Roque Bentayga

When visiting the mountains of Gran Canaria from the northern side, this misterious rock will always be visible on your pictures. With its height of 1414 meters above the sea level Roque Bentayga could be considered a little sister of Roque Nublo (1813 m), but it definitely does not mean that it is less important.

After having the coffee in some of the mountain villages from where you would have amazing views over Bentayga, such as in Tejeda or Artenara, you shall absolutely go to explore it closer.

I recommend you to start at the Interpretation Center close to its base. It is usually opened Tue-Sun 9:30-16:30. In this interesting small museum with a free of charge entrance you will undestand a little bit better to the prehispanic inhabitants of the island. On the modern explicative panels your will find a lot of information and pictures and you shall certainly take your time to see the approximately 10 minutes long video in multiple languages to be able to imagine the appearance, tools and life of these indigenous people.

After absorbing all the necessary theory here comes the time to explore on your own. A 10-15 minutes hike similar to a typical “goats trail” you will take you up to a place called “almogarén” – a sanctuary of the aboriginal people. You will find small basins and chanels where the sacred liquids such as honey, butter or milk used to flow during the magical rituals to call the rains or fertility. The importance of the fertility is underlined by the paintings on the walls – mostly pubic triangles.

The archaeological site of Roque Bentayga disposes of caves of all kinds. The prehispanic culture have been divided in 2 classes. The leading class of the nobles – owners of the lands and cattle, soldiers and religious leaders and the productive poor class. Obviously there is a difference in the caves that used to be habited by the nobles and caves that served for the plebeians.

Another kind of caves used to serve as graineries to store the barley and other products for the times of recessions and others were used for burials.

Thanks to the hight location of Roque Bentayga it probably used to have also an astronomical importance to be able to establish the agricultural cycles.

At the moment we don´t organize any excursion to Roque Bentayga, but if you come for our Tuesday´s Gran Tour, you will definitely have amazing views of this Rock when visiting the mountain village of Tejeda.