Cueva Pintada (painted cave) is a real jewel, which is telling us a lot about the natives called Los Guanches.

The cave has been discovered in 1862, when the discovery not has been seen as important. The real discovery has found place in 1873 by a farmer named Jose RAmos Orihuela. When he was working on the area he noticed a little hole in the earth, which has been the entrance to the cave. When he first entered the cave he saw a huge variety of wall paintings in different colours. Some of the paintings show geometrical figures. Because of the paintings the cave got it’s name.

After the discovery there have been made scientific investigations and excavations. Unfortunately only few of the found objects can be seen nowadays in the museum because some objects have been taken away by unauthorized visitors. There have been also found human bones, textiles, jars and different kinds of tools from the natives.

Since the 19. century many residents and scientifics fight for the conservation and protection of cueva pintada. Artists, philosophs and simple farmers protect the cave from distruction. Only 8 years after the discovery there have been noticed damages of the material and the paintings. The damages have been caused by percolating water from the surrounded agriculture areas.

As nowodays we know much more about how to protect such sensible materials the cave and it’s paintings can be conserved.

In 1982 the cave has been renovated and transformed into a visitors center. Since 1987 systematic excavations have been started and a total of 60 native houses have been discovered.
In former times the place was called Agaldar and nowadays we know this village as Gáldar.

Cueva Pintada is a good organized visitors center with valious objects to be seen. An arqueological park and exposicion rooms have been founded to inform the visitors about the forgotten times of the natives on Gran Canaria.

Cueva Pintada is opened from Tuesday to Saturday from 09:30 to 20:00. On Sundays its doors open from 11:00 to 20:00. For the visit and the exposicion you shall calculate more or less 1,5 h.

In Arucas they are distilling original canarian rum. You should have a shot at this. It’s delicous!

Between Gáldar and Agaete you will find a lot of caves. These are the places, the aboriginal Canarians, called “Guanches“, were living in.

The most spectacular one, I think, is the “Cueva Pintada” placed in Gáldar. You will discover cave-paintings in white, red and black colour.

The biggest cave you will see in Tunte (San Bartolomé de Tirajana), which has been the aboriginals living room and granary.