Project Description

Ways of Clay

Get to know a traditional craft: the Gomeran Pottery. A hiking activity on traditional tracks that starts at the impressive mountain La Fortaleza of Chipude, a sacred place of ancient rites and marvelous views. We visit the visitors’ center of Las Loceras where we can see beautiful hand-crafted vessels made without the aid of a potter’s wheel or molds. We finish at a present-day pottery workshop to try this traditional craft’s ancient techniques for ourselves.

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Prices: € 40 (25% discount for children under 12 years old)

Duration: 3.5 hours approximately (1.5 hour climbing trail to “La Fortaleza” of Chipude + 0.5 hours transfers El Cercado + 30 min visit to the Interpretation Center of Las Loceras + 1 hour workshop)

Day in the week: On request (departures every week depending on availability. Small groups)

Included: local guide, transfers between Chipude and El Cercado and activity insurance.

Food is not included.

For more information and reservations, contact us on info@ymaguara.com or call us on +34 659 922 205.

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A bit more about the Gomeran pottery…

‘La Locería’ is a primitive pottery technique which is very well conserved in La Gomera. It was already practiced by the aboriginals who lived on the island before the arrival of the Spanish conquerors and still shows some resemblance to the North-African ceramic. A traditional craft practiced only by the women and passed on from mother to daughter. An extinguished tradition that still resists to this day despite having lost its social and productive importance on the island. Being a potter never had much social prestige despite being a fundamental task in the society as the pottery was used for stocking, cooking and each with a specific daily function (collecting milk, curdling milk, to roast gofio, etc.).

The potters in the neighborhood of El Cercado, in the town of Chipude, are nowadays they only producers of the Gomeran pottery where we have kept the legacy of their ancestors, maintaining a tradition of unique ceramic pieces, carefully crafted by hand without the aid of molds or a potter’s wheel. A technique that starts with the hard work of preparing the clay with traditional techniques (crushed with sticks, sieving and kneading by hand) and it can require almost a month to finish a piece if you count all the processing steps: the preparation of the clay, scraping, smoothing, give it a reddish tint, the different phases of drying and baking.