The sunflowers of the Barranco de Guayedra.
The place itself where the field of sunflowers deserves one or thousands of posts on Instagram. Its about Faneque Risco , one of the highest cliffs on the planet, with a little more than 1,000 meters of vertical drop over the sea , and the Tamadaba Massif , on the top of which lives a primeval Canarian pine forest, one of the best preserved in the Canary Islands.
From the top you can see what the canaries call the "dragon tail" , the landscape of a sector of the west coast of the island, between Agaete Y The Village of San Nicolas , characterized by a succession of steep cliffs reminiscent of the silhouette of a dragon's tail.
And right in this environment, in the ** Guayedra ravine **, in the municipality of Agaete, is where Fernando Navarro, the managing director of the ** Finca Redondo de Guayedra, grows sunflowers.
His farm has become famous on Instagram for his beauty, around 3,500 square meters of fields full of sunflowers who enjoy a perfect climate. Here it is almost always spring. "In the morning they look at the ravine, where the sun rises, and in the afternoon towards the sea, which is where it sets," he stressed in a statement to the Interprofit communication agency.
You just need to immerse yourself in the network with the hashtags #guayedra or** #barrancodeguayedra** to bring up a collage of sunflowers. Here every weekend, called by the Instagram effect, all kinds of visitors come, from locals to foreigners.
“They even wait their turn if there is a photo shoot, because —explains the director, a witness to this pilgrimage in search of beauty— in the long shots you can't see anyone”.
And not only anonymous, they have also come this far international magazines like Vogue or Elle . In addition, Canarian families also come, even on weekdays. "There are more sunflowers in Gran Canaria, but they are more hidden," says the proud director of the estate.
The sunflowers are part of an ecotourism project.
THE BEES, THE TRUE AUTHORS OF THE LANDSCAPE
More bees are needed, in fact they are essential for the survival of our ecosystems. Spain can boast of being one of the countries with the most hives, 2.4 million . So we applaud the fact that the arrival of the sunflowers in the Barranco de Guayedra is not just the result of chance, but part of an ecotourism project started eight years ago.
The bees are in charge of giving life to the field of sunflowers pollinating it daily. Thanks to the Finca de Redondo de Guayedra project, it has been possible to attract the canary bee and many other endemic species: around twenty birds and ancient and tropical trees.
“We believe that it is a model that can be exported to other fields on the island, which can be added to the sustainable tourism with actions to recover the flora and fauna of the territory or reforestation”, explains Fernando Navarro.
The reforestation work in the area has been carried out since 2012 through the Forest Management Agreement signed with the Cabildo de Gran Canaria, which has also awarded the farm the Landscape Observatory Award of the island corporation.