The village of Tefía in Fuerteventura

Tefía is best known for the museum of La Alcogida perpetuating rural traditions of the island. The Chapel of St. Augustine, the patron saint of the village, is also of great interest.

South dominates Mountain Bermeja consists of red pumice stone traditionally used material for angles and different kinds of buildings as can be seen on various houses of the locality. To the west lies a vast plain dominated by a mill gofio which has the distinction of having six wings, while most of the mills of the island possess only four.

Tefía is located 21 km west of Puerto del Rosario, the FV-10 road and the FV-207 road. The city of La Oliva is 14 km northeast of Tefía and Betancuria 19 km south.

The village patron saint, St. Augustine, is celebrated on 28 August.

The male mill (molino) is a tapered building stone masonry, clay and lime which has two or three levels. On the lower level are stored utensils miller; the average level is stored grain before milling and flour after milling; the top level is the grinding mechanism. The upper part of the mill is covered by a wooden roof that has the distinction of being rotatable, rotatable through a shaft to guide the wings in the wind direction.

While there are grinders six wings, most have only four wings. When moved by the wind, the wings rotate a gear which, in turn, rotates a gear that drives the rotation of the movable upper millstone over the fixed millstone, causing the grinding grain. The grain is poured into a hopper from where it falls into a gutter that leads to the millstones. Flour falls into a container in the middle stage, where it is stored in bags. The most common grains on the island were wheat and barley, and to a lesser extent, oats, rye, and even chickpeas and peas. When the beans are roasted before the result of the grind is called gofio.

The mill Tefía dates from the 1930s, although its mechanism is earlier, since he belonged to the mill of Rafael « el cantero » (Raphael the carrier) of the municipality of La Oliva. Since 1994 the mill was declared of Cultural Interest (Bien de Interés Cultural, BIC) in the category of Artistic Historical Monument.

The people who lived in this place traditionally was dedicating to raising cattle and grain farming. These economic activities have left their mark on the landscape that was conditioned over time to culture and to take advantage of water resources.

The village owes its name to the proximity of a “alcogida”, that is to say, a field for collecting rainwater; Water is transported to various reservoirs. The aridity of the land and the low annual rainfall compelled the inhabitants to develop a complex system of water collection: ditches, tanks, filters, pipes and wells, elements that are integrated into the landscape of La Alcogida. The museum retains the name locals have given to this area because everything has ground to collect rainwater that ran in nearby ditches.

The hamlet of La Alcogida was partly inhabited until the 1970s and was in ruins. Because the resort is comprised of a set of representative dwellings of traditional domestic architecture of Fuerteventura, the hamlet was restored in the 1990s by the Insular Chapter (Cabildo Insular) to become an ethnographic museum; the ruined houses have been restored in the traditional architecture and original materials. The tour includes the discovery of seven houses and maisonettes typically majoreras but different architectural: since most elaborate homes of wealthy families to modest buildings that recall the humble peasant of Fuerteventura and the harshness of rural life. Each house retains the name of its former owners. Thus one can see the house of Mr Jacinto, Ms. Herminia, that of Mr Teodosio Ramos, or those of Herreras and Cabreras, families, in some cases, lived there until the 1970s.

In this museum is recreated traditional daily life of the island, with furnished houses of peasants, outbuildings (ovens, animal traction mill (tahona), barns, stables, barns etc), domestic animals (goats, chickens , cows, donkeys majorero, and one that was for centuries the workmate of the inhabitants: the dromedary), domestic and agricultural tools, and activities that were part of the daily chores of the inhabitants. Craftsmen installed in some of the houses to make the visitor of crafts: pottery, lace, embroidery and palm wickerwork or wicker, cheese and gofio. The village even has its own crop of Canarian plants. One can witness the milling of grain through the tahona, operated by a small ass a bit sad, and three times a week, a baker comes bake special bread with anise in a small bread ovens (horno de pan).

Visit the Ecomuseum La Alcogida :

Hours: daily, except Saturday and Monday from 10 am to 18 pm.

Admission: € 5.

Phone: 00 34 928 175 434

There is a gift shop (home of Mr Jacinto) where you can buy handicrafts made ​​on site, and a small café.

Housing is constructed entirely of limestone and exposed cavities are sealed with rubble and dung.

The coating cole porter leave exposed freestone worked adorning the corners and door frames and windows. The exterior walls of outbuildings kitchen and stables on which one can see the cut edges made of medium-sized stone remain bare. These dependencies have small windows as an aeration and wooden skylights.

The roof system is the same for almost all the dependencies: the finished coping with crab and borders completed by stone slabs serve as gutters to protect the finish. The most room to the west has a flat roof and beams arranged transversely to its smallest dimension.

Other interesting features of this home are the bread oven backed the southwest wall of the “tahona”. To the east, taking advantage of the prevailing wind, there is a small area where threshing practice during harvest, on a ground raw flat stones. In the same place we appreciate the construction of a straw warehouse.

The walls of stone and mud are mounted in stone worked on the corners and door frames and windows. They are partially coated with a mixture of lime and sand to the bedrooms, leaving appear some big stone. Dependencies shed and kitchen are made of dry stone without siding.

The roofs vary by room. The most west arm, the result of a later extension has a flat roof and wooden beams on the walls, respecting the transverse line of the piece. The hurdle is the element that is placed between the beams to strengthen the cake layer. Adjoining rooms also use the reed and in this case, the roof is in hood, decorated with a ledge stone slabs that protects the cake.

The roof of the kitchen, slightly sloping, facilitates the flow of water. The trunks of tamarisks are used (tarajal) for beams and tree tobacco stalks (mimo) and tamarisk (tarajal) (local plants) between each space.

The poverty of this home is evident. In the tiny kitchen, the stone bench serves home made of three stones on which rests the cauldron.

The house is closed to the south by a small dry stone wall, creating a sheltered patio, where are grown herbs (mint, coriander, basil, etc.) and flowering plants (geranium, etc).

The garden, in front of the house, produced vegetables to feed the whole family garlics, onions, radishes, peas, corn, and so on.

This traditional habitat has the distinction of having no external coating. then one can appreciate the materials and the voids are filled with pebbles. The angles are volcanic stone red, quarried Mountain Bermeja, and some others are lighter colored sandstone.

We also use the stone to make supporting arches on the top of the doors. The space between the lintel and the arch is filled with rubble.

The roofs are flat and rainwater is discharged, for some, the patio through a wooden pipe and other gifts for the back of the house, in the same way. On the smallest length are interspersed beams where the planking is fixed with chopsticks to hold the cake.

In the north, the house has a small playground and a place to store the hay bales. This is a frustoconical construction, usually made of barley straw outside and hollow inside, for storing products such as wheat, thus isolating it from moisture and creating a closed space, dry and ventilated for both longer storage products.

The outbuildings used as dwellings are facing south. The other rooms are used for economic purposes.

All ornaments are realize in stone and terracotta, the door frames and windows are worked in volcanic limestone.

The most remarkable part of the house is covered with lime and sand, leaving few stone walls, and in the corners and jambs of doors and windows.

The exterior walls of the “tahona” (mill powered by cattle) and those of the farmyard and barn to be free coating.

This accommodation has tanks, one inside and one in the courtyard. They are covered with a masonry arch structure over which rely on stone slabs. The tank of the patio collects water flowing from the roof and the second tank equipped with a filter screen is outside the court, in the back part of the house. This one is short and recovers water flowing around. These are channeled and when the tank is full it flows into the patio.

The barn housed the animals with the largest market value such as cattle, camels, donkeys, mules, etc ...

The outbuildings on the ground floor and attic were used as warehouses. Downstairs, agricultural equipment were kept, tools, and so on. The attic insulated to store crops (cheese, figs and prickly pears, dried fish and so on).

This home has a “tahona” addiction that many homes did not have and which frequently belonged to and was used by several heirs.

The house is also equipped with a lime kiln.

The walls of the building are made of stone and mud and stone angles, except the south side of the house. The rest of the cladding is partially coated with lime and sand, revealing some large hewn stones on the walls and jambs.

There are two types of roofing, flat and chaperone finished cake, mud and gypsum. The chaperone is in turn divided into two parts: the two sides are based on the ridge beam and siding; both sides rely on the gears, that is to say, they are placed parallel to the ridge.

To enhance the cake layer, is used in some outbuildings planks of wood (embedded), others are covered with reeds and when the dependencies acted as “taro” (grain warehouse and cheese), it strengthened the with wood tamarisk (tarajal).

The cavities are filled with shaped cut stones and lintels with wooden ties. Only the main room “la sala”, located to the west, which had frames of the door and the window in light sandstone.

The most part northwest has an irregular floor. Its walls do not form any corner and found depressions created to serve closets and small window-openings, revealing that it was a “taro”.

In a small enclosure near the house, one can see the remains of an old plantation prickly pears and agaves, remains of the different economic stages of Fuerteventura. During the second half of the nineteenth century, just after the civil war, the island has boomed thanks to the exploitation of cochineal and agave.

The rooms located in the corner of the house have a ground floor and an attic.

The walls are made of stone and mud. Edges and frames are worked in volcanic limestone, as well as the arches, lintels and certain doors. Beyond the walls of the kitchen, all the others are partially coated with lime mortar and sand mixture, leaving uncovered the edges of stone and door frames.

The roof is flat and parts of the beams between which were placed reeds rest directly on the side walls and support the cake cover. The kitchen and the attic have a chaperone roof that protects the finish cake using a stone gutter worked red size.

To access the attic, you borrow an external staircase volcanic stone that draws on a wall in which is embedded a tank to filter rainwater.

In front of the house there is a stone wall creating a small courtyard which defines the family plot.

Near the house, to the west, beyond the court, a square stone tank covered with lime mortar remains open.