Wendy Trakes has just started her second year as a master’s student in history, but the road to establishing her career path wasn’t straight. She has explored majors such as anthropology and sociology and for the last seven years has worked in the ASU Library.
Those windy roads brought her to her current research and projects centered around digital curation in public history with a focus on Arizona specifically.
Even when she is not in classes, Trakes travels and finds herself looking into the history of everywhere she goes. She found herself in Spain this summer and answered a few question about her recent trip.
Question: What took you to Spain for the summer?
Answer: Tenerife was literally a point on a map we hadn't been to. We were supposed to visit my sister in North Africa, but had a delay in our visas that kept us from being able to visit during our planned time off. The tickets were already bought. We decided not to give up on the flights to Europe and picked Tenerife to explore for the first time this past May. My family has always traveled a lot and I have managed to rope my partner into some kind of annual adventure as well.
Q: What stood out to you about the experience?
A: As a tourist, I always look for history museums and archaeological sites to visit wherever I travel. When I did a Google search for museums and such, I didn’t find much on Tenerife. There was a travel blog talking about the Pyramids of Guimar Botanical Garden. It wasn’t very detailed and I didn’t dig much further online. Since it was the first museum we found advertised in the area, we decided to go see pyramids. It wasn’t until we entered the property that we realized it’s actually a very large ethnographic park that included the pyramids, a botanical garden and the Thor Heyrdahl museum.
The museum took up the first floor of a 19th century house on the property as well as spread out through other more modern buildings throughout the park, including a theater and large display room with a replica of one of Heyrdahl’s experimental boats. The museum’s focus was on the early occupation of the islands, the building of the pyramids and their connection to Heyrdahl’s theory of cultural parallelisms. There wasn’t much information about the history of the house itself with the exception of a panel by the front door.
The most dominant features on the property are six flat topped pyramids of piled stones with an extensive botanical garden that has been developed around them. However, I found the Heyrdahl museum to be fascinating. From what I understand, he was very involved in the creation of the park and the museum. Having spent quite a bit of my childhood and teen years on Pacific islands, I was familiar with the oceanic voyages he pursued, but that was about it.
Q: What was the most memorable part of your trip?
A: The southern part of Tenerife is so focused on general tourism like beaches, boat rides, dining out and shopping. Finding the ethnographic park was a highlight of the trip for me. We spent an entire day there.
I was truly disappointed at how little public history about the Canary Islands is advertised to visitors. I know there are a few small museums in the islands, but the listings I was able to find were on other islands that required long ferry rides. This trip, we opted to stay just on Tenerife. I’m sure we’ll go back to explore further.
Q: What did you learn from going on this trip?
A: Heyrdahl’s theory of cultural parallelisms was the key theme throughout the museum portion of the park. The exhibits showed example after example of similarities of technology across oceans, from boats to pyramids. I was familiar with the boats and adventures, but had only a passing knowledge of how much farther he took that theory and certainly not through any academic research on my part. I remember watching documentaries and reading National Geographic about the voyages as a kid. When my parents moved, they gifted me with a collection of Heyrdahl’s books that are currently waiting to be read.