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Report - - Leper Colony, Abades Tenerife. August 2014 | European and International Sites | 28DaysLater.co.uk

Report - Leper Colony, Abades Tenerife. August 2014

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professor frink

Reppin Bumbaclaat
28DL Full Member
Had a day off from lazing by the pool and drinking and took a trip to the abandoned leper colony at Abades, disappointed faces when we returned because people thought we had pissed off to a zoo in order to see the 'Leopard Colony' :banghead

After the Spanish Civil War was over in the 1930’s leprosy was considered a major disease in Tenerife and at the time there was no cure.
The only remedy was isolation away from the main population to avoid contagions, so in 1942 they began to construct a town near Abades to enable the lepers to be quarantined there.
So the construction of over 30 buildings began in earnest which was to include a hospital, crematorium, recreation rooms, residential areas, a school and a church all to be managed by Franco’s military.
Everything was almost in place then scientists discovered Dapsone a drug that revolutionised the treatment of leprosy and changed the world for those suffering from leprosy by offering a cure and a return to society.
So the project was abandoned, I guess you could say they threw their hand in! :p:
In the sixties it was used as a military camp, entitled la Escuela de Magisterio, but was best known as a military station for shooting practice. Soldiers were housed in the finished buildings and the remains of the barbed wired circuit surrounding its perimeter can still be seen in places.
In 2002 the Department of Defence put the 900,000 square metres of land up for sale and an Italian developer, bought it for 17 million Euros in order to build a tourist complex which would include a hotel of 3,000 beds and two golf courses.
This has since floundered and the abandoned leper colony that never was still remains.


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The only decent piece of graffiti I saw on the island.


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The Hospital

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Roughly translates to "all for the fatherland"


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Inside church, (Junior Frink for scale)
 
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