Ahead of our departure, now three weeks away, it’s not all CNED (schoolwork), boat preparation and beach outings.

The archaeological dig at La Cueva Pintada, a site dedicated to the preservation of and research into pre-Hispanic life on Gran Canaria, proffered the opportunity of some extracurricular historical tourism, and what we parents hoped was a more engaging learning experience than some of the drier CNED manuels.

Right in the centre of town in Galdar, in the shadow of their holy mountain, what was once a village of dozens of houses has now been encompassed within a single new construction.

Audiovisual exhibits and reconstructions endeavouring to recreate the archaeologists’ (somewhat idealised) vision of what life would have been like before Spanish colonisation destroyed the idyllic (as portrayed) existence of the Guanches almost wiping them out entirely, filled out the ruins and the finds into a well-rounded visit that gave us a very clear picture of what life may have been like before the modernisation imposed on the island by its Castilian colonists.

We then struggled to find a decent restaurant before meandering back through the island’s interior.