Strolling among guanches and the 21st century

When talking about Tenerife’s past, it is common to think of the Guanches. Locals and visitors are still passionate about everything related to that civilization and the best place to learn what we know about them is the Museum of Nature and Archaeology. It is located next to the ravine of Santos, today a riverbed that crosses practically through the center of the city, but that five centuries ago marked the border between the town and the rest of an island unexplored by Europeans. The MUNA occupies a building that was once the Civil Hospital, hence its location on the outskirts. The museum has several floors and two large interior courtyards that can be visited. The floor dedicated to the Guanches does not disappoint, they explain how they were, how they lived, what they ate, how they were organized… and the theories that try to explain how this group of humans ended up in the Canary Islands, taking into account that when the Castilians arrived, the ancient inhabitants of Tenerife did not know how to sail. Also here we will find and be able to observe its famous mummies, some of them found precisely in the neighboring ravine. But the journey into the past proposed by this museum is not only limited to humans. The geological and natural history of the Canary Islands is also exciting, with an archipelago that continues to grow with each eruption.

Wall to wall the MUNA is a neighbor of the TEA, the Tenerife Espacio de las Artes, https://teatenerife.es/. The building, designed by the Swiss Herzog & De Meuron and the Tenerife architect Virgilio Gutiérrez, has already become a landmark in the city. But in addition to the container, the content is also very interesting. The TEA houses the Óscar Domínguez Institute, the Tenerife Island Photography Center and the library of the Island Network, in addition to hosting temporary exhibitions. Both museums are located a few meters from La Noria Street and the Church of La Concepción, around which there is a wide range of restaurants.

They are also next to the Nuestra Señora de África Market – a place that deserves a couple of chapters on its own – crossing it and continuing in that direction we reach the area where the city has grown, an area that until not long ago was occupied by an oil refinery. We are heading to one of the old tanks used by that industry, now converted: the Espacio Cultural El Tanque. It is worthwhile to enter and visit its exhibits. In addition, festivals and events related to culture are also held here. The space itself and its surroundings are a double nod to the past, because it is surrounded by banana plantations and before being industrial land this same plot was dedicated to the crop that is most associated with the Canary Islands, the banana.