The creation of puddle of La Laja It is one of those stories that remain etched in anyone’s memory because of how inconceivable it would be today. Located in the Tenerife town of San Juan de la Rambla, rose to fame after various national media defined him as “the best natural pool in Spain”. But its neighbors, aware of the little paradise they have on their coast, have been enjoying it as such for more than 50 years. And it is that the puddle, as we know it today, has been the result of hard effort and dedication on the part of a group of neighbors who, far from settling for the formation given by nature, dreamed of an idyllic setting.
It happened in 1970, when a kind of commission was set up led by the late Manuel Borges, together with other rambleros and relatives, who devised municipal collection strategies to carry out their project, among others, the verbena that was held that same year in the area of the viewpoint. His daughter, Julia Borges, remembers that “the women who made up the group set up a little tavern with salads and other dishes to sell”, but the event turned out to be a failure and hardly any funds were obtained. What did help the altruists financially was the raffle for a vehicle that ended up being taken by a resident.
Rafael Hernández -known in the municipality as Fafe– He has also recalled the story, of which he is also a participant, to DIARIO DE AVISOS. “This group of neighbors wanted a larger puddle because the one that existed at that time was very small,” says the interviewee, who agrees with Julia in the efforts made by her father and the rest of the members to pay for “the dynamite, the diesel and two workers; I have never seen such good people.”
In the first place, they threw explosives with the purpose of expanding it and, while the strong waves cleaned the debris from the detonation, work began to prepare the access, “which was very dangerous.” The construction of the staircase, which Costas covered with stone over time, was vital for bathers to frequent the area. After the process, which “lasted approximately two years”, the town of San Juan de la Rambla saw the emergence of what is today one of its greatest attractions: the La Laja puddle.
However, there was a problem: when the tide went out, the natural pool emptied. It was then that Fafe, who lives a few meters from the coast, began to plug the cavity, the result of the explosion. “Every year we went to the mountains to look for a large trunk and put it in the hole, although unfortunately it didn’t last long because, being pine, it would rot,” he says.
After more than a decade carrying out the work, the neighbor decided 20 years ago, “with the sea as a plate”, to make the maneuver that he had been planning for some time a reality. “I went first thing in the morning to work on some works we were carrying out at the Tamaragua hospital, in Puerto de la Cruz, but it happened that that day there were several women giving birth at the same time and they told us to come back at another time; then I saw it clearly: it was the day of the plug”, says the rambler, who immediately bought two bags of cement at a hardware store. On the way to the puddle, Fafe ran into two young people from the town who, despite preparing their clothes to practice underwater fishing, joined the task without thinking about it. The brothers José Carlos and Alberto Luis immersed themselves under Fafe’s guidelines and managed to fill in the long-awaited gap, leaving their names and the date as a badge on the cement plug itself: a Sunday in September 2002.
The La Laja puddle, which is currently frequented by hundreds of people a day during the summer months, has become one of the most important tourist attractions in the north of the island. Although the locals themselves admit that when the sea rises “it is quite dangerous”. In fact, to access the bathing area it was necessary to avoid a rusty door that does little to prevent entry and several warning signs posted by the City Council. “The neighbors ask the foreigners who go down when there are waves not to bathe, but they look at us as if we were crazy; Unfortunately, I have already witnessed several misfortunes here, ”he admits with a downcast head.
Be that as it may, the peculiar chronicle of this natural pool, which pleasantly surprises anyone who leans over the railing, demonstrates the commitment and perseverance of a people who dreamed of more than 50 years ago, and came true.
