Gabor’s tattooed torso was the only thing visible across the scorched volcanic ravine. The pensioner had positioned his head completely underneath an umbrella so, from a distance, it was hard to recognise beneath the fabric there was a person sat in the desert landscape on the outskirts of El Medano, in southern Tenerife.
Everything Gabor needed was next to his fold-up table; from a cold box stashed with drinks to pickles and bread for snacking. His bed for the night was a tent pitched close enough to practically roll into.
“I’m retired and I came to Tenerife where the weather is much better than Hungary,” he told the Express.
“It’s gorgeous in March and April. Back in Hungary it’s very cold.”
Gabor is far from alone in taking advantage of the EU’s freedom of movement laws to live homelessly on the Canary Islands.
Both in the ravine outside El Medano and on Tenerife more widely, locals report squatters from Germany and other European states are regularly co-opting parts of the landscape without permission.
Some live in expensive campervans; others have taken over historic caves, both, local protesters claim, are damaging the delicate environments they inhabit.
Evidence of this is not hard to find, during a visit to the ravine where Gabor has been living the Express saw piles of rubbish and human waste.
Asked why he’d come to the spot outside El Medano specifically, the Hungarian pensioner replied: “This area is not yet in the central part of the population. So here you can be at peace. This is what is important to me; peace and quiet.”
Gabor said he hadn’t had any problems with a local population becoming increasingly frustrated with the way in which foreigners are taking over their homeland and claimed his minimal interactions had been “respectful”.
His plan is to continue living in the tent until he’s saved enough of his state pension to buy a motorhome.
He added: “It will take three or four months before I can get enough money together. [Before I was living in a hostel] but it was very expensive.
“I receive a certain amount from Hungary every month and I can set aside enough of that to buy a campervan in four or five months.
“After that I will leave the tent, but I want to stay in Tenerife for a longer period of time.”
Gabor was not the only Hungarian living in the ravine the Express met during our visit. Two other men from the eastern European nation were picking up supplies from a local supermarket. They claimed to be working in Tenerife and living in caves.
Anger at the way in which outsiders are buying up property or in this case simply moving into the countryside has prompted campaign groups across the Canaries to call for regulations on the number of people coming to the island and limits on the impact they have on the environment.
El Medano local Ivan Cerdana Molina, who volunteers with the group ATAN, said that those squatting in the caves near Gabor’s tent made him “feel really angry”.
“I know it’s not [their] fault, but what right do they have to come and take this cave,” he added.
