Mixed Messages: Masca's Road to Recovery

A strange sequence of events on Tuesday morning, starting with the cat getting me up early (note to self: must clip his nails again), caused me to do something I'd been meaning to do for months; catch the bus to Masca to see for myself (and report back), how the village is recovering from last year's fire.

Masca, as the second most visited place on Tenerife - because it is so amazing and beautiful - captures many people's hearts, but almost everyone I know here has family in Masca and, the spine chilling part is that it was only the change in the wind that took the fire there, instead of into the valley where I live. Part of me, therefore, had been merely procrastinating normally: the other part was actively avoiding seeing any heartbreaking destruction up close.

Back in November, I'd gone only as near as to overlook the Masca valley, which you will see here was brown - and that was NOT an autumnal hue. The extent of the burnt areas was just so vast it was hard for me to take in and, still is.


More comparisonsThis video was shot in the immediate aftermath of the fire and here are some comparisons between the area of the fire just 3 weeks afterwards in August 2007 and shots from 4 months afterwards, in December 2007, taken by Jos� Mesa, who tells me he took another set of photos, 9 months after the fire, on Monday.

Left are two palm trees near Masca that are easily recognized by their attractively curved trunks and, what I saw on Tuesday was much the same; lots of palm trees with "exotic" black trunks and "regulation" hair cuts. Most of rest is slowly greening up, but I think you'll agree, comparing the image taken this week with one taken around 15 years ago, that everywhere is much browner than it used to be. That is not just caused by the fire, but from climate changes.

And seasonal differences, of course. And it's not to say that it's all bad, because some ecologists opine that the fire has aided in doing cleaning that nature badly needed. I agree, but it's a bit difficult to maintain that kind of positive attitude when someone gets you up at 5.30 a.m. and a wall of fire is coming your way.

Even so, as Andrea Montgomery pointed out in her blog post, entitled The Eye of the Beholder, last December, anyone who hadn't known Masca before the fire, simply wouldn't know the difference. And the tour guides aren't telling them either.

If you do know and actually look for the signs, as I was doing, they're obvious.

Then, when you consider why those palm tree trunks are black and then notice how many of them are and how close to the houses in the village they are, you suddenly have a lump in your throat and are wondering how the *expletive* there is anything left of Masca at all.

Where reconstruction work is still being carried out to buildings that were fire damaged, such as to the restaurant La Fuente, the casual observer would probably come to the conclusion that these were regular "improvements", or that they were simply having an extension built.

And all this is good, for Masca, in the sense that visitors have been largely unaffected.

But, just to play devil's advocate for a moment and, human nature being what it is, I think there's a grave danger that such unapparentness of the damage could lead to a bit of "memory shortening".

This is already showing locally, because the town hall has published leaflets advising people to keep areas around houses weed-free and, of course, they're anything but. Just after the fire, they all knew that abandoned land full of easy burning material was a danger. Now that it's passed, it's out of sight ...

The town hall has already come under criticism from the opposition, because, back in February, works on restoring buildings that had been damaged, seemed to be taking a long time. And, from what I saw this week, they still are.

Those issues aside, the biggest "carnage" that Masca has suffered is that I was charged 30 cents (37%) more for coffee there than I would be in a non-tourist bar elsewhere locally. Everywhere I looked, there were notices warning of a charge of 50 cents for use of the toilets by non-customers. Whist I don't doubt there are plenty who take liberties, it's quite another thing to treat all your potential customers as though they're unwanted invaders and I found it off putting. I might use a loo, then become a customer, but not after being subjected to suspicion, locked doors, serious inconvenience ...

Not just Masca, but everywhere HAS to address this problem, because it sucks to be treated like "we don't really want you, but we do want your money."

The gorge was reopened last year, despite the missing bridge, but it has recently been confirmed by the Tenerife Island Corporation, that the gorge is to be gated and a charge to be levied. This has drawn criticism that ordinary folk; locals, poor people, will no longer be able to visit the Masca gorge.

And then, if no money is charged, how can we expect anywhere to provide professional services, guides, security, etc? (Toilets would be good! :-)

Masca isn't what it was when I first used to go there, to get away from it all, 15 or so years ago. Then show me somewhere, anywhere, that is!

Someone who had been to Masca 15 years before me, would have seen it less developed still.

15 years before that and they probably would have had to make their way there by donkey!

The point being that, for someone who has never been there before, Masca is still light years away from anything they know; is magically, fictionally beautiful and is very certainly Shangri-La.

The best news: maybe they weren't as noticeable as before, but there's more people now, more restaurants, more traffic, work being carried out ... but in Tuesday's cool early morning, I could hear that some birds - which the fire and lack of vegetation had driven away - were back.

Picture This - Masca. Images of Masca More images of Masca

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