🧑‍🌾 Are They Just Stones Cleared from the Fields?

The simplest explanation for the pyramids of Güímar takes us not to the Guanches or ancient seafarers, but to nineteenth-century farmland. Before the rocky ground could be cultivated, the stones covering it had to be removed. The extracted rocks were piled into heaps and structures known in the Canary Islands as majanos or morras, among other names. Such constructions were not unique to Güímar.

There is strong evidence supporting this explanation. Researchers at the Universidad de La Laguna describe them as agricultural structures created when fields were being prepared for cultivation. Interestingly, modern ethnographic research also shows that many inhabitants of Güímar do not regard them as mysterious “pyramids” at all, but simply as majanos – part of the old agricultural landscape.

But the word “just” can be misleading here. Clearing stones from a field does not mean they have to be thrown into a disorderly heap. In Chacona, a district of Güímar, an enormous quantity of material was used to create structures with a regular, stepped form. Their agricultural function may therefore explain where the stones came from and why they needed to be gathered together, but it does not necessarily answer every question about how they were arranged.

There is another detail that can easily lead to misunderstanding. Beneath one of the pyramids lies the Cueva de Chacona, where archaeologists found pottery, tools and organic remains associated with the Guanches. Radiocarbon dating indicated a period between the seventh and eleventh centuries.

Does this prove that the Guanches built the pyramids?

No. It only proves that they used this place long before the structures visible today were built. This is an important distinction: a site can have a pre-Hispanic history even if the pyramids themselves are much younger.

So the real question is no longer “Guanche pyramids or farmers’ stone heaps?” Archaeological evidence strongly points to their historical, agricultural origins. What is more interesting is something else: did the people clearing the fields simply find a practical way to store the stones, or did they deliberately give their majanos such a regular shape?

It was precisely this regularity that attracted the attention of the man who made the pyramids of Güímar famous far beyond Tenerife – Thor Heyerdahl.

🧭 What Did Thor Heyerdahl Notice?

The pyramids of Güímar would probably have remained a local curiosity if Thor Heyerdahl – the Norwegian explorer and researcher best known for his Kon-Tiki expedition – had not become interested in them in the early 1990s. When he saw the stone structures, he was not convinced by the explanation that they were merely ordinary piles of stones cleared from the fields.

What particularly caught Heyerdahl’s attention was the regularity of the structures. The stones had not simply been dumped into heaps. They formed steps and terraces, the walls were relatively even, and the corners were clearly defined. In his view, this suggested that the structures had been deliberately planned.

He was also interested in the materials used to build them. He observed that the structures consisted mainly of volcanic stone, while the larger blocks forming the edges and corners had been carefully selected. He also emphasised that the ground had been levelled before construction began. To him, all this suggested that these were not simply accidental agricultural stone heaps.

Heyerdahl, however, went much further. He believed that similarities between the stepped structures of the Canary Islands and buildings found in other parts of the world might be evidence of ancient contact between peoples living on opposite sides of the Atlantic. For him, the pyramids of Güímar became another element of a much broader theory about the possibility of ocean voyages in antiquity.

But this is where we need to draw a clear distinction. Heyerdahl did not prove that the pyramids were built by the Guanches or that they were the remains of an ancient seafaring civilisation. Subsequent archaeological research and historical documents point to a much more recent, nineteenth-century origin. His observations about the regularity of the structures are one thing; his interpretation of their origins is quite another.

And it is precisely this distinction that makes the story so interesting. Heyerdahl may have been mistaken about the age and builders of the pyramids, but he drew attention to features that genuinely distinguish them from disorderly piles of stones. Thanks to him, researchers began looking more closely not only at what the structures were made of, but also at how they were positioned in relation to the surrounding landscape and the Sun.

And this is where the story becomes even more intriguing – because certain astronomical alignments really do exist.

🌋 When Lava Flowed Through the Güímar Valley

At the beginning of the eighteenth century, the inhabitants of the Güímar Valley discovered that Tenerife’s volcanic history was far from over. On Christmas Eve 1704, the ground began to shake violently. The tremors continued over the following days and were powerful enough to damage houses. The seismic crisis particularly affected the valleys of Güímar and La Orotava.

On 31 December, the first fissures opened high in the mountains, and the Siete Fuentes eruption began. A few days later, Fasnia became active, and on 2 February 1705, the ground split open once again – this time much closer to Güímar, inside the Caldera de Pedro Gil. The Volcán de Arafo was formed, also known as Volcán de las Arenas or Montaña de las Arenas. This was the final stage of a single fissure eruption that lasted almost three months.

For 54 days, Volcán de Arafo ejected volcanic material and produced flows of basaltic lava. Rather than following a single channel, the lava spread out in a fan across the central part of the Güímar Valley. Altogether, it covered approximately 3.75 km².

And here, the title of our section needs a small correction. The lava did not stop high up “above Güímar”. It descended almost all the way to the Atlantic. The longest flows travelled around 9 kilometres, reaching the area around El Socorro, where their leading edges stopped at an altitude of just 43 metres above sea level.

This means that when you drive through the valley today, you are looking at traces of an eruption that took place only a little over three hundred years ago. What is more, the lava was later put to use by local inhabitants. In historic buildings and stone walls around Arafo, you can find basalt blocks taken from the 1705 lava flow. The volcano therefore became not only part of the landscape, but also a source of material with which people reshaped that landscape.

The eruption of 1704–1705, however, left behind something far more serious than solidified lava. The earthquakes accompanying it caused widespread destruction and the deaths of at least 16 people. According to the Spanish Geological Institute, this was the deadliest eruptive episode recorded in the Canary Islands during historical times.

👀 Look closely: when you look towards the mountains from the valley, Volcán de Arafo may seem like just another volcanic cone. Yet it is one of the youngest features in this landscape – it formed before people’s eyes in 1705.

🏘️ Güímar After the Conquest

When the conquest of Tenerife came to an end in the late fifteenth century, the old world of the menceyato of Güímar began to change rapidly. Land that had previously belonged to Guanche communities and had been used primarily for grazing livestock was divided among new owners. The so-called repartimientos began – grants of land and water rights to those who had taken part in the conquest, settlers and people connected with the new administration.

Water proved particularly important for the Güímar Valley. On Tenerife, access to water determined which areas of land could be cultivated intensively. During the first decades after the conquest, a network of irrigation channels began to develop, carrying water to fields and new farms. A landscape previously used mainly by shepherds gradually became agricultural land.

Sugar cane became one of the most important crops. In the sixteenth century, sugar was one of the Canary Islands’ most profitable products, and plantations and ingenios – sugar mills where the cane was crushed, its juice extracted and then processed into sugar – were established in the Güímar Valley. Grapevines, cereals and other crops needed by the inhabitants were also cultivated.

The pattern of settlement changed too. In place of scattered caves and pastoral dwellings, farms, roads, squares, chapels and churches began to appear. One of the places around which the new settlement developed was the Church of San Pedro Apóstol. Over time, the historic centre of Güímar took shape around it.

This does not mean, however, that the Guanches simply disappeared after the conquest. Some inhabitants of the former menceyato became part of the new society, converted to Christianity and lived alongside newcomers from Europe. Others were enslaved or forcibly relocated. The language, religion and organisation of land ownership changed, but the island’s population was not replaced overnight.

Today’s Güímar is therefore not a town built on empty land after the disappearance of the Guanches. It developed through the overlapping of two worlds – the older one, whose traces we find in caves and at Chinguaro, and the newer one, visible in the town’s layout, churches and historic farms.

And it is this second Güímar that you will discover most clearly when you enter its historic centre.

✝️ Antón Guanche – a Man Between Two Worlds

According to Alonso de Espinosa, Antón was a Guanche who had been abducted from Tenerife as a young man and taken to Lanzarote. He spent several years there among Christians, learnt Spanish and became familiar with their religion. When he managed to return to his home island, he could still speak the Guanche language. This enabled him to do something the newcomers from Europe could not – explain Christian concepts in words his own people could understand. Later sources differ in the details of his life, so it is safest here to follow Espinosa’s account.

💡 Did you know?

At that time, Lanzarote was a very different world from Tenerife. The European conquest of the island had begun as early as 1402, and the first permanent European and Christian settlement in the Canary Islands had been established at Rubicón. When Antón arrived on Lanzarote, he could therefore encounter European language, religion and customs – while his native Tenerife still remained outside European control.

When Antón saw the figure kept at Chinguaro, he recognised it as the Virgin Mary with the Christ Child. Espinosa attributes some remarkably interesting words to him. Explaining to the Guanches who the woman represented, Antón is said to have spoken in their language:

“Achmayex, guayaxerax, achoron, achaman”

He then explained that she was “the mother of the sustainer of heaven and earth”.

This single sentence is particularly important. Antón did not simply translate the word “Mary”. He tried to explain the Christian God to the Guanches using concepts they already knew. The formula recorded by Espinosa contains terms associated with the Guanche supreme being, including Achamán. In this way, Mary was presented as the mother of the one they themselves knew as the sustainer of heaven and earth.

Of course, this does not mean that Achamán “was” the Christian God or that the Guanches had previously believed in Mary. Rather, we are witnessing an attempt to explain one religion through the language of another. And that is precisely what makes Antón such a fascinating figure – a man taken from his own culture who returned with knowledge acquired in the European world and became an intermediary between the two.

📜 For us, this has another significance. The name Achamán does not appear here in a modern legend created centuries later. We find it in Espinosa’s text from 1594, in the formula attributed to Antón Guanche.

From that moment, the mysterious woman found on the coast at Chimisay acquired a new meaning for the Guanches. And the figure that had remained at Chinguaro for decades would soon be given a new home as well.

🕯️ From Chinguaro to Achbinico

Antón Guanche’s recognition of the figure changed where it was kept. According to Alonso de Espinosa, Antón persuaded the mencey that it should be moved from Chinguaro to a place more suitable for such an important figure. The cave of Achbinico, situated beside the ocean in what is now Candelaria, was chosen. Official documents from the Gobierno de Canarias date the move to the mid-fifteenth century and also associate it with Antón Guanche.

The choice of Achbinico is particularly interesting because the cave was not a place without significance before the arrival of the Christian figure. Archaeological research has confirmed the presence of the Guanches, and according to information published by Candelaria Town Council, the cave may have been used not only for keeping goats but also for ritual practices. We cannot therefore say with certainty that Antón chose it because it was already a sacred place, but this possibility has been considered.

The figure’s Guanche guardians also moved to the coast with it. According to Candelaria’s local history, the first permanent settlement began to develop around Achbinico, eventually growing into the town we know today. The history of modern Candelaria therefore begins even before the Castilian conquest of Tenerife.

In the mid-fifteenth century, Franciscan missionaries also appeared in the area. By around 1458, a small hermitage associated with the work of Friar Alonso de Bolaños and his companions had been established here. Güímar was thus becoming a place where two religious worlds increasingly came into contact – the beliefs of the Guanches and the Christianity brought to Tenerife before its military conquest.

Achbinico has survived to the present day. It is located beside today’s Ermita de San Blas, just a few minutes’ walk from the basilica in Candelaria. Inside, you will find a small natural cave containing a modern reproduction of the original figure. After the conquest, on 2 February 1497, the first celebrations of the Feast of Our Lady of Candelaria on Tenerife were held here. The cave later served as the first parish church in this part of the island.

The figure’s journey therefore led from Chimisay beach, through the mencey’s cave at Chinguaro, and finally to Achbinico. Most fascinating of all, the first two stages of this story took place while Tenerife was still an island of the Guanches.

👉 You will find the cave’s exact location on the interactive map included with The Tenerife with Achamán guidebook.

🏞️ Chinguaro – the Home of the Mencey

A few hundred metres from the present-day centre of Güímar, beside Barranco de Chinguaro, lies a place you could easily pass without realising what you were looking for. It is here that historical tradition places the residence of the mencey of Güímar. The official documentation protecting Chinguaro as a historic site also identifies it as the location of the cueva del Mencey – the ruler’s cave.

But do not imagine a palace. Chinguaro was a place associated with pre-Hispanic cave settlement. The term “cave palace”, which you may come across, therefore refers primarily to the status of its inhabitant, rather than to a monumental residence resembling those of European rulers.

Nor does Chinguaro today look exactly as it did in Guanche times. After the conquest, the site underwent various alterations. A hermitage was built here in the sixteenth century, and particularly significant changes took place after 1912, when work carried out in the ravine and the resulting deposits of material buried the area of the mencey’s former cave. The site was subsequently uncovered and altered again.

🌊 A Mysterious Woman Appears on the Beach

The story begins beside the ocean, on the coast at Chimisay. According to Alonso de Espinosa, two Guanche shepherds tending their goats near the coast of Chimisay noticed that the animals had suddenly stopped and refused to go any further. One of the shepherds went to see what was blocking their path. On a rock, he saw the figure of a woman holding a child.

And here Espinosa records a particularly interesting detail about Guanche customs. A man was not permitted to speak to or approach a woman who was alone in a secluded place. Breaking this rule could result in severe punishment. So the shepherd did not approach the mysterious woman. Instead, he gestured for her to move aside and let the herd pass.

But the woman did not move. The shepherd picked up a stone, intending to frighten her – and, according to Espinosa’s account, his arm suddenly became paralysed. The second Guanche tried to injure the figure with a stone tool, but wounded himself instead.

Only then did the shepherds run to fetch the mencey. When he arrived at the coast, it became clear that the mysterious woman was not a living person. She was a small figure depicting a woman with a child. The mencey ordered it to be taken from the coast to his residence at Chinguaro. Espinosa describes how it was placed upon goatskins and sheepskins – a way of showing respect using the materials available to the people who lived there.

The Guanches did not yet know whom the figure represented. To Christians, it was the Virgin Mary with the Christ Child – a figure that would become known to history as Nuestra Señora de Candelaria, Our Lady of Candelaria. But we should not project this knowledge onto the people who found it on the beach. An unfamiliar object had appeared in their world and, according to Espinosa, they began to treat it with particular reverence.

The figure remained at Chinguaro for a very long time. Espinosa gives a period of more than thirty or forty years before it was moved to Achbinico. The official documentation of the Gobierno de Canarias repeats this account.

For much of that time, the Guanches were unaware of its Christian significance. Only when a man who already knew the European world and Christianity arrived would they learn whom the mysterious woman found beside the ocean represented.

His name was Antón Guanche.

⛪ What to See in Historic Güímar

After exploring the stories of the Guanches, Chinguaro and the volcanoes, it is worth heading down into the town itself. Güímar’s historic centre is protected as a Conjunto Histórico (Historic Ensemble) and is best explored on foot. It is not large – rather than searching for a single spectacular monument, pay attention to the squares, old houses, wooden balconies and small chapels tucked among later buildings.

The most important landmark is the Iglesia de San Pedro Apóstol on Plaza de San Pedro. The church we see today is largely the result of eighteenth-century expansion and is a characteristic example of Canarian religious architecture. Look closely at the stonework on the façade, and if the church is open, step inside to see its historic altarpieces and religious furnishings.

An interesting feature of Güímar is its two small chapels dedicated to the same saint: Capilla de San Pedro de Arriba and Capilla de San Pedro de Abajo. Both were built in the eighteenth century, but what makes them particularly fascinating is the tradition associated with them. During processions, the statue of St Peter is carried between the two chapels, visiting one part of the town or the other in alternating years. The chapels are therefore not merely historic buildings, but part of a living tradition.

Another important complex is the former Dominican convent of Santo Domingo. Its church has a single nave, a Latin-cross plan and a distinctive Canarian wooden ceiling. The church of the former convent has been officially protected as a Bien de Interés Cultural (BIC), a designated site of cultural heritage.

If you want to discover the even earlier beginnings of colonial Güímar, the unassuming San Juan area may prove particularly interesting. Here you will find Casa del Paseo and Capilla de San Juan. Their history takes us back to the early sixteenth century, when land was being distributed to new owners following the conquest. In 1534, the Chapel of San Juan was built beside a sugar mill operating here. The Gobierno de Canarias identifies this area as one of the places from which the later town developed.

📍 You will find the exact locations of the places described on the interactive map included with The Tenerife with Achamán guidebook.

🔺 Where Did the Pyramids of Güímar Come From?

At first glance, they look as though they could be the remains of an ancient civilisation. The stone structures in Chacona have regular, stepped walls, terraces and clearly defined corners. It is hardly surprising that, over time, people began calling them pyramids and wondering whether the Guanches might have built them.

For a long time, however, a much more down-to-earth explanation prevailed. Farmers preparing Tenerife’s rocky land for cultivation had to remove enormous quantities of volcanic stone from their fields. They piled the stones along the edges of their plots, creating heaps known as majanos or morras. Similar structures can also be found elsewhere in the Canary Islands. Researchers at the Universidad de La Laguna also classify the structures at Chacona as agricultural constructions of this kind.

Yet the pyramids of Güímar look far more carefully built than a random pile of stones. The rocks have been arranged into regular steps, the structures have clearly defined layouts, and the entire complex gives the impression of deliberate planning. It was precisely this regularity that made the simple explanation – “farmers were clearing their fields” – seem insufficient to some people.

In the 1990s, the Norwegian explorer and researcher Thor Heyerdahl, best known for his Kon-Tiki expedition, became interested in them. He drew attention to the way the land had been prepared and the pyramids constructed, arguing that they were not merely accidental heaps of stones. However, he did not prove that the Guanches had built them or that they dated from pre-Hispanic times.

Quite the opposite – subsequent archaeological investigations and historical documents placed the pyramids much closer to our own time. One structure stands on a layer containing pottery from the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, while a lead seal bearing the date 1848 was found near another. Researchers at the Universidad de La Laguna now consider the structures to date from the historical period, most probably around the middle of the nineteenth century.

But that does not settle the entire story. Even if the pyramids were built in the nineteenth century while land was being prepared for cultivation, one question remains: why did someone go to so much trouble to arrange the stones into such regular structures?

And it is with this question that the most fascinating part of the mystery begins.

🏞️ The Güímar Valley – First Came the Landscape

Before the Guanches, the menceyes, the Spanish and the mysterious pyramids appeared here, there was the valley – although its name can be a little misleading. The Valle de Güímar is not a classic river-carved valley. It is a broad depression on Tenerife’s south-eastern slope, stretching from the island’s highlands all the way down to the Atlantic.

Its shape is primarily the result of geological processes. Enormous masses of rock that formed ancient Tenerife were affected by landslides and erosion, while later eruptions repeatedly covered the older surface with fresh layers of lava. That is why the landscape around Güímar resembles a geological layer cake – alongside very old landforms, you can see much younger volcanic cones and solidified lava flows.

Just look inland from the ocean towards the mountains. The land rises steeply, and high above the buildings stretch mountain ridges and deep barrancos. One of the best known is Barranco de Badajoz, which cuts far into the mountain slopes above Güímar. Over thousands of years, water flowing down from the island’s higher elevations has carved these ravines ever deeper.

This terrain was enormously important to the people who lived here. Conditions varied at different altitudes, offering different plants and grazing grounds, while natural caves provided shelter. For the pastoral Guanche communities, the land between the ocean and the mountains was therefore far more than scenery – it provided food, water and places to live.

And it was here that one of the nine menceyatos into which Tenerife was divided before the conquest emerged – the menceyato de Güímar. But before we get to know its inhabitants, it is worth remembering this first image: the ocean below, the mountains towering above, and between them a vast slope cut by ravines and marked by successive volcanic eruptions.

Because the history of Güímar began with a landscape that, for centuries to come, would determine where people lived, which routes they followed and how they made their living.

👑 Güímar Before the Spanish – a Guanche Kingdom

The word menceyato is often translated as “kingdom”, and its ruler – the mencey – is described as a king. However, you should not imagine Güímar as a small European state with a capital, a castle and precisely defined borders. It was a territory inhabited by a community whose way of life was shaped primarily by livestock, access to water, grazing grounds and natural conditions that changed with altitude.

For shepherds, the ability to move their animals between different parts of the menceyato was particularly important. When vegetation dried out at lower elevations, other grazing grounds could be found higher in the mountains. The coast, meanwhile, provided fish, shellfish and other marine resources. It was the very landscape we have just explored that shaped the lives of Güímar’s inhabitants.

The mencey stood at the head of this community, but he was not a king in the European sense of the word. The Guanches had their own social hierarchy, laws and rules of succession, and the position of mencey involved both privileges and responsibility for the people and resources within his territory.

Several rulers’ names are associated with ancient Güímar, but this is where problems with the sources begin. Later tradition preserved far more details than the earliest accounts, so we cannot treat every list of successive menceyes as a reliable royal dynasty. One of the best-known names associated with Güímar is Añaterve, whom tradition identifies as the mencey who ruled during the Castilian conquest.

Archaeology, however, reveals something we do not have to reconstruct from later stories. In this part of the island, the Guanches left behind dwelling caves and burial caves, pottery, tools and evidence of pastoral life. There was no single town serving as the centre of the “kingdom”. Settlements were scattered, and natural caves and places providing access to essential resources were far more important than the urban buildings we see today.

Among these places was one of particular importance, associated with the mencey of Güímar himself. Chinguaro.

Güímar – a Town of Guanches, Volcanoes and Mysterious Pyramids

Güímar is one of those places on Tenerife where the island’s history unfolds in layers. It was home to one of the nine Guanche menceyatos, its ruler lived at Chinguaro, a figure later venerated as Our Lady of Candelaria was found nearby, and above the town lies the solidified lava from one of Tenerife’s historic eruptions. And then there are the famous pyramids, which remain the subject of debate to this day.

📖 Güímar with Achamán

In Güímar, the story of Achamán becomes more than an account of ancient beliefs. It was here, at Chinguaro, that the mysterious figure found by the Guanches on the coast was kept. And it was here that Antón Guanche is said to have used the words Achmayex, Guayaxerax, Achoron, Achaman as he tried to explain to his fellow Guanches who the woman represented by the figure was.

In the Tenerife with Achamán guidebook, we will follow this story further. I will show you places connected with the ancient menceyato of Güímar, suggest where to stop and explain how to combine them into a single route.

👉 You will find directions, GPS coordinates for the places described and an interactive map to help you discover the traces of this story.

📍 This time, Achamán guides you through a place where his name genuinely appears in Tenerife’s recorded history.