It is located just a few kilometers from Las Canteras beach, but it houses the mysteries of the end of the world. The landscape that the volcanic lava, and the sun depending on the time, has left in what once were The Salt Flats of El Confitalthe largest in Gran Canaria, with its red stones, seems taken from Mars and is a piece of memory of the history of the Canary Islands that wants to be heard before being covered in sand right where the wind goes around the Island.
The El Confital Salt Flats were built in 1867 and were producing until 1956, generating 120 tons of salt per year for the consumption of the city of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria. Salt, so closely linked to the advancement of people, was a prized element in societies at the end of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th century for its properties for preserving food. Currently, the City Council of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria plans to recondition, not only the space where the salt flats once transformed the landscape, but also to recognize the entire space for its landscape value, for its richness in biodiversity and for its historical and cultural value.
Its operation; The sea water was collected from a well, and sent through an aqueduct, whose skeleton can still be guessed walking through the area, to a first storage facility, the cocedero. The impetus for this transfer was possible thanks to the power of a windmill once located on a masonry wall. From there and after a few days, the water was taken to the pits through canals.
In these pits, the water evaporated exposed to the sun, leaving only the salt that was later collected by the salt collector. The waterproofing of the soil was achieved through the dry mud technique, which prevented water from seeping into the ground.
The last of a line
The last salt farmer in the city was Celestino Ramírez, who was forced to abandon the salt mines due to a legal stratagem promoted, as his grandchildren remember, by the owners of the land until 1998, the Bravo family from Laguna.
Ramírez, a native of Carrizal, from a family of farmers, began working in the salt mines when he was only 16 years old and from that age he learned from the former salt mine operator all the knowledge and techniques he needed to know for the correct production of salt. Five years later, in 1905, after reaching an agreement with the military, managers of the territory at the time, Celestino remained the sole exploiter of the salt mines in exchange for a fee, without knowing that he would be the last in his job, like so many Canarians, last of some traditional profession that competes with oblivion, in that immense loneliness that must inhabit being the last of something, as if whoever had drawn the character suddenly died.
Fortunately, there are architectural remains and eyewitnesses of what was once the empire of salt, the most important artisanal business of the time for the city. If you walk around the red stones of El Confital, you can see the grandson of the last salt farmer, Juan Hernández Ramírez, walking there in his 80s. When asked why he continues taking that walk despite the rugged terrain, he responds that “his legs take him there” even though he wants to go the other way and walk, for example, through Las Canteras. Hernández worked in Las Salinas as a child and has bright memories of that “healthy” time in which many hours of work were put in. “Above all, fetching water from the salt mines and collecting salt in the afternoon,” he tells this editorial team.
“Salt was sold in grocery stores, in convenience stores. oil and vinegar, The salt was bagged in 50 kilo and five kilo bags and, depending on the client, it was distributed to all the stores in the city of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria.
Juan Hernández’s admiration for his grandfather returns to his children’s eyes when he talks about him, he admires him for everything he worked, carrying out the exploitation of the largest salt mine on the Island until his children were older and could go to work. “Thank God or my grandfather’s sacrifice, in the post-war period, which was a misfortune for so many people, people did not go hungry.”
He admires him for his hunger for life, that he learned to read and write on his own. “Especially at night, I remember, just for us children, seeing the lighthouse, like when it was turned on at night, especially on dark nights, that burst of light, which was once, twice, three times. He paused, then came back again, then another pause, then one, two, and three, as if he were seeing it now.”
The dispute with “the Bravos”
The military and the Bravo family from Laguna had a dispute over the ownership and management of the land where the salt flats were located: “the Bravos,” as they were known by the inhabitants and workers of La Isleta, were the natural owners while the For decades, the military managed the upper part of La Isleta, including Las Coloradas and Las Salinas because it was a strategic point in a Europe at war. When the Bravo family of Laguna recovers the territory, it is with them that Celestino Ramírez has to deal directly. His grandson José Ramírez claimed in a documentary directed by Verónica García Melgar and published in 2022 by Bilenio Cultura, that the first thing the family did was impose an “abusive and unaffordable” fee on the salt farmer. Celestino refused and decided to hire the services of a lawyer to advise him. “The lawyer told him not to worry, that the lawsuit would be won easily,” says his grandson. The end of this story is a betrayal by the lawyer, who made Celestino sign a “cumbersome” document by which the salt farmer abandoned the concession of the salt mines and transferred it to the Bravos. “During the time that the litigation lasted, the Bravos dedicated themselves to intimidating, threatening and bothering my grandfather and our family, going so far as to hire the services of a character named Antonio the bandit“We believe that he was a Falangist from that time, who entered the salt flats on horseback every day with a shotgun.”
And since neither abuses of power nor misfortunes come alone, in the middle of this lawsuit, Don Celestino’s wife dies and all this undermines the spirit of the last salt farmer who was “bored” and in December 1956 he decided to abandon the salt mines, leaving that phrase that his grandchildren would remember all their lives: “What they did to me was a bad payment.” If the walker passes by there, he can now imagine and remember a totally different city, white and bright red, and the good thing about memory is that it always arrives on time.
#rescue #memory #salt #flats #world
