Gáldar (Yvonne's hometown) is a town in the north west of Gran Canaria. It is the old capital of the island, before the Spanish arrived. This town has a lot of cultural and historical interest. Galdar hosts the "Painted Cave", an archeological site that contains paintings and remains of houses of a pre-hispanic settlement.
To get to Galdar, you only have to take a bus from the main bus station. Number 103 or 105, and it costs 3'10 euros a single and takes around 40 minutes on a very scenic coastal road.
We walked into Galdar from Yvonne's house in the early evening and there was a great atmosphere around the main church with people sitting outside bars, restaraunts and cafes with live traditional music being played that everyone seemed to enjoy. We went to one cafe where we had ice cream and a cup of tea (Ollie's words: "You can take me out of England but you can't take England out of me"). Close to this area there is a museum, the already mentioned "painted cave", that has been uncovered in recent years and you get a great feeling of how they lived before the Spanish arrived. Entry costs €6 per person and it takes around 45 minutes to an hour to see the entire museum counting in the informative clips about the life of aborigenes, how the entry of Spain affected them and what happened to them then.
In the past couple of years, 7 more caves have been found in Galdar, along with cookery items and graves. The paintings found in the caves and items used by aborigenes can also be found in t-shirts, earrings and necklaces.
In the centre of the town there is also a square with a fountain overlooked by a church built initially in 1496, and reconstructed in 1778-1826 over the place where "Guanartemes" (a group of aborigenes) had their palace. It is now considered the centre of the town.Do not hesitate to visit Galdar and get immersed in the history of the pre-hispanic societies.
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