A country called Tegueste

This town of about 29 square kilometers, in which 11,000 inhabitants live, seems like

a miniature country

, capable for centuries of remaining independent of the large municipality that surrounds it,

San Cristóbal de La Laguna

, in the north of

Tenerife

, under the influence of the climate that is concentrated in the mount of the Mercedes. Airy, in what is a perfect valley where there are relics of the laurel forest, Tegueste is reached from La Laguna through the best places in this area of ​​the Canary Island, the foothills of the Mesa Mota or the Camino Largo, in the middle of what was the enormous lake on which this world to which the town belongs was based.

For centuries this has been a

place of pilgrimage for well-to-do vacationers

, but time, and the fame of its good climate, has been attracting liberal professionals, university professors or young people who follow the custom of relatives who have successively been its inhabitants.

Tegueste is a magnet

, say those who were and those who have come.

Strolling through its streets is to travel both to its past, which is kept like gold in cloth, and to its present, which continues to depend on old riches, livestock and agriculture.

This influx, which increases little by little, has not contributed to the bustle, rather it has attenuated it.

Old and new houses alternate with discipline and respect, with their

bright colors, indigo, white, yellow, red,

a symphony that gives peace and life.

As you enter the town, silence accompanies you like the air, limpid, and that on the

Camino de los Laureles

is a Guanche vestige of the good shade. It is not strange that what you are talking about here reverberates like an echo in the valley. The old houses, some from the 16th century, have been rebuilt to look the same as they were, and those that have been rebuilt refer to the atmosphere in which the ancestors lived.

Pilar Alberto Báez

shows us the date above the fireplace:

1582

.

The oldest of the houses was the place of the Audience, and now it is his house, where all his memories are, and also those that attest to the joys and misfortunes of time.

Nearby, the Island Council now rebuilds the house that belonged to a military provost of the Franco era, before whose facade the penitents made the Virgen de los Remedios (patron saint, with San Marcos) recline as a sign of divine respect.

In this same area of ​​living relics are the

patron church,

the

Town Hall

, the first school in Tegueste (from the 19th century) and the one that was

Casa del Prebendado Pacheco

, which is a point and apart of history.

enlarge photo Pilar Alberto Báez's home, the oldest in the Tenerife town.

RAFA AVERO

Independent village

The municipal institution is the civil jewel of Tegueste, since it is the guarantor of its independence with respect to the most powerful of the neighbors: La Laguna. It was that privilege, Antonio Pereira y Pacheco, also born in La Laguna, an enlightened priest who was a servant of the bishop of Peru, who managed, after the Cortes of Cádiz, that Tegueste was like a little country in the middle of the great municipality that includes places as powerful as Bajamar or Tejina. Since then, no one has thought of requiring Tegueste to give up being independent. Their traditions, including the

Canarian wrestling

, include annual shows (now, on September 5 and 8, for the holidays) that are unusual inland: the resurrection of the boats that were promised to the patrons if the plague of Landres, at the end of the 16th century, did not arrive to the municipality. And since it stopped right on its border, people like Juan Manuel Hernández are still there today, displaying those wooden relics, with their candles and ropes.

In this civil, educational and religious square that is the center of Tegueste there was once

a cemetery

, which is now located, with its imperious cypress, on the outskirts of the town, still carrying, as a symbol, these famous verses that a poet dedicated to it islander,

Crosita

: "Tegueste Cemetery / four walls and a cypress / how small and yet / how many people fit in it." It is perhaps the most famous couplet of this place of coppers, and it still serves to define Tegueste, although its cemetery is no longer the same tiny symbol that the poet underlined.

Celestino Hernández, 65, came here from La Palma at the age of 11. He has seen Tegueste being agricultural (potatoes, grain, barley, wheat, grapes) and he has seen it take care of cattle, he saw it proud of being the municipality that gives more water in the surroundings, and he himself feels proud of something that seems invariable: the care of a historic nucleus that has never been damaged by new urban dimensions. As he walks and talks, the most common noise in this town sounds, where not even a fly is heard at certain times of the day. That noise is that of the recorded obituaries that a car is dispersing for the knowledge of the municipality. In the time of the great lords, owners of the land, the party members and their families filled the church at funeral ceremonies.Now the party members are the lords and there is no longer so much reason to render those obeisances. God in the midst of everything, so much so that he

A ravine

that produces such abundant water and to which Tegueste dedicates so much gratitude is called

Agua de Dios

.

Now, in addition to the air and the buildings that convey how time has settled in this small country, Tegueste has human pride that are symbols of its history.

Here

the footballer

Pedri was

born

, his talisman, now at Barça;

One of his parents is

Tasca Fernando

(922 54 42 77), where a tribute to the Barça color has been paid since ancient times, as the grandfather of the now member of the national team was an enthusiastic spokesman for the club.

And in the big street is the bronze memory of a local legend, the

postman Antoñito,

great-uncle of the athlete who won the love of his neighbors with his wallet on his shoulder.

Pedri has just celebrated his triumphs in its streets.

Gofio, the Canarian food that he continues to eat in Barcelona, ​​is credited with its already legendary resistance on the lawn.

It will be the gofio, but it will also be the air of Tegueste.

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