Original article: Mari Carmen Duarte , journalist of Viajes National Geographic
Aboriginal footprints, wild beauty and the peaceful charm of Masca are interwoven to offer the traveller much more than just a hike.
After a bend in the TF-436, the magical profile of Masca finally appears. Despite its difficult access, it is the second most visited natural enclave in Tenerife after Teide. Preserved by its scarcely a hundred inhabitants, who are admirably settled on the little land that the steep ravine has left for them, the village, under the watchful eye of Roque Catana, still preserves the essence of its Guanche past.
The Teno Rural Park where the hamlet is located, which belongs to the municipality of Buenavista del Norte, is a spectacle apart, far removed from what is on offer kilometres further on. The Teno massif, at an altitude of 1,300 metres, is an island within an island, since, according to its origins, Teno was a small island that later joined with others to form what is now Tenerife.
Its natural isolation, between valleys and ravines, allowed it to preserve not only its biodiversity for millennia, but also its architecture and traditions. In the early 18th century, the clergyman Dámaso Quesada de Chaves jokingly said that Masca took its name “because of the effort required to reach it in its arduous ascent and descent, for which it is necessary to have eaten well”.
Until the 1960s, Masca could only be reached on foot or by donkey. Now the road, although vertiginous, narrow and with breathtaking cliffs, connects it with Santiago del Teide as the Camino de los Guanches did before, encouraging you to stop at its viewpoints to marvel at the magnitude of the massif.
Miniature charm
Barely a handful of streets spread over four nuclei crown the backs of a hamlet declared a Site of Ethnographic and Historical Interest and an Asset of Cultural Interest. Dozens of houses reflect traditional Canarian architecture, with their curved roof tiles, volcanic stones and teak wood, always with some flowers adorning them, as is typical in the archipelago.
The steep cobbled streets go up and down between the rock that shelters them and the charming 18th century chapel, located in the main square and accompanied by a majestic laurel tree. From time to time, musicians and craft stalls take shelter in its shade, providing the backbone of the essence of Masca, together with the smells that escape from the kitchens of the small restaurants that look out, like the splendid balcony, over the ravine that plunges towards the ocean.
The visitor might fall into the error of thinking that there is not much to do in just a few steps, but this is not the case: there is more to Masca than meets the eye. In the Ethnographic Museum, housed in the old Guanche school, or in the Visitor Centre, very close to the hermitage, the curious can get much more out of the hamlet than a stroll among its beautiful buildings against the backdrop of the valley.
In fact, the guachinches, as the traditional restaurants are known, serve dishes that are not only delicious, but also bear witness to the importance of agriculture in the origins of the hamlet, when the villagers lived exclusively from the fields, and serve as a starting point for learning about its history.
Heroic agriculture
Fried cheese, ice cream and tuno jam, goat in sauce, quesillo and gofio mousse are all on the menu for visitors to Masca. Although it is now largely devoted to tourism, it was once chosen by the aborigines, despite its difficult location, to form their home. The raw materials for today’s dishes come from a long tradition of agriculture established by the Guanches, traces of which can still be seen today.
The abundance of water in Masca, which is scarce in other parts of the island, led the first settlers to establish their crops there and raise their livestock on its steep cliffs, as can be seen in some sites and also in the tradition of both practices, which still persists. The terraced terraces were home to potatoes, cereals, onions or sweet potatoes, and the goats produced milk that was turned into cheese, as well as meat.
Some of these terraces of impossible orchards still exist today to preserve unique varieties of potato and others that are almost lost, such as the Los Carrizales onion or the pea, as well as pumpkin or yam. The palm trees that surround the houses, from which honey and leaves were extracted to make utensils, continue to live up to their usefulness. And the goats, of course, continue to jump over the ravines, oblivious to gravity.
An adventure rAVINE
To get a glimpse of the terraces, it is necessary to take a walk along one of the best known paths on the island, the Barranco de Masca. Once used daily by the Guanches to make the most of the less rugged parts of the land, to stock up on fish and barter with arriving sailors, it is now travelled by tourists. The 650-metre descent stretches almost 5 km down to the coast. Open only at weekends, it is necessary to reserve a place and check in at the Masca Visitor Centre.
The terraced fields and the goats do not take long to appear, but neither do other endemic and endangered species, such as the tabaibas, the malvas de risco or animals such as the guincho, the most endangered eagle in the country. The basalt dykes and the sound of the water accompany you all the way to the small beach, where you can decide to retrace your steps or sail between Los Gigantes and its harbour.
Fiction or not, it is believed that the ravine is related to piracy, as it is said that, due to its orography, it was the perfect place to catch Spanish ships returning from America laden with silver and gold for the Crown of Castile unawares and raid them for their booty. Be that as it may, the peace of this sandy area, half fine grain, half stone, all black and bathed in blue, is a magical place to rest and enjoy the views of La Gomera.
Aboriginal remains
In addition to agriculture and livestock farming, which have endured over time, the aborigines left another trace behind them that can still be seen in Masca. In the area of the Tarucho rock, which watches over the group of houses from the heights, archaeological sites have been found that prove their passage through the area. Cave engravings, petroglyphs and sepulchral remains show that it was considered a sacred place.
A few metres from the Cruz de Hilda viewpoint there is a path that leads to another site, that of Pico Yeje, where there is a unique engraving known as the “Estación Solar de Masca”, which represents the sun. In addition, around it, small indentations in the rock bear witness to the practice that is replicated on other islands of the archipelago to collect rainwater or to make offerings to the gods.
From this peak, the path known as Calzada de los Antiguos runs up to the mountain of La Fortaleza on a difficult route that ends on a plain where cereals were grown. Cisterns, caves and threshing floors, now colonised by vegetation, show how the ancestors of the masqueros subsisted by means of paths that were true works of engineering in a landscape full of ravines and dangers.