In a previous article of mine Tourism: towards the consumption of culture? I analyzed three areas particularly affected from an urban point of view: 

• Beijing's Forbidden City

• The Roman Forums

• Hagia Sophia in Istanbul

Later, in a second installment, "Museums, could it be like this? , I exposed monumental deterioration. Following that process I intend to do so now in the third area, the natural one, after having spent a few days on both islands.

Natural controls

Sometimes there are several circumstances, which have the enormous luck to organize life in a certain environment, creating a natural barrier, or if you want to express it more appropriately, a filter that, as more and more cities are doing artificially, limits the access of indiscriminate tourism.

Uncomfortable communications due to the conditions of the territory, roads with curves and more curves between cliffs and cliffs, which require continuous attention, caution and slowness, making very short distances, become very long in their temporary duration in exchange for breathtaking views that allow numerous viewpoints, where you can rest a little.

The same happens with the wide range of trails offered on both islands, both in the Laurisilva of La Gomera and in the Canary pine forest of Hierro, not lacking in difficulty, which only in some cases are possible for children and older people.

• The viewpoint of La Peña. Cesar Manrique in Hierro.

On my first trip to the Canary Islands in the 80s of the last century I went to Lanzarote where I had the privilege of meeting him personally. He had achieved something unheard of at that time: social awareness of the environment in the population. There was no advertising on the roads, every neighbor kept his immediate environment clean and what is more impressive, there was not a single piece of paper on the whole island. Unfortunately, in my opinion, their legacy has been disfigured by an excessive formalism that I have discussed with those responsible in later years in my interventions on the island. The viewpoint of El Hierro is an excellent example of the best of its proposals, with an exquisite choice of observation point accompanied by several levels, terrace and restaurant to enjoy it in all its possibilities.

2. From the resort to the natural pools (The difficulty of applying the usual leisure models of mass tourism and its standardized typologies).

Nature makes it impossible to locate the leisure prototypes demanded by mass tourism: quick and convenient access to all kinds of facilities that complement it, closely related to consumption. In both La Gomera and Hierro, this type of infrastructure is impossible both because of the massive destruction of the environment it would entail and because of its high economic cost. 

All this is replaced by the use of natural possibilities, such as seawater pools continuously renewed, clean with a seabed of volcanic rocks and countless marine species that can be observed with a simple aquatic glasses. It is true that, to access them, given the steep terrain, you have to negotiate numerous steps of irregular layout, metal stairs to enter the water with the constant swell.

I would have liked to take the microphone to tell them how privileged they were, as in those ancient civilizations where nature was sustenance and worship at the same time, but it would have been absurd, because they already knew it.

When, from my terrace in Hermigua in La Gomera, I saw the neighbors of a certain age going up and down with bags, by those irregular stairs and very pending of their houses, I was sure that they would have told me that the effort compensated them, that it was a very small price in front of the enormous benefit of maintaining their life as they want it.

Yes, we are talking about CULTURE with capital letters, as I said in my first article Tourism: towards the consumption of culture, without it we become a simple image lost in the memory of the cell phone. In La Gomera and Hierro, I have seen very few cell phones, only a few to take pictures of the dazzling nature and then at home, in privacy, to look at them and remember with amazement, not to boast in front of acquaintances.

A bittersweet farewell

I do not like to end with this note, but it would not be honest if I do not do it: in the days of stay in Hierro, arrived in front of us a maritime rescue ship that brought migrants arriving from Africa in a patera, where they find, recognized by the national media, the solidarity of the neighbors who even welcome them temporarily in their homes, which makes this island even bigger.

Looking from the plane at the powerful profiles of these two islands, I was able to confirm something that I intuited perhaps naively: nature is not that inert, passive and silent being before our outrages, I am sure that sooner rather than later, as things are, it will make us pay dearly for it.

Will these reflections be of any use, I wondered; after all, these were the islands at the end of the world.

(Note: images courtesy of Natividad Hdez Claverie / Carlos Rico)

Author: 

Juan Carlos Rico holds a PhD in Architecture from the Escuela Técnica Superior de Arquitectura de Madrid, Art Historian from the Faculty of History of the University of Salamanca, Sociologist and Philosopher from the UNED. He is currently studying Social Anthropology. Museum curator. He coordinates a multidisciplinary team for the investigation of the exhibition fact and its relation with the space, which has been reflected in several publications.

Research project 1986-2022

https://jcr21office.blogspot.com/2019/01/proyecto-de-investigacionmuseografica.html 

Thematic bibliography. Books, articles and conferences 1986-2022

https://jcr21office.blogspot.com/2019/09/bibliografia-tematica-librosarticulos.html 

In accordance with the programs of the European Union, the ICOM (International Council of Museums) and the ILAM (Latin American Institute of Museums), he conducts workshops in several European and American universities, where he is also a regular lecturer.

http://jcr21office.blogspot.com.es/