Blasting and building above Masca long before the landslide

By Marlis Zoschke

It’s happened again: There’s been a landslide. Just like a few years ago near Los Gigantes. That’s not far from Masca. Blasting has always taken place in this area. Partly because there’s been a lot of building – in some cases right up into the mountains. People always wondered: «Will this be all right? Won’t everything start to slide down at some point?»

In the beginning, there were almost nothing but banana plantations along the coast. They were set up by farmers who had previously earned their living working on oil fields in Venezuela. Most of them came from the south of Tenerife; they had no work and no money to buy land.

The whole area in the south was known as the ‚Unland‘ and was apparently quite affordable. So many young men went to Venezuela, with a view to subsequently fulfilling their dream on Tenerife. Many of them made their fortunes in this way and are now owners of fincas. But there were also some hard years of work.

Then tourism came to Tenerife

When tourism eventually took hold in the south as well, the plantations were sold so that hotels could be built near the sea. The fincas were consequently moved further up the hillside, where the hard graft began all over again.

By now there were plenty of helpers who were happy to earn a few pesetas, as there was no other work available. There were still a great many illiterate people. Many adults had only attended school for four years before starting work.

Nowadays, hardly anyone can imagine what Playa de la Arena used to look like. There was a sort of dirt track covered in sand on the beach, along which the tourist bus from Puerto de la Cruz would rattle its way. By 2 pm, the commotion was over, and it was quiet again.

Before that, the guests had dined at Pancho’s or Pablo’s, in the local style, and set off again in high spirits. Their good humour was down to the horribly sweet liqueur, of which they were served almost a full wine glass.

Back then, of course, nobody gave the numerous blasting operations a second thought. And I suppose nobody is thinking about a volcanic eruption either. Even though the last volcanic eruption was a very long time ago, Mount Teide is still considered active.
One can only hope that it stays that way for a long time to come. But at the moment, it’s the slopes that are causing the most concern anyway.