Guisguey
Guisguey is a small pretty hamlet situated in a valley within the centre of Fuerteventura, just north of Puerto del Rosario.
As you slowly drive through the main street, you pass many beautiful villas. The cultural centre and Bar Teleclub is in the centre of the village on your right, and just past that is the church, Ermito de San Pedro. Along the front of the church is an iron sculpture, depicting a shepherd, his Bardino (farm dog), and goats. As you face the church, with your back to the road, on the right hand side you’ll see a small building, and in it is a beautiful little model village, depicting a farming community.
The Church Model Village
The hamlet has a very close community of residents, which often meet up in the centre, play music and sing.
Guisguey was originally a large farming community, and was known as the granary of Fuerteventura, with hundreds of ‘gavias’ (fields) of fertile soil.
Gavias are an ingenious and practical system that collected the rainwater that ran down the hills, making the best use of the scant rainfall on this arid island. A system of fields and ditches that slowed and channeled the turbulent, and often destructive, streams of rainwater. The topsoil washed down from the hillside was retained, and the water and sediment supplied nutrients to the soil. When the waters receded, the fields were planted, yielding plentiful crops of grain and fruit.
Each field is enclosed by mounds of earth on all sides to hold the water channeled into it. Ancient dry stone walls separate the terraced fields. These walls are carefully built to withstand the pressure of the body of water that floods the field. The beautiful patchwork landscape of fields is characteristic of this village.
On the left, towards the end of the village and opposite a ruin on the right, there is a track that goes up the hill, taking you to a mirador (view point) overlooking the whole of the village, the agricultural fields and down the valley to the sea.
Follow the track further up the hill, and you arrive at Felipito El Feo. A beautiful garden area, maintained by the Cabildo, where you will find plenty of secluded areas, each with a traditional pizza oven and bbq, where families can come and enjoy a day out. There was also a children’s playground. Oh, and they even had a pétanque area! But you’d have to take your own balls!
