistance to the Conquerors of the 15th century
The site of Roque Bentayga, which can be accessed as we did from Artenara through some steep roads, is quite picturesque.
You can browse a permanent exhibition on the origins of the island and the archipelago.
Complete and very educational, it is housed in a very well-designed modern space, half hidden on the mountainside.
Its content, and what it has been possible to glean elsewhere at the "Cueva Pintada" of Galdar make it possible to update and complete the information found. during our previous stays in the archipelago.
On pre-Hispanic history and the conquest, the essential then seemed to concentrate on some documents like :
"The guanches survivors and their descendants" by Jose Luis Conception (2005)
"The history of the discovery and conquest of the Canary Islands" reappeared in Spanish on the initiative of Juan Abreu de Galindo in 1977, but first translated into English under the title indicated, by Georges Glas in 1764, from a Spanish document found on the island of La Palma.
The site "jeanavu.org" relating to our 1st visit to Gran Canaria, had tried give one summarized in : https://fr.calameo.com/read/003803391e0ca13f97d42 .
It seems that the local effort to find historical reality has taken significant new steps.
In itself, in addition to the powerful, semi-desert relief that characterizes this entire region, we understand that it was historically one of the places of ultimate resistance of the natives during the conquest, when we see how much access to the rock is steep.
Corn with its erect rocky masses, it does not offer more spectacular views than those that can be seen from the ridges, belvederes or summits of the surroundings.
Above the archaeological museum, the path that leads there, quite steep but very well laid out, becomes more difficult when we approach a famous rampart old dry stone, of which there are remains.
We will not go beyond, when it almost becomes an ascending ridge path, quite vertiginous.
Advances in research on these indigenous peoples who lived there, although long before the conquerors from Europe, consolidate and confirm certain hypotheses, take others against the grain, sometimes with great reason, other times in a surprising way.
That they came by sea from the near North African continent is no longer a surprise, nor the fact that they were Berbers (which is confirmed by archaeological, genetic, language, and on lifestyles).
The long period during which they come there ranges from -2500 to -500 approximately. Historians have been able to correlate these occurrences with periods of political and social instability in North Africa.
The part of chance does not therefore seem to be the major causal element in these migrations.
On the name of "Canaries", if it is admitted that it was attributed by Juba II some 25 years BC due to the large number of dogs found there, another origin is reported by Abreu Galindo as early as 1602: " in the Atlas Mountains, there is a tribe of Africans called the Canaries, who perhaps discovered and populated the archipelago, and named it after their name . "
La Gomera
Tenerife
In any case, a final fate must be made to the false rumor that the inhabitants of the different islands had no relationship and did not sail from one to the other.
Here, the island of La Gomera, seen from the west coast of Tenerife to Los Gigantes (distance of about 28 km); and in the other view, the other islands seen from the south coast of Lanzarote.
Gran Canaria
Tenerife
Lanzarote
Fuerteventura