Tenerife Island | Tour Tenerife with the Green Bearded Bard

Playa San Marcos

Just a few kilometres from Icod de los Vinos in the northwest of Tenerife lies the charming coastal village of San Marcos with its popular black sand beach. The seafront is sheltered by cliffs and it is also possible to sea some great views of Mt Teide from San Marcos. Just along the coast is Garachico and its El Roque landmark at sea.

The village has just one supermarket in the apartment block Edificio Lourdes on the road into it, a chemist on the front and a selection of bar restaurants. It has a little church and back in the residential part there is a square and sports club and cultural centre, and this is where many fiestas are celebrated although other festivities like the Night of San Juan take place on the beach and along the front.

There is quite a large carpark within easy walking distance to the beach. There are usually long-term and short-term rentals available in San Marcos but as a village it has a strong community feel and is mainly made up of local residents.

The beach is popular with sunbathers and swimmers and also anglers fish from the rocks, whilst fishermen with boats still catch fresh fish at sea. There are cliffs in a ravine that are popular with climbers and also caves, although some of these have been blocked off.

It is also possible to view the La Suerte pyramid on a banana plantation along a side road that turns off the only road into San Marcos.

La Suerte pyramid in San Marcos

There are regular bus services from Icod de los Vinos station and back. The 362 runs hourly from Icod on the half-hour but the last one back from the beach is at 8.30 pm in the evening.

San Marcos is well worth a visit and once you have discovered its charms you will be likely to want to go there again.

View over San Marcos showing Garachico along the coast

El Risco or the Eco Bar in San José de los Llanos

The Eco Bar surrounded by forests

There is a really unique cabin-style bar called El Risco and set in a truly rural location of forests and mountains in the village of San José de los Llanos. It is also known as the "Eco Bar" and the "Hippy Bar" and is a very popular venue for rock, folk and blues musicians.

It is actually situated up a mountain and has pine woods all around it that offer some incredible pathways for exploring. There is a signpost from the road through the village of Los Llanos that will take you to where El Risco is. Although it is small, there is plenty of room outside as well as in and the live music is usually played in the open air unless the weather is bad.

You can get to Los Llanos easily by taking the turn off from the road that goes from Santiago del Teide into Erjos and then down through El Tanque into Icod de los Vinos. The side road that you need is directtly opposite the ponds in the Puerto de Erjos area and is also signposted for La Montañeta, a pretty village further along and surrounded by forests. It is also possible to catch the 360 bus from Icod to Puerto de Erjos or in the other reverse direction because whichever way it goes the bus passes through Los Llanos.

El Risco always has live music late Sunday afternoons onwards but has singers and bands playing most evenings on the other days too. Besides a bar, there is a great menu of traditional Canary Island food to choose from.

When a band is playing a real party atmosphere develops and there are often people dancing as they enjoy the music and the unique location where the smells of cooking combine with fresh mountain air. Take a coat or a jumper though because it is quite high up and gets chilly at night.

A visit to El Risco is well worth making if you want to discover the true alternative Tenerife.

Nico and friends

Bard of Ely aka Green Beard at El Risco

The freshwater ponds of Erjos

Tenerife has very few natural sources of freshwater and most of the aquatic creatures such as dragonflies, frogs and Mosquito fish are dependent on the reservoirs and water tanks used for irrigation on the farms. However, just outside the village of Erjos in the northwest there are several natural ponds - Los Charcos de Erjos.

These ponds were formed many years ago after topsoil was dug out of the area and it naturally filled up with rain water. Nature was quick to colonise it with water plants, aquatic insects, Mosquito fish, frogs and several water birds including Herons, Moorhens and Coots. Today it has lot of reedmace growing around the pools and Canary Island Willows as well as a lot of other vegetaion.

The Iberian Water Frog (Rana perezi) breeds in the ponds and many freshwater insects such as dragonfly species, Whirligig beetles, Water-boatmen and Pond-skaters are also plentiful in the habitat there.

Unfortunately, in 2008, the long drought dried up all the water completely and all the fish died but most other species have made a comeback after the winter rains. Erjos is surrounded by mountains and forests and it is possible to walk to the villages of Masca, Las Portelas and El Palmar by following the footpaths. One of these leads through the very beautiful Monte del Agua with its laurisilva forest.

If visiting Erjos and intending to do much walking in the area be warned though that the temperature can drop very fast if the "bruma" cloud cover is present. This mist keeps the plants flourishing in Erjos but can also mean that you can get cold and damp if not adequately protected when exploring the forests and mountains. It is in complete contrast to the hot and sunny weather so often seen just a few kilometres away in Santiago del Teide.

Erjos is a real delight for anyone who loves to see plenty of wildlife and incredible scenery. It is possible to get to Erjos by bus from Las Americas in the south or from Los Gigantes. The 392, 325 and 460 Titsa bus all pass through the village, which is situated a few kilometres above Santiago del Teide in the south of Tenerife and before Ruigomez and El Tanque in the north. Another road leads to San José de los Llanos and La Montañeta.

On the other side of the road from where the ponds are is the popular Restaurante Fleytas where you can get a meal and a drink before or after exploring the countryside of Erjos.

The Puzzling Pyramids of Guimar

The Pyramids of Guimar have an intriguing ring to it as the name of a location. They sound mysterious and well worth investigating, as indeed they are, and I just had to find out more. The Chacona Pyramids, as they are also called, are situated in Guimar in Tenerife, and have been at the centre of a debate concerning their authenticity, with some academics and authorities claiming they are fake and others saying they are real.

Guimar looks out over the sea and has the magnificent backdrop of the mountains behind it. It is a perfect setting for the pyramids and whatever the reality of their origins and truth is you can't help but admire the scenery.

I found out about them from a friend who had asked me if I had seen them on a previous visit to the island. I told her that I had not but from her description I knew that I wanted to, and so I started on a quest to find out more. What were pyramids doing on this Spanish island?

The 6 stepped-pyramids came to the attention of the media when a local newspaper ran a story about how they had been discovered, and, whilst many people scoffed and claimed they were nothing more than piles of stones and terraces used by local farmers for agricultural purposes, world famous explorer, Dr. Thor Heyerdahl, thought differently.

Heyerdahl claimed that as soon as he saw pictures of the site he recognised the sort of pyramid construction he had already witnessed firsthand on his voyages around the world, and in particular with reference to the building principles of those in Tucume, Peru and others in Mexico.

Dr. Heyerdahl enlisted the support of Fred Olsen and in 1992 they set up FERCO (Foundation for Research and Exploration of Cultural Origins), a private foundation to further his theories and vision regarding the role of archaeology in showing the spread of civilisation and culture by people of the past. He believed that culture was spread from one country to another in ancient times by seafaring peoples, who constructed reed-boats like the famous Kon-tiki, in which Heyerdahl had completed an ocean voyage. Dr.Heyerdahl believed there was contact between the Old World and the New before Columbus and that history and academia got it wrong.

The inhabitants of the Canary Islands before the invasion and conquest by the Spanish, were known as the Guanches, and these people pose another mystery, because although they lived not far from the coast of Africa, they were a blond-haired and blue-eyed race.

Guanche statue

Many ideas were put forward as to their origins, including Viking, Roman, Greek and Phoenician descent. It is now believed that the Guanche were related to the Berbers from Libya, who have similar characteristics, but some people feel that they were the descendants of the inhabitants of the legendary lost continent of Atlantis. Professor Arysio Nunes dos Santos, who has researched Atlantis for over 20 years and has a website all about his discoveries, has traced in great detail an astonishing similarity between the Guanche language and that of the Dravidians from India – see link appended below for further info.

According to Mrs M. Grieve in her A Modern Herbal, the Guanche practised mummification of their dead and used the resin of the dragon tree (Dracaena draco) in this process. It is of interest and significance to note that these strange trees grow wild in Indonesia as well as the Canary Islands, Cape Verde and Madeira. Did the ancient sea-farers transport this tree around the world as well?

In the Guanche use of resins to mummify the dead we have another similarity in their culture to other pyramid builders like the Egyptians, for example. Here we see another illustration of possible spread of knowledge and cultural traditions in the ancient world, an ancient world that lives on today in many ways and yet remains hidden in others!

Wherever the Guanche and their culture were from originally, their language survives in many words in usage in modern Spanish and their genes live on in people living today in the Canaries. Even the word guagua, the commonly used term for a bus, is a Guanche word I am told, although I am not sure of how it has come to mean a modern vehicle!

It is believed that the Guanche built the pyramids of Guimar and used them for celebrations and rituals, and Galindo (1632) said that the first inhabitants used the place for ceremonies, dance, songs and competitions.

Heyerdahl and his team point out that many of the lava rocks used in the construction of the pyramids have flat sides and show evidence of having been shaped and trimmed, unlike the rough boulders of the surrounding area. Also that the flat gravel covered platform at the top of each pyramid is clearly built for ceremonial purposes and/or sun worship.

The pyramids of Guimar are perfectly aligned according to the position of the sun at summer solstice just like so many ancient monuments including Stonehenge in Britain. Stone stairways lead upwards to the top of each pyramid and would bring a person into a position so that they faced the rising sun.

Archaeologists from the University of La Laguna were contracted to carry out an excavation of one of the pyramid platforms and according to FERCO literature, their findings confirmed that the platform had been built from gravel earth and blocks, as Heyerdahl had stated, and could have been used for ceremonial purposes.

Some people were still not convinced and they suggested that the edifices were built by early Christian conquistadors as a time-measuring device for the Catholic festivities of St. John. Why Christians and Catholics would seek to emulate buildings made by what they regarded as heathen races is beyond me. In Central America the conquistadors did what they could to destroy the culture they found there, condemning it as the works of the Devil.

As was the case in Central America and elsewhere, the conquering Spaniards attempted to convert the conquered people to Christianity and today there is a curious mixture of religious ideas and symbolism present on Tenerife. This can be seen in roadside shrines to the Madonna as well as in the festivals held there.

Concepcion cites Father Espinosa with regard to the situation and it's a familiar story:

The war that the Spaniards made...on the natives of these islands...was unjust, unreasonable...because these people neither owned Christian lands, nor passed over their limits and boundaries to invade or disturb others. So to say that they brought them the Gospel should have been by means of preaching...and not with the drum and banner.

In writing and researching this essay I have tried searching for some statements by those who claim the pyramids are fake or recent constructions, but curiously there seems to be a severe shortage of such material available online. In the interests of presenting a balanced report if anyone knows the sources of any evidence showing that the Guanche didn’t make the pyramids or about who did, then please get in touch. But let us get back to what I did find:

Today in Guimar there is a visitor centre, ‘ethnographic park’ and museum built around the pyramids and for an enjoyable day out I can heartily recommend the place. You can watch a film show all about Heyerdahl’s discoveries and ideas with segments narrated by him, you can enjoy a guided tour of the art and photographic exhibitions, you can have a meal and a drink in the café, or you can spend hours, like I did, wandering around the park and looking at the pyramids themselves.

Personally, I felt that the place was a mystical site and had been used for ceremonies and that the pyramids were real, but you might decide otherwise. A ? is the symbol of the exhibition and is found on the information plaques. Heyerdahl did not wish to force anyone to believe anything and leaves the matter open. I enjoyed my visit, and in many ways, don’t think it matters whether they are real or fake. One thing is for sure, whoever built the Pyramids of Guimar, and whenever they were created, they certainly make a splendid home for the lizards who bask on their rocks today!

Sources and further reading:

Grieve, Mrs M. (1931) A Modern Herbal, Tiger Books: London

Luis Concepcion, Jose (1984) The Guanches Survivors and their Descendants, Luis Concepcion: La Laguna.

http://www.ferco.org/ferco_pyramids.html

http://www.atlan.org/articles/dravida/

http://www.atlan.org/articles/guanches/

The Cloud Forests of Aguamansa

As the road goes up through the Valle de la Orotava on its way to Mt Teide it passes through the village of Aguamansa, which is often shrouded in clouds and has incredible forest full of Canary Pines (Pinus canariensis) and Tree Heather (Eric arborea) all draped in Old Man's Beard lichen (Usnea barbata) and carpeted with moss. The place is actually some of the only remaining forest of this kind left in the world and is like something out of a fairy tale.

In the picture above you can see the sea of clouds, which sometimes lifts to let the sunshine through. Surprisingly there are plenty of Red Admiral and Speckled Wood butterflies and dragon flies which can be seen flitting in the glades.

The cloud gets very thick as you can see. This was early afternoon on a hot summer's day!

Here is a view inside the enchanted forest:

It is easy to get buses from Puerto de la Cruz to Aguamansa and I recommend the place very highly indeed.

El Botanico in Puerto de la Cruz

In Puerto de la Cruz on the main road in coming down from the direction of La Orotava to the sea there is an incredible botanical gardens known as El Botanico and it is right by the La Paz suburb and has a bus stop right outside.

It was once used as an acclimatisation garden for plants brought back from the tropics and the idea was to see how they got on there before moving them on to mainland Spain and Europe.

It has a fantastic selection of ornamental and fruit-bearing trees, flowers, including exotic orchids, many cacti, creepers and vines and 2 big garden pools with water lilies, dragon flies, terrapins and fish. It really feels like entering another world and is only 3 Euros to go in. A must-see place to visit.

Australian Banyan Tree or Moreton Fig (Ficus macrophylla)

Orchid

One of the terrapins in the ornamental pool

A Cereus cactus species

Floss-silk Tree (Chorisia speciosa)

And after you have visited the gardens there are restaurants, bars and shops across the road in La Paz.