Barranco Tahodio, Valle Luis and Valle Vega. They are the three locations of the municipality of Santa Cruz that border Jardina and from which the Taluve neighborhood association takes its name, chaired by Roberto González, who calls for progress to be made in improving the Tomadero path. It starts on the same main road and, when it leaves the lagoon municipal area some twenty meters away, it enters the geography of chicharrera and continues for four kilometers, until it reaches near the Charca Tahodio. From there, a section opens that must be covered on foot to continue for another five kilometers that are already practicable by car, until reaching Muelle Norte.
It is not lost on the reader that, if it had been possible to travel the almost ten kilometers by car, it would be a bypass to circumvent traffic inside the capital, an elevator between Santa Cruz and La Laguna. An idea that is attributed to the former chicharrero mayor Santiago García Sanabria, between 1923 and 1930. Even the president of Taluve claims to have seen this visionary project that was finally carried out in 1954 but that, when it was tried to revive, the Vía de Ronda was already planned.
Yesterday morning, the island councilor for Urban Environment Management of the Cabildo de Tenerife, the socialist Isabel García, and the councilor of Anaga de Santa Cruz, the nationalist Inmaculada Fuentes, went to Tahodio Alto to, together with members of the Taluve Neighborhood Association, tour the area in which both administrations have intervened in the first section of the road, one kilometer long. It was possible with a collaboration agreement in which the Cabildo contributed 66% and the City Council, 33% – of a total investment amounting to 400,000 euros – for the improvement of the Tomadero track, in a section of 200 linear meters .
The Minister of Management of the Natural Environment recalled that it is the second time in recent years that the Cabildo intervenes in this track of Tomadero. The first one was developed in 135 meters and supposed to the Insular Corporation an effort of 367,000 euros, to improve half a kilometer.
Yesterday’s visit is justified because, once this second action has been completed by the Cabildo, the Island Corporation now hands it over to the Santa Cruz City Council, which assumes its maintenance. Hence the concern of the councilor for the district of Anaga and also of Rural Infrastructure, Inmaculada Fuentes, about the finish of the track, such as the absence of some sidings.
the auctions
The island councilor Isabel García, who chatted and became one more neighbor with Pilar -from the Taluve association-, admitted that the visits on site allow to know the need to improve and finish the works. With this premise, he announced the willingness of his department to include in the budgets of the Cabildo of 2023 some auctions in order to try to face a new section, which allows progress in the improvement of that first part of the Tomadero track from Tahodio Alto.
They are not the only performances executed. In fact, the neighbors recognize that in recent years it has improved remarkably, although, they quickly add, there is still much to be done. In fact, the last action has been undertaken from the Cabildo in another 200 linear meters of the Tomadero path. The cost of the investment: 40,000 euros. The councilor of Anaga, Inmaculada Fuentes, also announced that Santa Cruz will intervene in another section of similar length and investment budget. “That is already signed,” she told the neighbors.
For Inmaculada Fuentes, this work is essential to allow accessibility. At the end of the path, after a hike for beginners, he adds: “A path is not the same as a highway. Are you listening to me or were you exhausted from the walk?»he asks his interlocutor in an almost inquisitive tone, taking advantage of the absence of the island councilor who endorsed Pilar’s invitation, from the Taluve neighborhood association, to visit her farm, La Huronera.
While the visitor whose soles are made of the asphalt of the city recreates in the contrast of the more agricultural Santa Cruz and away from roads such as Calle del Castillo or San José, the councilor is surprised to discover the cave houses that are still they keep on top of the mountain. “Impressive how they lived,” admits Isabel García, because it is as hard to walk the entire length of the first section as it is to climb to that place.
the voice of wisdom
Once again, the voice of wisdom, that of Roberto González, who retired as a local police officer – he had his own place in Arona – after 15 years of practice and after having dabbled in other professions, from agriculture – the who fell in love with his grandfather, whom he saw working the fields in San Benito–, until he earned his livelihood as a wellman. He tells one of the anecdotes about him, when he opened a tomb three meters long, three meters wide and three meters deep and… he found a mass grave.
Back from yesterday and with his feet in Tahodio Alto, Roberto González assures that when he visited the area, some 450 people lived there, and to prove his words he points to the cave houses that can be seen today how they stretch between the steep orography. “Now about six people live there,” says the president of Taluve, who admits that he is content with a small but constant investment each year. “Much remains to be done,” and that is what her wife, Pilar, told the island councilor when he took her to La Huronera.
In the last section, the hostess passed with the ease of an athlete through a wooden bridge that also has its history. Again Robert. His relationship with Tahodio Alto dates back to the eighties, so he is an exceptional witness to his evolution. He says that he himself, with the help of other neighbors and friends, built that bridge, as they also did when a storm erased the layout of the Tomadero track in February 2010.
A broken fixed track
The hand of man, especially the administration, is noted with the concreting in sections of a couple of hundred meters, executed in the first kilometer. A conquest for 4×4 vehicles, because, at times, it becomes impractical for a normal tourism, which would mean stealing from the frustrated visitor to know enclaves such as Patricio’s red quarry, from where blocks were extracted even for cathedrals, adds Roberto González, who attributes the property of Carmen Clavijo to him in the past. What until months ago was a quagmire, today has a concrete wearing course that allows the fair transit of the neighbors. Nor do they aspire to be a high-traffic area that builds a wall in this orchard of Anaga.
