We have now left the big city of Santa Cruz and have established ourselves on the west coast in a village called Puerto Tazacorte, which as it’s name implies is the harbour for the town Tazacorte. It is pictured above.
This side of the island is supposed to be a few degrees warmer and drier, unfortunately the weather has been a little damp for the last two days and the forecast for the next week is awful, 50mph winds and rain. Not cold of course, just wet.
None of the houses we have stayed in have any heating, it is noticeable that the mains water feed to houses is often above ground as it never gets close to freezing around the coast.
We both like Santa Cruz, it is a proper town, about the size of Ludlow, the central streets are all pedestrianised, many of the restaurants, despite the occasional rain, have outside tables (in fact some have no inside space at all) and everyone seems busy but not rushed or unfriendly. One puzzling / strange thing is that a great many of the old houses are in a ruinous condition, perhaps 10 – 20% of them. The one photographed is for sale at 180,000€ for a very large double fronted house with nice traditional balconies in a good position, no idea why people are not buying them up other than the cost or/and bureaucracy is too great.
One house that has been sorted (see picture) is let on Air BnB and unfortunately was booked throughout Christmas. We asked the landlord to let us know if he had any cancellations but it was the one property that stayed full so there is a market for traditional houses.
Our Santa Cruz apartment was very smart, well appointed and in a good position overlooking the sea but was a bit soulless, a week was enough.
Our new house in Puerto Tazacorte is the top three floors of a four story house right in the middle of a traditional fishing village which is now quite a trendy seaside resort. There is a nice beach (black volcanic sand) five or six small tavernas which were busy when we arrived with Sunday trippers. Half a mile down the road is a very large marina. The section for yachties is very nicely appointed and well used, the rest, which is huge, is empty.
Being a sad old bloke I did a bit of digging on the internet and found a report written for the EU in 2012 about the project, it was estimated to cost 53m euros of which the EU paid half. The idea was to use it for roll on / roll off ferries which would connect this side of the island with Tenerife.
There is a perfectly good ferry port on the other side of the island and apart from banana plantations little commercial activity on this side. The report tactfully said it was a white elephant but it seems it still went ahead. There are acres of parking for the cars and lorries to line up, nice quays for the ferries to tie up and the highest breakwater I have ever seen. There are however no ferries and I doubt if there ever will be.
It is a long way round the island by boat, it is quicker by road. It did remind me of working for the EU in Greece, the project probably looked good on a powerpoint slide. The money could have been better spent giving grants to restore the old buildings in Santa Cruz, 53m€ could probably have restored them all and greatly boosted the tourism trade but of course that would never happen.
On the plus side the breakwater has a nice walkway along the top, ideal for a stroll before dinner. We have now booked to stay here until 17th January so will make the most of it.