Abandoned Taurito Hotel, Gran Canaria

The town of Taurito is stunning.  It's a bay which has been built up as a tourist resort, with most hotels built into the hills on both sides.  The abandoned hotel Taurito is no exception, having been built, or at least intended to be built into the eastern hillside.

At the height of the global financial crisis of 2008, Spain and the Canary Islands were hit hard.  Whilst not suffering quite so much as the Greek economy, Spain found itself with a massive financial hangover and this is one of the reasons why the Canaries are littered with abandoned would-be hotels like this one.

Having spent a few days in Gran Canaria in January, and of course loving a bit of urbex'ing, I was keen to check out the abandoned hotel of Taurito.

Nobody actually knows for sure why construction was stopped in 2008.  It is simply assumed that nervous bankers pulled the plug, and that all workers on site were told to down tools and leave.  The state of the site would certainly back up this theory.

So how is the site laid out?

Let's be clear, this magnificent but partially completed concrete jungle has been basking in the Canarian sun for nearly fifteen years.  Nothing has happened here since, for whatever reason, construction stopped. Whilst some of the more portable tools and valuable assets will have been taken, the site is littered with things such as electrical fuseboxes as well as staircases that remain without guard rails.

The idea, looking at the bare bones of the place would suggest that the hotel had a large number of rooms facing the sun as it would rise over the opposite hillside.  During my visit, at around 9am in mid-January, I  witnessed the sun just starting to rise partially covering the site, as can be seen in the photographs.  

WARNING!

The ground floor reception to the right, with concrete beams (I think!)

The hotel is located about half way up the former GC-500 linking Taurito with the next, and much more developed but still just as stunning, Puerto Mogan.  Unfortunately, this road suffered a massive landslide in 2016 which caused significant damage.  Nothing has been done since other than fences being erected to stop cars attempting the drive.  That said, as a pedestrian, don't be put off.  What you'll find is that a lot of people use the fenced off road as a morning walking route, some were even walking their pet dogs on the day I visited.  You just can't drive up there anymore.

Back to the hotel and I explored what I believe was intended to be the ground floor reception.  I used my imagination to visualise how it would have looked, the concrete pillars part of the design would have looked great with floor to glass fronting.  I'd imagine anyway!

The abandoned GC-500 road to Mogan, closed in 2016 due to a landslide

The hotel itself is as I say built into the hillside and a quick calculation would suggest it was to have up to ten floors spread across various levels of the site.  The rooms look like they were going to be a decent size so I would think the developers intended it to be at least a four or maybe five star rated establishment.  

From a purely urbex point of view, wandering around is very easy and there are no areas that are off limits.  But this is one of those sites where depending on what you want to see, depends on how brave you are.  I climbed one of the staircases (minus a handrail) and that was challenging enough given the rusted bolts sticking up through concrete steps.  But you can, in theory, climb to the top of the hotel.  If that's too much for you, there's everything inbetween.  

As with all abandoned Canarian hotels, vandalism is rife

The morning sun as it rises from across the bay, view of the hotel from the closed road GC-500

Conclusion

If you like an easy urbex, this is it.  Overall, I enjoyed this one and spent about an hour just looking around. I was also joined by a couple of curious Norwegian tourists who happened to be staying at one of the other hotels in Taurito.  Well, you wouldn't be staying at this one I suppose!

Access is simple once you've scaled a small crash barrier at the bottom of the hill.  The actual hotel site itself has no barriers or any other fencing to stop you.  It's open, and just a short climb up a small mound to the entrance.

It's a worthwhile site to poke around as it's very much a 'moment in time' type of urbex ie you get the very real sense that a foreman said "down tools" and everyone left the site.  It remains in that state even now, some fifteen years later.  Sad of course to think about the poor workers who lost their jobs though.

Do be very careful though.  There are abandoned sites, and there is the abandoned Taurito hotel.  When construction stopped on this site in 2008, workers were told to simply down tools and leave.  That's what they did, which means hazards are laid bare.  There are metal rivets and nails literally poking up from the ground.  As with this and all other urbex'ing, do be careful!

Directions:

From the GC-1 it's a short 1 minute drive down to the small town of Taurito.  The abandoned hotel is then a short walk from the gravel car park opposite the fenced off former GC-500. 

Access to the hotel is about half way up the hill from the town and you'll need to scale a small crash barrier to the left of the fenced off road, at the bottom.  The good news is that stone slabs have been placed at the crash barrier to aid your leap over and there are plenty other curious tourists doing the same jump - the locals even go dog walking up the hill past the hotel.

Recommended visit time: 30-60 minutes