'Hikers go missing here every summer ... it can take months to find a body'

As the search for Jay Slater, 19, enters a 10th day, Tenerife villagers tell Holly Evans about the treacherous Masca Valley

- Holly Evans

From the winding main road that links the villages of Masca and Las Portelas, close to where 19-year-old Jay Slater disappeared, four white police cars can be spotted, parked down a deep ravine. Officers from the Guardia Civil dressed in green and black spend their day walking among the shrubs, accompanied by a sniffer dog as the search continues more than a week after he went missing.

While helicopters and drones had previously been deployed to find the teenager, it is now a small group of emergency workers who lead the search, with specialist canines brought in from Madrid. Mr Slater’s last known location is believed to be a remote area near the Mirador La Cruz de Hilda cafe, an 11-hour walk from his accommodation in the south of Tenerife.

His disappearance has attracted search parties of friends and family, as well as an army of internet sleuths and conspiracy theorists. Yet by yesterday afternoon, only a group of officers were visible, with no trace of the apprentice bricklayer to offer any clues.

Speaking to The Independent, a young waiter at a cafe in Masca expressed his surprise at the media attention. “This happens a lot,” he said. “People walk, go missing and sometimes they get found, sometimes it takes a while.”

Conditions in the Masca Valley are brutal – the hillsides are covered in wild shrubbery and cacti, with narrow paths suddenly leading to dramatic drops on either side. By retracing his final known footsteps, it is easy to see how someone could become lost if they ventured off the main road or any of the well-trodden paths.