SANTA CRUZ de TENERIFE,

TENERIFE, CANARY ISLANDS

THOR HEYERDAHL,

FRED OLSEN &

THE PYRAMIDS!

Monday, April 7, 2025, 6 AM, 64 Degrees, 84% Humidity, W – SSE 5.7 mph

Tenerife is the largest and most populous of Spain’s archipelago Canary Islands off the coast of Africa. The population as of January 2025 is 965,857 but our tour guide indicated, they like to claim 1 million! Santa Cruz de Tenerife and Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, on the Canary Island of Gran Canaria, are co-capitals of the autonomous community of the Canary Islands. This dual capital arrangement has been in place since ordered in 1927 by Spain in an attempt to eliminate the competition between East and West Canary Islands.

There was a beautiful sunrise as we pulled into the port in Santa Cruz de Tenerife and SURPRISE, three other cruise ships – MSC Splendida, the Le Bellot and the Arcadia. We haven’t seen any other cruise ships since Queen Mary in Sydney. Supposedly, there were two other cruise ships while we were in Singapore, but they were at a different terminal and we never saw them. The city “presents” itself well – a clean modern city of high-rise buildings, a modern monorail rapid transit system, unique modern architecture including the Torres de Santa Cruz (Santa Cruz Towers) which at 390 ft. high were the tallest structures in Spain, until recently replaced by higher structures, and the Auditorio de Tenerife (Auditorium of Tenerife) which a unique contemporary structure. There are also many parks and traditional colonial structures.

We passed the Auditorium of Tenerife as we left the city. From some angles it appears an homage to the Sydney Opera House with its shining ceramic skin and shell-like wings but from another angle its unique “wave” is revealed. Although the actual construction took 12 years, our guide said the project took 20 years from conception to finish, had 3 different potential locations and three architects.

We drove along a modern highway that is intended to circle the island and the volcano at its center, but it seems highway projects everywhere are the same (Big Dig anyone?) The project was started with the construction of the “new” International Airport in 1980 on the East side of the Island; much of the tourism development was on the greener, lush West side of the island (mountains keep much of the rain from Santa Cruz). The goal was to develop tourism on both sides of the island. The completion date has been moved many times, most recently to 2027. Our guide said she thought it would finally be completed by then because it’s an election year and no politician wants to have to explain why it’s still not completed. Wherever we drove the buildings and homes were well maintained and “prosperous” looking, no third world appearance here.

PYRAMIDS OF GUIMAR VALLEY –

Thor Heyerdahl first heard about the Pyramids in 1990 when a friend sent him an article that had appeared in a local Tenerife newspaper about the pyramids. The pyramids are six rectangular pyramid shaped structures built from lava stone without the use of mortar. Intrigued, he went to see the pyramids for himself and was so impressed with what he saw, he set up a home in Guimar and lived there for most of the remainder of his life.

Heyerdahl thought the pyramids were similar to stepped pyramids he had see in his travels and were further evidence of his theory that people were crossing the oceans and there was a link between the pyramids of Egypt and Central America. Academics didn’t agree and said the pyramids were merely piles of volcanic rocks farmers had made when they cleared their fields (looking at the complex now you wonder how anyone would think it wasn’t planned). An archeologist from the University of Laguna said the pyramids must have been built 150-200 years ago because they found pottery from the 18th century in their dig, but they stopped at that level.

Heyerdahl and others who believe the Guanches, earliest inhabitants of the area, built the pyramids. They are constructed with steps on the west side of the pyramids, typical of sun worshipping cultures, so those climbing the steps would be facing the rising sun. The buildings are aligned to either the Summer or Winter Solstice. The exterior walls of the pyramids are constructed with the smooth side of the lava stones visible, unlike the farming terrace walls we saw which are rough.

Seeing the need to preserve the pyramids being overtaken by development, Heyerdahl contacted friend and fellow Norwegian, a shipping magnate Fred Olsen (Olsen said he can remember Heyerdahl as a young man when he would visit Olsen’s father). Olsen provided the funding for the development of the park, which first opened to the public in 1998. It is still owned and managed by the Fred Olsen company. Now it is a state-of-the-art museum with a film about Heyerdahl available in many languages. One of the most interesting aspect of the film were slides showing the comparison of ancient pottery from different sides of the World. There are displays about Heyerdahl and a replica of this reed boat, RA, which he sailed from the Canary Islands to Barbados. The boat is 99% to scale because that was as large as it could be to fit the display!

John’s not big on Excursions but he loved this one – he is a big fan of Heyerdahl and ancient pyramids (but not a big fan of the 12+ hours it will take us to get to the pyramids in Egypt in nine days!)

CANDELARIA –

Candelaria is a small, charming coastal town which is best known for the Black Madonna and the Basilica of our Lady of Candelaria. The Black Madonna was discovered on the beach by the native aboriginal people of Tenerife. Of course, they didn’t call it the Madonna, it was just a sculpture of a woman in an unusual dark ebony wood unknown to them. They gave it a place of honor. Years later, when the Spanish arrived, they immediately recognized the subject matter as the Madonna.

Unfortunately, the Basilica was closed so we didn’t get to see the Black Madonna, but we enjoyed the Plaza and the statues. The statues represent the nine kings of Tenerife. Legend says originally there was one King of Tenerife, but he had nine sons. He loved them all equally and didn’t want to leave any son out, so he divided the country into 9 provinces and made each son the King of his own province.