SALINAS BOCACANGREJO

Semi-hidden between the mouth of the Guayadeque ravine and the beach of Vargas, there is the salt pans of “Bocacangrejo”. This name derived from the amount of crabs (cangrejos) that inhabit this part of the coastal coastline of the municipality of Agüimes.This saltworks are more than 100 years old, they were built at the end of the XIX century, around 1889, in full saline boom of the southwest coast. Its typology responds to the “ancient clay saline model” and is one of the few salt flats of Gran Canaria that preserves intact its classical construction of yesteryear, its primitive walls, centenary staves of storage, crystallization and vaporization of salt, its channeling of its clean waters from the sea.The old windmill of circular blades, more than 150 years old was destroyed by a storm in 2018. Formerly this saline had its well-earned fame with the qualification of having been the “larder of the island” in the quality and quantity of salt, being at that time transported on the backs of donkeys, mules and carts along roads and paths, passing through the agricultural area of ??La Florida via Carrizal and from there to Ingenio, Agüimes, Telde, Las Palmas and south. At that time, salt was used as currency. There were exchanges of salt for food from the land.