The ecologist Jose Manuel Espino Meilan, professor and ecologist, has published a new bi-weekly article entitled A peaceful look at Telde’s Environment (1980-2023).
What is La Montanetilla really? It is not a secondary cone, which erupted on the southern side of Mount Herrero, and it’s very degraded at present, as there isn’t any elevation that confirms it. Not even an effusive opening has caused this extension to Mount Herrero. mountain heading south. This small mountain is known as La Montanetilla. It could also be the whole volcanic cone of Mount Herrero.
It is a brief visit. However, the trip is interesting, both for its elevation and for the analysis of the traditional home in a state of decay.
You can easily access the mountain by any of its surrounding tracks. It is best to do it from the south, where we can see an old Canarian home, which follows the tradition of simple houses that are found in both this volcanic field and Jinamar. In this moment, I recall the house I saw with my students 40 years ago on the southern side of the Rajada Mountain, directly in front of Sima de Jinamar. It was right next to a wall of scoriaceous material that divides properties into two. I remember that the house in my memory had a gabled, good-looking roof and wooden door. But now it’s in ruin. It was only a matter of abandonment and time before the house began to deteriorate. The atmospheric agents and the human predatory behavior on materials which could be reused: Ashlars and firewood beams; door jambs and window frames; tiles…, as well as the irregular occupation and the malicious, incomprehensible and malign fires that were set on the roof, all contributed to the current state of decay. Its current image is a direct result of atmospheric agents and human predation on materials that could be reused: ashlars, firewood beams, door jambs window frames… as well as the sporadic occupation of these same materials.
The walls that we are talking about, which is the Montanetilla again, have thick walls made from local stone with irregular ashlars, and scoriaceous blocks. Their exterior faces were roughly carved in order to create a vertical wall, but as you can see on the pictures, their interiors still retain the original shapes of the stones, making them ideal to fill and build up gravel and soil to provide more resistance to the whole wall. The interior wall can be observed in the same way. It is not unusual to observe this space in more detail on the walls that were destroyed in the room adjacent. The spaces between the two faces are filled with gravel or caked-on earth, which gives greater strength to this stone complex. The stone complex was finished off with an irregular and thick whitewash, which is still visible on the wall.
The first floor surface was dirt, which was later replaced with a slab of washed concrete. It is still broken up and raised in pieces.
To the west and north, there are no openings in the wall. Intelligence of the farmer, based on effective observations and knowledge passed down from generation to generation result in a house that is cool, well ventilated and bright.
It is impossible to beat the view through the window: the fields of Gamonal that were once cultivated and, in one field, the presence of the two long-lived Canarian Dragon trees. A third tree is no longer there, and is as old as the ones we see, but that is life, it has a finite lifespan. The only way to allow trees, in this instance much older organisms than humans, continue on their journey is with maximum respect.
We can see an arable field when we step out of our house. Talking about vast cultivated areas is a thing of the past. What was farmland is now dominated by the tabaibal.
The houses are built on the bank, preserving the soil for planting. This is the exact opposite to what’s happening now. Farmland has lost its value and Telde is following a trend that is also seen in other towns. It extends to the best crops: Vega Grande and Llanos De El Goro.
The room is cooled by the cover. A large open area with a flat, sloping roof, and with just a slight slope to allow for the rain to run off, the roof was supported by a 20-piece framework made of wood beams. The roof had a prismatic rectangular section, to which the solid frame of firewood chippings was attached. It was then mortared on and we had a structure that lasted for many years. In the gap we can see mortar and stone slabs, which reveal that the roof is in danger of falling apart.
The Canarian distilladera or pila is located to your left with the back facing north and the face towards the south. The pila (stone) is not there to filter water, and neither is the bernegal (carving to receive water), nor are the maidenhairs that decorate its walls. It is the bare essence of what was. The distilled water was once a precious liquid that guarded the life of this structure. Now it is just an empty skeleton.
There is another room next to this one that used to have a gable-style roof. It’s now missing. There are no tiles on the floor or any remnants of those that were once part of the roof, and there is also no wood from the frame of the roof. It isn’t the result of time or erosion, but of disdain for anything foreign. Humans are prone to prey on things that have a strange smell or don’t get monitored.
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