Guatiza is a charming town located northeast of Lanzarote, situated on a large It is a plain of very fertile lands and surrounded by the volcanoes of Guenia, Tinamala, La Caldera and Las Calderetas. Their houses are scattered, forming a somewhat more compact nucleus near their Church.
The landscape is beautiful, a magnificent blue sky serves as a roof for an endless green patch made up of thousands of pencas (prickly pears or nopales) that grow on the volcanic ash. They were not cultivated for their fruits, but due to small whitish-looking insects (Dactylopus coccus), better known as cochineal. Cochineal is used to make carmine (a natural dye with great fixing power) and has great commercial value.
Formerly, the town was located at the foot of the Genia mountain, right where the cemetery and the Santa Margarita Hermitage are today. This settlement was very vulnerable to pirates, as it could be spotted from the ocean. After suffering numerous lootings, the people of Guatiza decided to move to the current location, 2 kilometers from the coast and behind the mountains, to avoid the pirates.
This agricultural town was very prosperous throughout the 19th century thanks to its fields full of pencas, however its production has decreased in recent years due to the massive production of this product in other locations.
The Cactus Garden is without a doubt the best known and most visited place in Guatiza. Founded in 1990, it is one of the seven centers of Art, Culture and Tourism in Lanzarote. Created by César Manrique on an old quarry from which volcanic material was extracted, it extends over an area of approximately 5000 m² and it shows 1,400 cacti of 1,000 different species originating from all over the world.
In addition, the town of Guatiza offers much to visit. On the one hand there is the town center, its streets, its church of Cristo de las Aguas, the square, the old mills and its architecture.
On the other hand, the landscape: the countryside and the coast, the mountains and especially the Protected Landscape of the Tenegüime ravine.
If what you like is hiking, you will not be able to do it. avoid a tour of the Protected Landscape of the Tenegüime ravine. Exceptional witness to the formation, history and present of the island of Lanzarote.
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