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| Wonderfully weird and organic |
Cenobio de Valerón, “Valeron monastery”, is one of the iconic sights of Gran Canaria. It is not really a monastery, and by looking at it now, it is hard to imagine why would anybody think it was. If you consider that the capsule-style hotels were unknown in the West when is was first named “monastery”, it seems even more puzzling. The caves are small and rather shallow, so that even Diogenes would probably grow claustrophobic and wish to move to New York.
Anyway, for one reason or other, the cave complex of Valeron was thought to be a monastery, till somebody realized it looked very similar to granaries in North Africa. Now it is thought to have been a collective granary, with posted guards and doors closing each storage space, featuring a pintadera, i.e. the seal of the owner. It must have been a fascinating humanhill.