Maipes de Agaete Archaeological Park

The tombs are built from the same dark rock they stand on. Out on the walkways the lava field turns out to be crowded with mounds: round or oval, shaped like a cone with its top cut off, the largest 8 m across and 3 m high, the height of a single-storey house. Inside each is a pit lined with stone slabs, usually for one person, sometimes two. Children were buried here too.

Look at the tops. The plainest tombs carry a simple ring of volcanic stones; the finer ones are crowned with turret-like stonework, probably for the nobility, and some capping stones differ in colour and texture from the lava around them. A dry-stone wall closes off part of the cemetery, and eight bodies lay in tombs outside it. Historians read them as islanders refused burial inside, or outsiders who landed before the Spanish conquest.

On the steep valley sides, white stains of marine deposits mark one of the few tsunamis documented in the Canaries.

• A visit takes around half an hour on paths and metal walkways, with boards in Spanish and English.
• The lava field is open ground with no shade. Bring a hat and water: there is no drinking fountain nearby.
• Toilets are about 60 m away.
• Wheelchairs reach only part of the site; the rest is lava ground.

Maipés lies on the south-east side of Agaete, about ten minutes on foot from the town centre and about 60 m west of the football ground. Drivers follow the signs for El Valle and the archaeological park. There is a car park about 90 m away; the one closer still is marked private. By bus, the Cruz Chiquita stop is about 270 m away in a straight line. From the entrance the rest is on foot, along paths and walkways laid across the lava.

Best: morning or late afternoon, Tuesday to Sunday.

Avoid: Mondays, when the park is closed, and the middle of a hot day.

The lava field has no shade and the dark rock holds the heat, while low sun throws the outlines of the tombs into relief against the flow.

Maipés is a listed archaeological zone, protected as a Property of Cultural Interest under Spanish heritage law. Keep to the marked paths and walkways. The mounds are graves: do not climb on them, do not move their stones, and leave every rock on the site where it lies.