Maspalomas is no longer the Dunes: it's a gentle August plundering of a Sunday desert, mostly by people from the island's capital and Telde, who, judging by their accents on TikTok, trample the sand in flip-flops and socks. Pilgrims taking selfies and brides getting married in front of the last cactus. A landscape that was once sacred, a geography that smelled of saltpeter and dry wind, transformed into a catwalk of sweaty flesh and garish backpacks dragging plastic bottles to the last sandy nook.
The Canary Islanders, the so-called Russian tourists, cross these dunes as if they were mere obstacles on their way to a cold beer, unaware that they are treading on the lungs of the south, the same sandy area that survived pirates and haze, but is now dying of tourists and neglect. It's not a stroll, it's plunder: trails that multiply like scars on the desert's aged skin.
Uncontrolled traffic is not innocent. Every footprint is a stab wound, every step a grain of sand lost in a sea that no longer renews itself. Hotels look out from their balconies as if they were temples of consumerism, praying for full occupancy while the dunes bleed dry. The Island Council preaches regulations and the town halls print green leaflets, but in the end the sand police are a mirage: no one watches, everyone remains silent. And there remain the Canarian "Russians," passing by as if it had nothing to do with them, as if the future hadn't collapsed beneath their feet. The dune doesn't scream, but it creaks. And that creaking is a warning: when the desert becomes a parking lot of dead sand, it will be too late to cry.
The Cabildo and Environment watchdogs can't keep up, but they don't raise their voices too much either: they are tolerated, tolerated, and looked the other way because confronting the Canary Islander with an umbrella and bucket in hand earns them a scolding from a guachinche. And so, with the excuse of habit, the barbarity becomes normalized. The dunes are not just any beach; they are an archive of sand where one reads the history of the Saharan winds and the tides of time. Trampling on them without conscience is like tearing pages from an ancient codex to make a cone of sunflower seeds. The absurdity is colossal, but the noise of the crowd camouflages it.
In this bitter chronicle, what is denounced is not just the passing of bodies, but the moral defeat of a land that prefers the comfort of flip-flops to the reverence of silence. The dunes of Maspalomas are dying amidst uncontrolled tourism and local indifference. The desert screams, but no one here listens.
