Cueva de Chinguaro

The Cave-Sanctuary of Chinguaro is a cave or grotto located in the municipality of Güímar in Tenerife (Canary Islands, Spain). According to historians it was the cave-palace of the Mencey Acaimo (Guanche King of Güímar). In this cave the Guanches worshiped the Virgin of Candelaria (patron of the Canary Islands) as the goddess Chaxiraxi (worshiped in the Canaries until the Spanish conquest), until later the image was identified with the Virgin Mary and was transferred by the same Guanches to the Cueva de Achbinico in Candelaria.

The Cueva de Chinguaro was the first sanctuary of the Virgen de Candelaria, and the first Aboriginal sanctuary that contained a Christian image in the Canarian Archipelago, although At that time the Guanches continued in their animist religion, until later to be Christianized. For this reason, various archaeological tools from the Guanche era have appeared in it, making the cave a place of great archaeological importance. This cave has the category of Good of Cultural Interest, and is currently a chapel dedicated to the Virgen de Chinguaro (a derivation of the invocation of the Virgin of Candelaria) derived from when the image of the virgin was in this cave.