OUR HISTORY
The oldest data that exists dates back about two hundred years with our great-great-
grandfather who inherited, bought or built the first part of the house, where the living
room and kitchen are today. Later our great-grandfather built the area where the two
rooms are located, formerly used as a shop. After his trip to Cuba, my grandfather, and
with the money he was able to save, built the last part of the house, this part not being
the tourist accommodation.
The house Pepita, the one with the flowers, is named after her grandmother who looked
after and pampered a large number of flowers and plants that were found on the paths
to the house and in its courtyards, at the same time that Diego, her husband, was
dedicated to farming and other work creating forest tracks and dam works. This house
was a social meeting place in the area since, in addition to being a shop, the house
housed the only gramophone in the area and also the first radio in the place. The
neighbours would come here in the afternoons to enjoy the company of so much new
technology that to some people seemed like the work of the devil himself.
Pepita and Juan came from humble families and had nine children who were born and lived in the area. As young people they
experienced the effects of the Spanish Civil War, having small children, although the effect that it had on the centre of the
island was not so much the warlike and weapons aspect but the consequences
of a ruthless military-religious dictatorship and the shortage of basic
products for survival, foodstuffs and, like so many others, with the ration
card, the small pieces of land, the pond that Diego made in his free time for
fourteen years with the help of a simple pickaxe, a pond that currently exists
next to the house and with the savings from the two trips that Diego made to
Cuba, they raised their family.
In Gran Canaria, around 1933, there were 285 springs. Near the centre of
the La Culata neighbourhood there are 3 of these springs, 2 of which are in
the open air and at a very unusual height for a spring (since they are usually
located in much lower areas). Perhaps the
location of the island's capital would have been different if the Catholic Monarchs, on 26
July 1501, had not authorised the transfer of water from this part of Tejeda to San Mateo,
which required a titanic engineering work with the creation of a 342 m. tunnel to the
Barranco de la Mina (in the upper area of the municipality of Vega de San Mateo)
constituting the first hydraulic work on the Islands. This same spring (divided into that of the
Las Palmas estate and that of Los Molinillos), supplies both the town of Tejeda and its
neighbourhoods. In this area of the Gran Canaria summit is the hamlet of Los Manantiales,
which honours the history of water in La Culata, a toponym that also has its origin in these
springs.
Pepita la de las flores Juan Rodríguez