Road trip guide: Conquering Playa de Cofete on Canary Islands
Carretera de la playa de Cofete is a challenging road leading to Cofete Beach, at the western part of the Jandia peninsula, in Fuerteventura, Canary Islands, Spain. The history of the road is the subject of several conspiracy theories, often involving Nazis.
Can you drive to Cofete Beach?
Located within the Jandía Natural Park, the road to Playa de Cofete, a broad sandy beach known as the pearl of Fuerteventura island, is totally unpaved and far from easy. It’s 10.5km (6.52 miles) long, starting at the village of Morro Jable. The road is very steep climbing up to Mirador de Cofete, at 231m (757ft) above the sea level. Tucked away at the southernmost tip of the island of Fuerteventura, the track is very narrow and only allows for single file traffic in some places. Some of these places have steep drops to the side, and the journey is best done in a jeep or four wheel drive vehicle.
When was the road to Cofete Beach built?
Surrounded by a spectacular landscape, the road was built during Hitler and Franco times (end of 1930’s), to give access to the zone. Their friendship made it possible, for a major part of the peninsula Jandia to be declared a military zone where no people were allowed. For the construction of the road to Cofete political prisoners from the concentration camp in Tefia were used. The road also gives access to Villa Winter, a house that rumors say it was used as a clinic, where Nazi criminals underwent plastic surgery to change their appearance so they could start a new life in South America. Eyewitnesses claimed to have seen that these 'guests' were brought up to the coast of Jandia in submarines. But they also might have arrived by plane, because during the last phase of the war, several planes were landing and taking off every night.
Pic: Christian von dem Knesebeck