Artenara - The Village
Artenara curls around the western end of Gran Canaria's great central ridge - the "Cumbre". At 1270m, the village is the highest on the island (and in the Upland Escapes brochure). The pale façades of its deceptively simple houses look out across the vast bowl of the Tejeda valley. Behind the whitewashed walls and wooden shutters, the majority of Artenara's inhabitants still live, as their ancestors did 5000 years ago, in caves. All mod-cons are of course the norm, but the locals have learned that it is still impossible to improve on a bedroom hewn from the lava. Cool in the heat, warm when the cold wind blows, these carefully shaped and sculpted dwellings are home to a scattering of small-holders who tend ancient terraces of potatoes and maize, apple and almond trees, and herd their sheep and goats across the hillsides. At the end of the day, the village elders dispense wisdom in the plaza in front of the church of San Matias, watching the sun set behind the distant ridge-top, before returning to the Casa del Correo bar for a shot of local rum. The village boasts several bar-restaurants and two shops.
15 minutes from Artenara is the pretty town of Tejeda, set amongst terraced hillsides of almond trees at the head of a huge rust-red ravine. At the centre of town is the Church of La Virgen del Socorro, and there is also a range of shops, a new library with internet access, a number of restaurants and bars, and a famous artisan bakery which makes delicious almond-based specialities.
