New Show Caves on the Canary Islands
Thursday, September 29th, 2005 |
| Image: the artist at work: a Guanche drawing the exceptional geometric patterns. This is not the real cave but the model in the Museo Canario in Las Palmas. |
The Islas Canarias are located off the African coast, about the same latitude as the Sahara desert. Formed by the volcanism of a hot spot, the islands form a sort of chain from east to west.
Caves on the Canaries are always connected with volcanism. There are huge lava tubes, once a lava tube on Lanazarote was the longest known lava tube on Earth. There are also small erosional caves in the soft tufa, blister caves and so forth. And finally there are artificial caves, which were dug into the soft tufa.
At the moment two new show caves await their inauguration.
In Icod de los Vinos is the lava tube Cueva del Viento, which also was the longest lava tube on Earth, some time ago. It has already been a show cave, decades ago, but it was closed to protect the troglobionts inside. Now it seems it is renovated, to be reopended.
The second cave is really famous. A small cave dug by the natives, the Guanches, which is painted. Obviously it is called Cueva Pintada, painted cave. It was closed for many years, to protect the paintings. The news, that it will open soon, are old too. But theres now a new website. So we will see….