Exploring Tenerife: Güímar

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Intro

Did you know that there are also pyramids in the Canary Islands? Do you want to discover the place with more legends and mysteries in Tenerife? This is the post you need to read to continue discovering this island and its less touristy places with us.

Where is it?

Güímar is a municipality located in the southeast of Tenerife, between Arafo and Fasnia. As well as being a municipality, it also gives its name to the valley in which Güímar, Arafo and Candelaria are located. It has been considered a town since 1961 and is home to more than 20,000 people.

Below, you can watch a report about Güímar made in 2015 for the national public television show La aventura del saber.

Festivities

Among the numerous local festivities in Güímar, we would like to highlight two of them because of their peculiarity and their cultural or historical interest.

Las Burras de Güímar (Viernes de Carnaval)

On Carnival Friday, a peculiar burial of the sardine is held in the centre of the town. It consists of a parade of demons and other similar characters until they reach the Plaza de San Pedro, where there is a performance that ends with the traditional burning of the Carnival sardine. The story is as follows:

In Güímar, the villagers begin to suspect the presence of witches. They find remains of satanic rituals and the animals behave strangely. When they understand the situation and try to solve it, their donkeys transform into witches and invoke the devil. To fight the demon and the other evil creatures that accompany it, the bishop and the Inquisition confront them with the help of an archangel. The final battle between the archangel and the devil is won by the former and the witches are condemned to the stake along with the carnival sardine. However, the witches always manage to escape so they can repeat the ritual the following year.

If you want to know when and why this festival was created, here you can listen to the artist and politician Javier Eloy Campos, who helped to start this tradition.

If if you’d like to hear the story and see some images of the celebration, we recommend these two videos:

La Bajada del Socorro (7 de septiembre)

You probably already know what a romería is, but this is the oldest one in the Canary Islands. The religious grounds behind this popular celebration are to accompany the Virgen del Socorro from the church of San Pedro (in the centre) to the hermitage of El Socorro (on the southeast coast). It commemorates the legend of the encounter between the image of the Virgin and the Guanches (aborigines of Tenerife), a re-enactment of which takes place on the same day in the afternoon.

On 7 September, thousands of people gather in the Plaza de San Pedro at around 05:30-06:00 in the morning and a mass in honour of the Virgen del Socorro is celebrated inside the church of San Pedro at six o’clock in the morning. However, the fiesta starts much earlier with the passing of the ‘announcing car’ from 04:30 in the morning, which goes through all the streets of the centre and the main neighbourhoods of the periphery to wake up the neighbours. Many people start the party the day before, gathering in different places to eat, drink, sing and play traditional music. Some of these pre-parties last all night long.

 

A fun fact about this fiesta is that the people wear basil in their hats or in their hands, which gives this festivity a special scent. The whole route of the people and the virgin is accompanied by the municipal music band of Güímar, the dancers of the traditional ribbon dance (in which children between 4-11 years old perform) and different ‘parrandas’ (music groups that play popular songs and Canarian folklore).

Another interesting fact is that this celebration has its own musical theme, a pasodoble called Al Socorro, which was composed by Miguel del Castillo and whose lyrics are by Pedro Guerra Cabrera (a former town’s Mayor and the father of a famous singer-songwriter).

¿Pares o Nones? (8 de septiembre)

On September the 8th is the Subida de la Virgen del Socorro, another very popular romeria, although much less crowded than the one on the previous day, in which the route is the opposite: from El Socorro (on the coast) to the church of San Pedro (in the centre).

The curious thing about this festivity is that in one of the last parts of the route (San Pedro Abajo) a traditional game is played called ¿Pares o nones?‘ This is a game in which people extend one arm forward and with a clenched fist downwards ask others: ¿pares o nones? (even or odd?). Then the other person must guess whether the number of almonds that person is hiding in their hand is an even number (2, 4, 6…) or an odd one (3, 5, 7…). If the person guesses correctly, they get to keep the almonds that the other person had. The aim is to get as many almonds as possible.

Nature, hiking and legends

Güímar offers a wide variety of natural pebble/black-sand beaches, but there are also plenty of mountains, ravines and natural paths for hikers. We’ve chosen the most interesting because of the views or the mystic which surrounds them. 

Las Ventanas de Güímar

This is not a route for everyone. It is a dangerous path that is not suitable for people with a fear of heights and is not recommended for children or people with mobility problems. It is a route through some old water galleries that are located right on the edge of a ravine. The views are breathtaking, but you need to know the terrain well to find it and, especially, to avoid taking the wrong path and turning a route lasting a couple of hours into an afternoon-long odyssey. Trust us, we’re talking from experience! Don’t forget to bring a flashlight, comfy shoes, and a change of socks in case your feet get wet. 

Here you have a video of a hiker so you can see what kind of route it is:

El Barranco de Badajoz

This impressive ravine offers an uncomplicated route, but it is worth it for the scenery and the legends. Located in the district of San Juan, it has been the subject of numerous legends and some mystery TV shows. The most famous legends are The Girl with the Pears and The White Men.

The girl with the pears
Legend has it that a little girl from the district of
San Juan went to the entrance of the ravine to look for
some pears requested by her mother. After picking some
fruit, she fell asleep and, when she woke up, she saw a
white creature of light that took her to a cave and they
both went inside. When she came out of that ‘cave’, 30
years had already gone by, but she was still a child.

Here you have the complete story to listen to and know all the details of Güímar most famous legend. 

If you want to know more about this and other legends, you can watch this fragment of the programme dedicated to it on national television for Cuarto Milenio.

Pirámides de Güímar

Yes, we do have pyramids in Güímar, but keep in mind when or if you visit them, that these small constructions have nothing to do with the ones in Egypt and more in common with the ones in America, structurally speaking. Believed to be just a way of reorganized the stones removed from the fields to cultivate, their origines and purpose are not documented, which has led to some theories like the one supported by Thor Heyerdahl. 

Thor Heyerdahl was a Norwegian anthropologist and explorer who firmly believed there was connection between Pre-Hispanic and Egyptian civilizations. He did a series of expeditions to prove that it was plausible crossing the Atlantic in ships like the ones the Egyptians might have used. When he found out about the pyramid in the Canary Islands he thought he had discovered the final piece to prove his theory. What do you think?

You can watch the trailer for the film made about his expeditions through the Atlantic. 

Local cultural referents

Pedro Guerra

Pedro Guerra is one of Spain’s most important singer-songwriters and, yes, he was born in Güímar. His father, also called Pedro Guerra, was the Mayor of Güímar (1963-1969) and the first President of the Parliament of the Canary Islands when democracy was restored in Spain. In this excerpt from the documentary El terrero de la libertad. 40 años del Parlamento de Canarias you can see Pedro Guerra (singer-songwriter) talking about his father.

He became well-known after composing the song Contamíname (1995), which was popularised by the then established singers Ana Belén and Víctor Manuel. Below you have the original song by Pedro Guerra and the version by Ana Belén and Víctor Manuel. Which one do you prefer?

In addition to this song some of his most popular compositions are Debajo del puente, Gente sola, Daniela y El marido de la peluquera

Carla Antonelli

This politician, actress and LGTBIQ+ rights activist was born in Güímar in 1959. She is currently a Senator in the Spanish Parliament, which made her the first transsexual woman in this country to enter the Senate.

Below you can watch an interview with Carla Antonelli in which she talks about her biographical book La mujer volcán.

Rafael Yanes

The journalist and politician Rafael Yanés Mesa (Güímar, 1953) was mayor of Güímar for the Socialist Party and deputy of the Canary Islands. After having published three books on journalism, he published his first novel, Chacayca, which was one of the 10 finalists for the prestigious literary prize Premio Planeta in 2010. If you want to practise your Spanish, while learning vocabulary and some of the customs and traditions of the Canarian people, this book is for you.

Food

Pella de gofio

Traditional sweet made with lard (pork fat), honey, almonds and lemon that is prepared especially for the festivities of El Socorro.

Down bellow you can watch a more simple recipe of the traditional pella de gofio, you can skip the sugar and add almonds and a bit of olive oil to make it richer and tastier. Enjoy!

Brumas the Ayosa

The winery Valle de Güímar is located in Arafo, where two different wines with designation of origin are made from grapes grown in the region: Pico Cho Marcial and Brumas de Ayosa. We highlight the Brumas de Ayosa wine for the numerous awards it has received, both in and outside the Islands, such as the award for Best Wine of the Canary Islands 2024, and for its popularity among the people of the Canary Islands. If you want to know more about these wines, visit the wineries or taste them, click on the following links: visit the winery, History of the winery.

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