La Restinga Is Dying As Each Day Passes

La Restinga Is Dying As Each Day Passes 

 

 The green color of the sea in the port of La Restinga, a surprise to residents. | FRAN Pallera

VICENTE PEREZ | THE PINE

It is strange to walk through the streets of a town of nearly 600 people without seeing cars or people walking, and open bars, and boats in the harbor ... It's bleak panorama offered by La Restinga, the neighborhood was evacuated for the second time last Saturday, and you can return in the day, but not at night, when the Guardia Civil closes it under lock and key as a precautionary measure by the volcanic eruption that is about a mile and a half infront of La Restinga.

At noon yesterday, around 15.00, the editor of Diario de Avisos arrived at La Restinga, on the bus of Transhierro, from El Pinar, a path wrapped in a thick fog, in which, the Editor was the only passenger. The driver confirmed that public transport is making its regular schedule, but very few people are traveling.

The overwhelming majority of residents in this neighborhood has chosen not to go down to their homes more than necessary, and prefer to continue in their second homes in El Pinar, or in the homes of relativesfor fear that already undisguisedly , feel the volcano, and, above all, the possibility of another evacuation.

Thursday was a quiet day, no earthquakes were felt in La Restinga and the volcano hinted at life at sea, at least the focus to the point that, as happened on Wednesday, the ocean seemed the same as always, that of before the volcano, blue and beautiful, calm in the Sea of ​​calms. Only at times was it outlined as a ring, the circle indicates the focus of underwater eruption. But little else.
Walking through the streets near the port, the susceptible smell you can notice a certain odor of sulfur, and in the sea green and yellow coloration continues along the coast, volcanic emanations.

By that afternoon, in the village were just reporters and emergency personnel, and a geologist. Thus, a Guardia Civil lieutenant was talking with a journalist from Television Canaria, which has a mobile unit moved into the area. "I have not seen anything unusual here, or gases, and look to spend hours and hours in this area," says the reporter.

Instead of divers vans, which now appears at the end of the main road is a van with a station measuring air quality, which currently is fit to breathe, but not before the purity of the volcano.

However, not far from there, at the end of the town, after passing the Arenas Blancas apartments, where they begin the badlands of the Sea of ​​Calm, a seal placed by the Guardia Civil prohibits the passage to the coast from this point to Puerto Naos, as a preventive measure against the occurrence of toxic gases.
There the minds obliges you to stop for a moment, watching the rivers of black lava rope leading down to the sea from the craters that seem new, but they have many hundreds, perhaps thousands of years.
Only a couple of foreign tourists walk by the sea, quiet, camera in hand, and far away, in the end of the pier, are several civil guards and a scientific staff of manipulating an antenna.

 

 But if there is a soulless image is that of the port, the pontoons are empty. No ships, a port is like a forest without trees, and the vacant space left is unable to fill even the memory. Weeks ago, they took 40 fishing and 40 recreational boats , and now there are only three small boats and a submarine excursion which has never entered into service, according to residents.

Approaching the sea, the gaze plunges into the ocean's surface under which a volcano that has emerged was 120 meters tall two weeks ago, and now will have gained more height. But still not too much to emerge, although one month has passed already since it erupted.

Nowhere is a soft drink or eat something. All bars are closed. Every once in a while a door is opened, with a neighbor who comes for a few belongings or to review your home or business.

In the streets, some parked cars, suggests that it is still a ghost town. At 1800 hours is when you start to get their last neighbors, the passage of the Guardia Civil patrol, walking the paths and melancholic inspecting this eviction.

"I came with my husband to take food to the birds, this is very sad, I never saw the people look as deserted and sad, since I came here 50 years ago when they were four houses," said Maria, while kittens meow along an old house. "We throw food for the animals, trying to care for a mother with a young," he explains, with some tenderness.

At 18.00 we see a glimmer of joy: children playing in a park next to the promenade. Fifteen minutes later, the special envoys of this newspaper, editor and photographer, already meeting in La Restinga, leave town, heading to El Pinar, this time by car. Along the road, at the height of Puerto Naos, on a headland journalists crowd, curious and a resident of the town, scanning the sea in search of a bubble, something striking, though yesterday they had no award.

 La Restinga, deserted. | F. P.

"Let's see if the volcano leaves , without harming anyone, and there we have an island that attracts tourism again," says a young pinatero camera in hand. Up in El Pinar, expect cold, fog and uncertainty of nearly 600 residents of a seaside village who now lives at the summit, over 700 meters high, yearning for the smell of salt and fish.