Last day + 1: Guimar pyramids

Jan and I like to see people off and check the hotel bill etc, and then spend a day checking up on places for future trips. This time we decided to check out the pyramids at Guimar and, just for fun, drove there along the old main road through Granadilla, Arico, Fasnia and so on. We drove along parts of this road quite a few times in the early years of doing this trip so things got quite nostalgic: towards the northern end there are good sections through the dorsal ridge basalts, and a superb view of the Guimar valley from the Mirador de Don Martin which sits right on the southern landslip scarp.

Guimar valley from the Don Martin mirador. Landslip scarp on left and back wall in distance

The pyramids are not straightforward to find - I was glad we had the satnav with us but once there there was ample parking and a very well laid out reception area, botanic gardens, exhibition area and, of course, the pyramids themselves.
Thor Heyerdal was very keen to promote a link between these and pyramids in the Middle East and in Central America but this is rather spoilt by discovery of 19th C pottery under one which was excavated. I've talked to an archaeologist friend of mine, David Jones, about them and he, like me, is supportive of the idea that there is a sort of 'convergent evolution' in pyramid, or ceremonial platform, building since this is the simplest way to create a raised area without using any sort of ladders or scaffolding. No need for the technique to be spread from one place to another. Sorry Thor.

Pyramids at Guimar. The recess at the bottom of this image is a cave below a lava flow which was lived in by Guanche between 680 - 1020 AD (C-14 dates).

 I got the impression that although not many of these structures exist here now, they may have been more plentiful in the recent past and I wondered whether the name of the village where we stay (La Escalona) is a reference to something similar? 'Escalo' means 'climb', 'escalera' is 'steps. However it seems very odd that there's no reference to these in 19th C literature. One suggestion is that they are heaps of stone from field clearance and I do rather wonder how much of their present regular shape is owed to the Spanish gift for detailed restoration of their ancient monuments - often hard to tell the old from the new!

An unexpected bonus here was the boulders of Dorsal Ridge basalts used to line the paths and build the walls in the garden: more pyroxene megacrysts!

Day 3 - Cueva del Viento, barraquitos, Orotava valley and back through the caldera

Another early start! I was really stressing abut this one because I'd fixed to arrive at the Visitor Centre at 9.30 am and it's a long drive... they are obviously all keen and eager though as they were all there at 0745 ready to go! We made it just about on the dot (and the previous day's driving practice came in handy as we drove up through the narrow streets of the village, missed the turning by the roadworks, did a 3-point turn and came back down again (Jan said the car park was easier to approach from that angle and she'd done it on purpose... nice one Jan!)
This was a most excellently run centre! Our guide gave us an intorductory talk with video etc that was really informative, before taking us in 2 minibuses further on up the hill where we walked up the side of a flow levee and then down onto the pahoehoe surface west of it which hides the lava tube 'Cueva del Viento'. Lots of informative chat about village life and agriculture in the area - did you know for example that the little fields between the levees have had soil brought in from elsewhere to create them? Endemic plants were pointed out to us as we walked through the pine trees to the cave entrance. There, all kitted up with caving lamps etc we went down the steps into the tube which really is quite exceptional. Although only a short section is open this is the longest tube in Europe and has multiple levels where one flow has built up over another and then emptied out leaving them hollow.

Terraces in the lava tube show succesively lower lava levels as the effusion rate abated

To round off the morning our guide introduced us to barraquitos which are a tasty coffee based drink with condensed milk, ordinary milk, a shot of liqueur a slice of lemon peel and a shake of cinnamon. Extremely good value for €1
Next on the itinerary was the Orotava Valley and, after a few false casts when the two-way radios came into their own, we managed to get back into convoy and headed up the hill with a stop at the Piedra Margarita (a cross section of an undrained lava tube with radiating joint pattern) and then into the caldera at El Portillo where we had a tea break before a final stop to see the contrasting red and green pumice from the 2000 years BP eruption of Montana Blanca and the stunning blocky vitric phonolite flow it rests on.