Puerto del Rosario
To find the charms of Fuerteventura´s capital, you need more than
a little good will.
Begin your walk round the town at the harbour, on the promenade, and stroll
through the oldest part of town, past the market, through narrow alleys
between dilapidated houses or through amazingly quiet side streets, where
bushes and the tops of trees hidden behind walls and in patios suggest
shady oases, up to the main shopping street, Avenida de 1 de Mayo and
Calle Leon y Castillo.
The church in the centre, surrounded by the island administration, the
court, and the Paliament of the Canary Isles, is dedicated to the Virgen
del Rosario (virgin of the rosary), the patron saint of the former Puerto
de Cabras, which was christened in her honour in 1956 and since bears
her more pleasant-sounding name.
From the 15th century onwards, the bay near the mouth of the Rio de Cabras,
which in those days was still filled with water, was used as a landing-station,
mainly for the supply of provisions (goat´s meat, milk, cheese)
and water. The town itself did not start developing along with trade until
the end of the 18th century, after the Coroneles in La Oliva had obtained
permission for the easily accessible harbour to be used for exports. Puerto
del Rosario die not become capital till 1860.
From December 1975 to 1995, Puerto del Rosario was home to the foreign legion, which was transferred from Spanish Sahara when the latter gained independence, to the province of Spain that was the furthest flung and least populated, but important from the point of view of military strategy (and the part of the province it was sent to was Fuerteventura). The foreign legion had once been an elite troop within the army, and the custom had long been that the eldest son of each family served in it; now it brought to the capital a rise in crime, a certain kind of nightlife, the reveille every morning and occasional assistance in matters of defence.
