The Canary Islands or 'Islas Canarias' lie a few hundred kilometres off the north-west coast of Africa. Although under the politics and administration of mainland Spain, they fiercely retain their own cultural independence and personality.
These beautiful holiday islands crop up from time to time in the history of many other cultures. The ancient world knew them as the Fortunate Isles and as far back as 440 BC the Greek historian Herodotus suggested that the Canaries were "The Garden of Hesperides", the mythical place where Atlas held up the heavens.
Homer and Virgil the epic poets both had their say and believed the islands to be "The Elysian Fields", the place where "favoured heroes pass without dying, and live happily under the rule of Rhadamanthus". Plato also had something to add and contended that they were the remnants of Atlantis, but it was allegedly the Roman explorer Juba that named the islands "Canaria" after the large vicious dogs he found there.
The original inhabitants of the Canary Islands were the Guanches, a tall blond race thought to have Bedouin ancestry. The name derives from "guan" meaning man or people and "achinch" meaning white mountain - an obvious allusion to the snow capped peak of Tenerife's Mount Teide. These native Canarians are thought to have subsisted in a very basic way, with rudimentary agriculture and shepherding as the mainstays of survival.
The Middle Ages saw more European contact with the Canaries, as sailors from peninsular Spain discovered the isles' natural abundance of orchids and subsequently plundered them to make dye. Unfortunately, they also plundered the indigenous inhabitants who were forced into slavery. Colonisation began in earnest in the fifteenth century and by 1496 most of the Islands had been claimed by the Catholic monarchs.
As these links with the European mainland developed, the Islands became noted for their ideal location as a stepping stone between Europe and the American continent. Even Christopher Columbus utilised La Gomera as a stop off point before venturing into the unknown in search of the Indies. Rumour has it that he even had a mistress on the island.
Towards the end of the nineteenth century, as international trade and travel increased, the first hotels began to open on Tenerife and since then leisure and commerce have spread like wildfire throughout the archipelago. However, in spite of modernisation and package tourism Las Islas Canarias have managed to retain the heavenly qualities that so affected the poets and philosophers of the classical world.
