Travel // Going Around // Canary Islands // The Lost Pyramid of Guimar
Last week I signed up to be a tour escort in some ports the ship is visiting. Actually I signed up for three tours – one in Sta. Cruz de Tenerife in the Canary Islands and another two tours for the ship’s call in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Luckily, I was given a slot in Tenerife and for the time being I will just relax, set back and see if I still got any luck to be a tour escort in Brazil as well. Do I need to bribe the tour manager?...LOL… Certainly not, I am just kidding.
Well, yesterday’s tour was fantastic and absolutely interesting. The highlight of the tour was a visit to the Pyramids of Guimar, in the district of Chacona, in the town of Güímar on the island of Tenerife. The tour bus left the pier on time and climbed through the cemented winding road up to Tenerife’s mountain peaks passing through lush pine tree vegetation, which the tour guide called Esperanza Forest. The bus stopped for about 15 minutes to allow us to catch tantalizing glimpses of the panoramic view of the mountains. Silhouette of Tenerife’s several volcanoes from afar and colorful houses from villages below was a remarkable breathtaking scenery. Actually, two stops at Tenerife’s mountain peaks were made, one during the ascend allowing us to see one side of the island and another one at the other side during the descend. Then finally, after two hours of travel, we were at the site of the Pyramids of Guimar. The site has a museum called Casa Charcona Museum and it houses a cinema, a gift shop and a cafeteria where complimentary soft drinks, juice and “sangria” were served. By the way,“sangria” is a chilled Spanish cocktail of red wine, fruit juice, carbonated water, sugar and brandy or another liquor with pieces of fruits. To quench my thirst, I chose “sangria”, I have enough of those soft drinks and juices back at the ship…LOL…
The Pyramids of Guimar is a six rectangular pyramid-shaped, terraced structures built from lava stone. That’s all I remembered from the tour guide yesterday
, so I resorted to search the internet for more details about the Pyramids of Guimar. Here is an excerpt I extracted from a very interesting article about the lost Pyramid of Guimar from www.crystalinks.com:
“Six step pyramids were discovered in 1998 near Guimar, a town on the eastern shore of Tenerife Island, the Canary Islands. They are still a mystery to archaeologists. The term covers six step pyramids with a rectangular ground plan reaching a maximum height of about 12 metres. They have a noticeable similarity to the pyramids built by the Maya and Aztecs in Mexico. They are rubble-filled with facings of black volcanic stone and are the result of multiple episodes of construction.
The main complex of three pyramids were found to be astronomically orientated with the sunset of the summer solstice. Stairways ascend from a level plaza to the top of each pyramid, where there is a flat summit platform covered with gravel. The stairways are all on the west wall, suggesting a ceremonial purpose, because someone ascending them on the morning of the solstice would be directly facing the rising sun. “
