Playa de Las Teresitas
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The Playa de Las Teresitas is an artificial, white sand, tourist
beach A beach is a landform alongside a body of water which consists of loose particles. The particles composing a beach are typically made from rock, such as sand, gravel, shingle, pebbles, etc., or biological sources, such as mollusc shel ...
located north of the village of San Andrés,
Santa Cruz de Tenerife Santa Cruz de Tenerife, commonly abbreviated as Santa Cruz (), is a city, the capital of the island of Tenerife, Province of Santa Cruz de Tenerife, and capital of the Canary Islands. Santa Cruz has a population of 206,593 (2013) within its admi ...
in
Tenerife Tenerife (; ; formerly spelled ''Teneriffe'') is the largest and most populous island of the Canary Islands. It is home to 43% of the total population of the archipelago. With a land area of and a population of 978,100 inhabitants as of Janu ...
,
Spain , image_flag = Bandera de España.svg , image_coat = Escudo de España (mazonado).svg , national_motto = ''Plus ultra'' (Latin)(English: "Further Beyond") , national_anthem = (English: "Royal March") , i ...
.


Original beach

Originally the area of the beach consisted mostly of stone and rocks, with a small strip of
black sand Black sand is sand that is black in color. One type of black sand is a heavy, glossy, partly magnetic mixture of usually fine sands containing minerals such as magnetite, found as part of a placer deposit. Another type of black sand, found on b ...
. It was divided into three distinct parts that had different names: ''Tras la Arena'', closest to San Andrés; ''Los Moros'' in the middle; and finally the area bounded by the ravine of ''Las Teresas''. There was a private spa in the middle of the beach, and the area was also used for surfing. Above the beach were farms and orchards, growing bananas, mangoes, tomatoes and avocados, that provided the town with most of its income at the time. There is an important
paleontological Paleontology (), also spelled palaeontology or palæontology, is the scientific study of life that existed prior to, and sometimes including, the start of the Holocene epoch (geology), epoch (roughly 11,700 years before present). It includes t ...
site of the
Quaternary The Quaternary ( ) is the current and most recent of the three periods of the Cenozoic Era in the geologic time scale of the International Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS). It follows the Neogene Period and spans from 2.58 million years ...
. It is a submarine reservoir in a submerged beach, approximately 400 square meters. It contains fossil
mollusks Mollusca is the second-largest phylum of invertebrate animals after the Arthropoda, the members of which are known as molluscs or mollusks (). Around 85,000  extant species of molluscs are recognized. The number of fossil species is esti ...
, some endemic.


Construction of the new beach

In the 1950s, various beaches in the Santa Cruz area were disappearing as their sand was being used for construction, and the
Port of Santa Cruz de Tenerife The Port of Santa Cruz de Tenerife ( es, link=no, 'Puerto de Santa Cruz de Tenerife') in Santa Cruz de Tenerife, is used by fishing boats, commercial and passenger ships, and sports. Located on the Atlantic Ocean, it is managed by the Port Autho ...
expanded in their place. In 1953, constructing an artificial beach at San Andrés was considered by the Ayuntamiento de Santa Cruz de Tenerife (Santa Cruz City Council). The initial plan was approved in 1961, and engineers Pompeyo Alonso and Miguel Pintor created a full design for the new beach. It was approved by the city council in 1965, and the Spanish ministry in 1967. The expansion of the beach to a width of required the compulsory purchase of the farms above the beach, as well as reducing the height of parts of the area, including the removal of part of the ravine. In 1968, the
breakwater Breakwater may refer to: * Breakwater (structure), a structure for protecting a beach or harbour Places * Breakwater, Victoria, a suburb of Geelong, Victoria, Australia * Breakwater Island Breakwater Island () is a small island in the Palme ...
was constructed, from the shore, with a length of . Two piers, and an underwater cutting step, were also constructed, in order to prevent waves from carrying sand out to sea, and make the beach safer for bathers. The beach is around long. At the time, buying black local sand was too expensive due to its scarcity, so importing white
Sahara Desert , photo = Sahara real color.jpg , photo_caption = The Sahara taken by Apollo 17 astronauts, 1972 , map = , map_image = , location = , country = , country1 = , ...
sand from the
Western Sahara Western Sahara ( '; ; ) is a disputed territory on the northwest coast and in the Maghreb region of North and West Africa. About 20% of the territory is controlled by the self-proclaimed Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR), while the r ...
(then the
Spanish Sahara Spanish Sahara ( es, Sahara Español; ar, الصحراء الإسبانية, As-Sahrā'a Al-Isbānīyah), officially the Spanish Possessions in the Sahara from 1884 to 1958 then Province of the Sahara between 1958 and 1976, was the name used f ...
) was investigated. The white sand was also more appealing for tourists. In 1971, the city council obtained a loan of 50 million pesetas, and purchased 150,000 cubic metres of sand, weighing around 270,000 tons, from the
El Aaiún Laâyoune ( , also , ) or El Aaiún ( , ; Hassaniya Arabic: , romanized: ; ber, ⵍⵄⵢⵓⵏ, Leɛyun; ar, label=Modern Standard Arabic, Literary Arabic, العيون, al-ʿUyūn/el-ʿUyūn, lit=The Spring (hydrology), Springs) is the la ...
region. It was transported by the company '' Fosfatos de Bucraa'', and 5 million bags of sand arrived in the ship ''Gopegui''. It was used to fill the beach in the first half of 1973 to create the
artificial beach A beach is a landform alongside a body of water which consists of loose particles. The particles composing a beach are typically made from rock, such as sand, gravel, shingle, pebbles, etc., or biological sources, such as mollusc shell ...
of white sand, which opened on 15 June 1973, although with initial problems due to red ants and scorpions that were imported along with the sand. The current set of kiosks were constructed at the same time.


Maintenance

The white sand is lighter than the native black sand. This makes it easier for the wind to pick up the grains and blow them off the beach. The changes to the ravine increased the local windspeed, making the issue worse. The breakwater reduced the waves, which reduced the removal of sand by the waves, but also its replacement by waves. Not much sand is removed by rainfall, as there isn't much in the region, but human impact is significant. The beach is regularly cleaned and smoothed. Between April and November 1998, another 2,800 tonnes of Saharan sand was added to replenish that lost in the beach's 25 first years of existence. The new sand cost 400 million pesetas.


Use

It is one of the most popular beaches of the Canary Islands, and is one of the few on Tenerife that do not have the black, volcanic sand that most of the rest of the Canary Islands have. Others such as Las Vistas, in Los Cristianos, are artificial, but the beach at El Médano (the Dune) is entirely natural. The Playa de Las Teresitas was chosen for the promotional
spot Spot or SPOT may refer to: Places * Spot, North Carolina, a community in the United States * The Spot, New South Wales, a locality in Sydney, Australia * South Pole Traverse, sometimes called the South Pole Overland Traverse People * Spot (produ ...
for the third season of the
reality show Reality television is a genre of television programming that documents purportedly unscripted real-life situations, often starring unfamiliar people rather than professional actors. Reality television emerged as a distinct genre in the early 19 ...
,
Geordie Shore ''Geordie Shore'' is a British reality television series that was broadcast on MTV between 24 May 2011 and 22 November 2022. Based in Newcastle upon Tyne, England it was the British offshoot of the American show ''Jersey Shore''. The programm ...
, ''"Chaos in Cancún"'' (aired on
MTV MTV (Originally an initialism of Music Television) is an American cable channel that launched on August 1, 1981. Based in New York City, it serves as the flagship property of the MTV Entertainment Group, part of Paramount Media Networks, a di ...
in the UK).MTV España anuncia "Geordie Shore - Caos en Cancún"
/ref> The beach has parking for over 100 cars, as well as a bus service. It has a paddle area; bars; restaurants; and facilities.


References

{{reflist, refs= {{cite news , title=40 años de arena rubia , url=http://www.laopinion.es/tenerife/2013/01/14/40-anos-arena-rubia/454833.html , newspaper=
La Opinión de Tenerife ''La Opinión de Tenerife'' is a newspaper of the province of Santa Cruz de Tenerife (Canary Islands, Spain). History and profile ''La Opinión de Tenerife'' was launched online on 11 September 1999 and distributed in print kiosks just ten days la ...
, date=14 January 2013 , accessdate=19 April 2013, language=Spanish, archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20171027204113/http://www.laopinion.es/tenerife/2013/01/14/40-anos-arena-rubia/454833.html, archivedate=27 October 2017
{{cite web , title=Las Teresitas Beach - Beaches - Tenerife , url=https://www.webtenerife.co.uk/what-see/beaches/las+teresitas.htm , website=www.webtenerife.co.uk , accessdate=25 February 2020 Beaches of the Canary Islands Santa Cruz de Tenerife