Pictures:
1. This is Santa Cruz from the overlook. You can see the two big ships at the pier on the left and the biggest of all coming in to port in the upper right. The Prinsendam is just a little bigger than the ship at the pier on the right. You can't see her because she's docked on the landside pier and hidden by the buildings.
2. The long structure on the left at the top is both Pyramid 4, to the left, and Pyramid 3 to the right. They are joined at the center where the wide sloping road meets with them. On the extreme left is Pyramid 2 and the sandy area in front of it is the Main Plaza.
3. The long low structure crossing the middle of the picture is Pyramid 6. You can see that the left side is more tiers than the right. I've never seen a step pyramid built on a slope before.
4. The Basilica de Candelaria
5. The Black Madonna. This is a small section cropped from a larger picture. You can't get anywhere near this close.
I forgot to mention yesterday that we had a local show for our evening's entertainment. Tenerife has a very large Mardi Gras celebration, they say second only to Rio. That might be a stretch but if the show was any indication it might be close. They had one of the local samba clubs come aboard and perform part of their show. As you probably know the samba shows at Mardi Gras are all about movement, marching and otherwise. Since the Prinsendam has a very small stage and dance floor the troupe marched in down the aisle on both sides of the showroom. The drums and whistles were passing within feet of the crowd. It was like being in the show. The dancers were mostly women but there were four men. They had a lady for every taste, tall, short, thin, zaftig and everything in between. To say it was high energy is to not properly give it enough credit. They went nonstop for 45 minutes both on and off the stage and it was impressive. The costumes were ornate and colorful, what there actually was of them. Just like Brazil, you can't be shy and a samba dancer. A great show and a lot of fun for most of the passengers. Of course, a few old fuddy-duddies had to walk out of the showroom because it wasn't show tunes or classical. Well, adios muchachos as far as I'm concerned. A little variety is good for you and a little lowbrow entertainment adds some spice to the day.
March 30 – Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain – Day 2. Another day on this well organized and extremely clean island. Today we are heading down to the site of a Thor Heyerdahl discovery, Tenerife's Pyramid Park. You may remember Thor, he sailed the raft Kon-Tiki across the Pacific Ocean to prove that ancient sailors could have made the trip from Polynesia to South America. He then sailed the reed boat, Ra II, across the southern Atlantic Ocean to South America to prove that ancient Egyptians and others could have migrated from Africa to South America. His theories and exploits were big news in the 1960s. On one of his trips he heard about some pyramids that were rumored to be in the Canary Islands so he came looking and found this array of ancient buildings here on Tenerife (The Spanish pronounce the e at the end as an 'a', the English do not say it at all. I try to go with the locals when I can form the sounds needed). They have been partly excavated and one has been reconstructed.
Before leaving Santa Cruz we drove up the hill to an overlook for a view of the city and the harbor. From there we could see the three gigantic ships that are joining us here today. The largest of these ships carries 6 times more passengers than the Prinsendam. Two are already docked on the same pier as the Seaborn Yacht that was here with us yesterday and the third is steaming into port. All together there are almost 13,000 people on the five ships in the harbor. The Prinsendam is small with fewer than 900 passengers, just a little larger than the Seaborn ship. The predominant color on the buildings downtown is white with just enough blue, green and pink thrown in to make it interesting.
From Santa Cruz we drove south along the ocean before turning inland to the city of Guimar. It's a small village at the foot of the mountains. Just outside the village is the Pyramid Park. Here Heyerdahl discovered a group of at least 7 pyramids of various sizes arranged in such a way that some could be used as astronomical markers while others appear to be ceremonial. Not much is known of the culture that used these structures because like the pyramid builders in the Americas they didn't write much down. However, their similarity with other pyramids around the world is striking.
Perhaps a little should be said about the development of pyramids. In Egypt, the earliest proven pyramid builders, pyramids started out as 'mastabas' (Egyptian for table). They were rectangular shaped rock constructions set atop desert graves likely to keep the wind from blowing the sand away and exposing the body. Earlier graves had suffered this somewhat ignoble end. This was the earliest Egyptian grave structure.
Successive royalty wanted more and more important and permanent grave markers so they began to construct multi-level mastabas with each level getting a little smaller than the one above. When this structure gets to be at least three increasingly smaller mastabas one atop the other you have the mastabas successor, the 'step pyramid'. It wasn't until the pharaoh Khufu built the Great Pyramid at Giza that the steps were filled in and the structure was faced with marble to create the smooth sided type we currently refer to as a pyramid. His son, Kahfre's pyramid right next to his still has some of the facing stones intact at it's apex but all the facing stones of the Great Pyramid are gone.
Neither mastabas nor step pyramids have any internal features. They are solid structures, whereas the later type starting with Khufu has internal chambers and passageways. All the chambers and tunnels in mastabas and step pyramids are under the structure. Their lack of internal features makes them much less technically challenging to build.
With that in mind, almost all the pyramids outside Egypt, including those here in Tenerife, are step pyramids. You've seen pictures of Mayan, Inca and Aztec pyramids from South and Central America. They're all step pyramids. Thor's theory is that the people who migrated to the new world left before the development of the 'modern' pyramid and did not improve the type in their new locations but continued to build what they knew. The pyramids here have stairways recessed into one side that provide several steps per tier of the pyramid. The ones in the Americas usually have their stairs recessed as well although some, mainly in Mexico, Guatemala and Nicaragua, have the stairs atop the tiers. Some later pyramids in the Americas have small structures or buildings at the top that are believed to have been involved with religious and civil ceremonies.
In this park all the pyramids except #5 are as they were found. #5 has been restored to the most likely configuration it had originally. It's and interesting place. You enter through an old house that has been converted to an interpretive center. Inside are displays from pyramid cultures around the world. The first map was of the North Atlantic. It shows Columbus' route from Spain to Cuba via the Canary Islands. It also shows the route of the RA II from Morocco to Barbados again via the Canary Islands. Thor's point was that the crossing the Atlantic was possible in reed boats and they could have gotten to Barbados and after that it's an easy trip to most points in South and Central America.
The next map was very interesting and revealed something I'd never really considered. It's a world map with symbols on it to represent cultures that built outrigger boats and reed boats. The entire area of North Africa and Asia Minor (Now referred to more commonly as the Arabian Peninsula, built only reed boats. India, Micronesia and Polynesia built outriggers and rafts. Only New Zealand, the Northwestern Coast of South America and a small group of South Pacific islands about half way in between made both outriggers and reed boats & rafts. It does seem a little too coincidental that the people who built both of these ancient craft are in such a straight line in the same corner of the world.
The next map showed the world distribution of step pyramids and mount builders. Again pyramids are found in North Africa & Arabia, South & Central America and that same small group of islands that built both the reed boats and outriggers in the South Pacific. Not that does seem way too improbable to be a coincidence. At least now I understand why Heyerdahl was so adamant about his theory.
The next gallery's walls were lined with pictures of pyramids from throughout the world, including the Sakkara Step Pyramid, the oldest know of Egypt's 107 pyramids and the world's oldest know freestanding stone structure. This is presumed to be the prototype for all the rest of the worlds step pyramids.
Outside the museum is a large raised patio from which you can look over most of the park. To the north there's a large area with three pyramids, 2, 3 & 4 as well as some plazas and terraces for farming. Pyramids 3 & 4 are joined at one end and the main road, probably also the processional path for civil and religious ceremonies leads directly to the spot where they meet. From there you turn right, walk past Pyramid 3 and enter the main plaza, which has Pyramid 2 on its western perimeter. Pyramid 2 is the smallest of the three but seems to have a position of prominence, as it is the first place in the area to receive sunshine at dawn when the sun rises over the mountains to the east.
When you look to the mountains to the east you can see a small white dot on the top. It's a modern astronomical observatory. The University of the Canary Islands is one of two universities in Spain to grant degrees in astrophysics. Several of the islands have observatories of various types.
Looking to the South you can see Pyramids 5 & 6. Pyramid 7, only discovered in 1997 is still being excavated. Pyramid 5 has been reconstructed to its probable height of 6 tiers. From artifacts found next to it they presume that this area was used for mummification purposes. Pyramid 6 is a very long structure built on a slope rather than a plaza so it has more tiers on one end than the other, somewhat unusual in my experience.
They had a multimedia presentation on Thor that I did not watch. I've read too much about him to sit inside when I can be outside seeing what's actually here. So I walked around the grounds trying to get a good angle for photos.
This was an interesting stop and I'm glad we came here for that reason and one more. When we were here last time we bought some locally produced dark chocolate and yogurt covered almonds that were the best I've every tasted. All day yesterday I looked for them with no luck. Wouldn't you know that the gift shop here at the park would have them? I know you may not believe this but Spanish dark chocolate will rival and mostly exceed dark chocolate from anywhere else in the world. Teamed up with the local almonds, very tender and sweet, the combination is unsurpassable.
From the park we drove back to the coast and into the seaside town of Candelaria. It's very windy by the coast but the breeze is off the water so it's quite comfortable. The main reason for our stop here is to visit the basilica and see the Black Madonna, Patron Saint of the Canary Islands. The legend is that before Christianity came to the islands, an image of the Virgin Mary washed up on the shores and the Gauches, the local Indians, although oblivious to its significance began to worship it. When missionaries came from Spain they discovered what they had found and quickly converted to Catholicism.
The church building is very elegant on the outside. Painted in white and taupe with a red tile roof it has an understated Moorish style, borrowing only some elements from that architectural style. The bell tower has a Moorish style balcony, like a mosque minaret, just below the bells. It also functions as a carillon and plays songs just after it finishes striking the hour. Its floor plan is the Latin cross with two shorter towers flanking the main entrance and a two-tiered octagonal structure over the transept where the dome would normally be, also very Moorish. It has two side aisles flanking the nave and the naves ceiling, is twice as high as the outside aisles' because there's a row of clerestory windows above the nave that elevates the central roof. There's a chapel on either side of the chancel. The back wall of the apse is mostly covered by a mural with angels above and people below painted around a large, gold-framed niche that holds the Black Madonna.
One of the side chapels has a great mural of the Last Supper that catches the moment after Christ has announced that one of the 12 disciples would betray him. The 12 are shown in great disarray, some gesturing in disbelief, others commenting to their neighbor and yet others looking skyward in dismay. Normally in the representations of this event you can pick out Judas Iscariot by some symbol he's holding like the moneybag (He was the group's treasurer. I've always thought that you can't trust those CPAs. (For those of you who don't know, both Diana and I are CPAs, so no nasty comments please!)) In this rendering I can't find a single clue to his identity. A large crucifix dominates the other chapel.
Undaunted by my faux pas in La Laguna yesterday I attempted once again to purchase the local special pastry. This time I had a great deal more success. Having been forewarned I totally avoided any mention of casa in my communications. I simply walked up to the counter and said, "Ola senora, como sta usted?" (again I'm writing phonetically so you can see how badly I butcher Spanish) She responded, "Bien, sinyour. I waved my hand at the display of baked goods and said, "Su especiality, por favor." To which she said, "Si, sinyour." and pointed at two turnover-like pastries with a little dusting of crystal sugar on top. I made a motion of rolling out the dough and putting something inside before rolling it over to close it and said, "Ti?" She grinned at my crude efforts and named two things that I interpreted to be papaya and potato so I bought one of each for a Euro, about $1.30.
I asked the driver to drop me off at the Plaza España so I could check the camera shops for my battery. They should be open today because we're getting back earlier than yesterday. Sure enough they were and I found what I wanted in the first store I went into. Right next door was the US Embassy, that's what I call MacDonald's. Sounds so much classier to ask Diana if she wants to have lunch at the embassy.
After securing my battery I took the walk back to the ship and was on board in plenty of time.
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