Built in the early 1960s, the tourist complex is made up of more than 2,000 apartments distributed in the Alborada, Drago, Géminis, Maravillas, Bella Vista, Frontera, Primavera and Eureka developments. In its 80,000 square meters it has everything a town requires, including the first large shopping center on the Island. Today it is a deteriorated place with little hope for its future.
With its construction a new way of understanding tourism emerged. Are 2005 apartments distributed in eight complexes: Alborada, Drago, Gemini, Maravillas, Bella Vista, Frontera, Primavera and Eureka. All with a swimming pool and a main one, with salt water and next to a beach: La Ballena. It houses what was the first shopping center in the region and on the Island. Parks, garden areas, sports facilities, shops, bars, pharmacy, post office, banks, terraces, discotheque, a train as its own internal transport, bicycles and even pedal cars for rent. All this in 80,000 square meters of Arona configures what, over time, was considered the first vacation town: Ten-Bel.
The idea came from Michel Albert Huygens, the Belgian businessman who in 1963 built the first reference complex in the South. Ten-Bel is a toponym that merges Tenerife and Belgium. For almost three decades (70s, 80s and 90s) of the last century attracted millions of tourists English, German, French, Dutch, Scandinavian and Belgian, as well as peninsular and Canarian. It was the favorite place of interior tourism. “What happened in Ten-Bel stayed in Ten-Bel”, remembers a group of those who lived “some summers of that splendor”.
Chano, Jesús, Teresa, Ángeles and Juan Miguel returned to Ten-Bel to serve as a reference point for the past and present of this place. “In whose hands has this been? Really, the City Council can not do anything? This is unrecognizable. Do tourists come here? There are places that look dodgy, dodgy.” And they continue to reflect and reminisce.
“And these generators?” It is the verification of the penultimate episode that they live more than 4,000 of the inhabitants who today reside in Ten-Bel, where there were about 7,000 registered. Because what was a vacation town is today a residential area of Costa del Silencio. Another toponym that was born under the protection of the success of Ten-Bel, when other companies built in their environment and became a ruthless competition. There begins the stagnation and decline, which is accentuated with the sale of the complex by the heiress (her daughter) of Huygens, who died in 2002. «Twenty years after her death, Ten-Bel has become a nightmare». Mariano, fictitious name of a resident, assures it, “because here you have to be careful, still.”
The disaster
The companies that acquired the place changed the model by selling the apartments to reside at prices below the market. The payment of all essential services and the care of the area became a matter for each new owner and for the communities that were emerging. The defaulters arrived, the squatters, the replacement of owners… Alborada remained and remains as the only tourist exploitation. The new administrative condition caused a cut in the water supply in July 2017. It was resolved.
On December 29 last, a cpower supply off. On the 30th they rented generators thanks to which today, a month later, they still have electricity. The consumption of all of Ten-Bel is recorded in a central accountant, which distributes the expenditure by communities. But the non-payment is important and the negotiation with the supplier company is not closed. Nor with the General Directorate of Industry to individualize the control of consumption.
«Someone has to give us a solution. We have paid. If Ten Bel Turismo (the owner company) did not pay EndesaYou will have to explain it.” These are the words of Luca Mastrantonio (Eureka) pronounced in the last month that summarize the feelings of the more than 1,400 families who are looking for answers and solutions. “We have electricity, yes, but at a price that we don’t know how long we can maintain.” Spills occur to be able to pay the rent of the generators and the fuel they need to run.
The municipal government tells them, as it does to anyone who asks, what all municipal authorities have said for the last 20 years: “It is a private area in which we cannot act, is not received. Why? Because Ten-Bel does not fit the project authorized for its construction. There were attempts, the last one in 2018. When everything seemed to be on track and even the Arona City Council announced that it was possible to rescue this area of the municipality from its disastrous situation, the property did not comply, they have explained from the Arona Consistory since then.
Meetings for a solution
Currently, the municipal government and representatives of the communities that make up Ten-Bel work “hand in hand” to solve a problem “that has us exhausted,” says Mastrantonio. The last meeting on that line took place yesterday. “But, at the moment, there is no perspective,” he says.
Time seems stopped, as if a hecatomb had occurred and there was no one left. It is Ten-Bel, a once bustling tourist area and shiny that today looks like in many of its corners a scene from the series The Walking Dead. Downed trees, smashed swings, garbage everywhere, stairs that show their metal skeleton, remains of charred palm trees, painted everywhere… Even the prickly pears are dry and dead.
