Risco Caido

Visited in January 2024.

This object is dedicated to Guanche, original inhabitants of the islands, it is believed that they were Berbers who sailed from the lands of modern Morocco (although it is unclear how they sailed to the Canary Islands).
The life of these aborigines was quite simple: they grazed sheep in the mountains, grew corn, used clay vessels, but did not own metals. They lived in caves, and this lifestyle was preserved even with the change of population until the 20th century.
In the mountains of Gran Canaria, painted caves were also found, which were used for ritual purposes, since the carved triangles on the walls are recognized as symbolic vulvas, and the rituals are considered to be associated with the cult of fertility. But what they were - we can only guess, because the aboriginal population of the Canary Islands became extinct after the appearance of Europeans.
One of the discovered caves is considered by scientists to be a kind of astronomical laboratory, as if the sun and the moon must have illuminated the holes in the cave differently. But again, this is just speculation.
The original caves are closed to visitors, but in Artenara, a replica of the cave has been made in the visitor center, and it is a pretty cool format if the original is not available. You can also visit the ethnographic museum in the town, which shows how life in the caves has continued to our time. You can also look …

I hadn’t expected ever to visit Gran Canaria, a small Atlantic island overrun by millions of tourists yearly. But I had to secure my last World Heritage Site of Spain: I am now at 49/49. The decision to go there was made easier due to some EasyJet vouchers that I still had from Covid times. And because there's an interesting way to leave: I hopped over to Casablanca in Morocco on a tiny propeller flight.

I rented a car for 24 hours and first drove the winding roads to Roque Nublo. It was so busy that the parking lot was full already and cars were parked at the roadside for a km or so. The hike up to the main rock is only 1.5km long, but it is a tricky rocky path and I encountered a woman that had fallen and hurt her ankle (on the way back I saw her being carried away by firemen). The trail ends at a large plateau, from where you have good views of the Roque Bentayga and even Teide on Tenerife. And you get close to Roque Nublo of course, a key feature in the ‘Astronomy Skyscape’. There’s no interpretation provided here (there must be rock drawings as well but who knows where?) and all other visitors seemed to be on a family outing scrambling over rocks.

The websites of the Interpretation centers at Roque Bentayga and Artenara both say you have to contact them before visiting. I did, and …

I visited this WHS in January 2020. Even though there are direct flights to Gran Canaria, I wasn't eager to spend a week on this island (even before WHS inscription). Although it is quite a big island of the Canaries, I knew I'd find the smaller ones much more interesting and to my liking.

So I opted for a fully packed return ferry trip from Tenerife (departing from Santa Cruz de Tenerife NOT Los Cristianos). With careful planning beforehand (a big thank you to Solivagant as his review was by far the best information and travel advice online about the Risco Caido WHS), I managed to follow an almost perfect loop from Agaete, up along the GC-220 road till about Juncalillo, then towards Artenara and Tejeda along the GC-21 and GC-210, going inwards to the Roque Bentayga interpretation center and Cuevas del Rey, and then following the GC-150 back to the Juncalillo point after enjoying the Roque Nublo and Pico de las Nieves viewpoints. That was the plan, so I printed out all my Google maps which turned out very handy and way better than the GPS dirt track alternatives I was given on the spot.

Just before reaching the GC-21 road to Artenara, I passed through a pine forest which had suffered extensive damage from fires in the previous years, and on the left hand side of the road (coming from Agaete's direction) I noticed a steep hill with a faded turquoise signpost marking the Zona Arqueologica …

Spain’s apparent objective of gaining WHS status for all of its islands continues in 2019 with Gran Canaria (GC) - Menorca is next in line for 2022! Serendipity, rather than an obsessive chase after potential upcoming WHS, took us there for just 1 day in Jan 2019 and we fitted in a visit to the nominated site of “Risco Caido and the sacred mountains of Gran Canaria Cultural Landscape”

The Canaries (population c2.2 million) already have 3 WHS. A “colonial town” (the rather “average” San Cristobal de Laguna), “Volcanism” (Teide NP) and “relict Macronesian vegetation” (Garajonay NP). So - what could be left for other islands – a “near duplicate” of one of the former subjects? Luckily there is an, as yet unrepresented, possibility - the archaeological sites of the pre-Hispanic inhabitants of the Canaries, known as the “Guanche”! They are considered originally to have reached the Canaries from N Africa some time after 1000 BC (possibly no earlier than 500BC) and to have been of Amazigh (Berber) origin. By the time of CE they had, on each island, developed a range of different but similar cultures and appear to have remained reasonably isolated from their continental neighbours until they were invaded in 1402 by a Norman adventurer working for Castille - Jean de Béthencourt. Although they only had primitive weapons, some of the islanders put up strong resistance, and their final defeat took until 1496. Subsequently they were “ethnically …