Inside ‘barren’ park where Jay Slater vanished with ‘desert-like’ terrain where ‘you’d never want to be without water’
BRIT Jay Slater went missing in a “desert-like” national park with “mountainous, sparse, and barren” terrain as the search for the teen continues.
The 19-year-old from Lancashire has been missing since Monday as his mum, mountain rescuers, and the local Civil Guard help with the hunt.
Journalist at the Canarian Weekly Chris Elkington told the BBC that Jay strayed into a dangerous part of the island.
He said: “It’s a rural park where you get a lot of hiking trails, it’s very mountainous, quite sparse, quite barren.
“Quite deserty in a lot of ways, with some very deep ravines and valleys.
“It’s certainly somewhere you would not want to be in normal conditions without the correct footwear, particularly without water.”
Teno Rural Park is famed for its deep ravines, forged by the erosion that has occurred there over the ages.
It’s located a lengthy 10-hour walk from where Jay was staying.
Website Tenerife On says the northern flank of the park is “constantly exposed to the trade winds” and is “home to one of the largest swathes of monteverde forest in the Canary Islands.”
The park sits at 1,300 metres above sea level, and Hello Canary Islands says on its website that the area’s “relative geographic isolation” has contributed to its beauty.
The website also highlights the park’s “impressive enormous cactus plant spreads in the Masca ravine”.
The last person to speak to Jay was pal Lucy Law, who says he told her he was lost, in need of water, and running low on phone battery just after 8am on Monday morning.
Jay and his friends had been on a night out at the NRG music festival.
Lucy says Jay was given a lift back to his apartment by someone he had met on the night out before ending up in the “middle of nowhere”.
She also pointed out that Jay had “cut his leg on a cactus.”
Jay’s stepfather, Andy Watson, told The Sun his stepson is “no mug” and “very streetwise”, but added that the teen may have got lost in the dark.
Timeline of Jay Slater's disappearance
By Ellie Doughty, Foreign News Reporter
SUNDAY JUNE 16 – MONDAY 17
Jay goes to a rave at the 2024 NRG music festival in Tenerife, around Arona on the south of the island
8.35pm – Jay posts a smiling Snapchat video of him laughing with friends
He leaves the rave with two men he met that day and is driven back to their accommodation across the island
MONDAY 17
7.30am – Jay posts a Snapchat of a hand holding a cigarette in the area where the accommodation was – near the rural de Teno Park on the north of the island
8.30am – Jay calls his friend Lucy Law and tells her he missed a bus, had one per cent of battery left on his phone and was stuck in the “middle of nowhere”
9am – A missing persons report is filed and the search for Jay begins
TUESDAY 18
2am – Police knock on the door of Jay’s mum Debbie Duncan’s home and tell her to catch the first flight out to Tenerife
7am – She flies out from Manchester Airport alongside her son Zak to help with the search
Debbie is sent a Snapchat message saying “Kiss goodbye to your boy, you’re never going to see him again, he owes me a lot of money.”
WEDNESDAY 19
12.30pm – Police move the search to the south of the island briefly after a false sighting
Cops search his hotel room for clues as his mum says there was “nothing untoward there”
Debbie gives a heart-wrenching interview where she shares fears he has been “taken” and says “I just want my baby back”
THURSDAY 20
Cops begin day four of the massive search for Jay
His heartbroken mum Debbie told ITN: “He’s out there somewhere, or somebody knows where he is. We just need to find my baby.”
Speaking to GB News, Mr Elkington says Jay, an apprentice bricklayer, took a strange route if his intention was to find his way home.
He continued: “What is surprising is, he would have gone to this place in the early hours of Monday morning and then left shortly afterwards without any phone signal, without any water and without any offer of being taken back or taken to the local town or bus stop.
“It’s a very strange one. If you put the route into your phone, it takes you around the opposite way of the island.
“That’s why he is walking towards the rural park, not towards where he is staying.
“The concern is, he has gone off route. It’s an area that is very barren and dry and with temperatures in the high 20s, if you go off route, you can easily get lost or trip and fall.
“It’s a very concerning situation for all concerned.”
The Civil Guard on the Spanish island have said they are focusing their search on the village of Masca.
This comes after reports that police were given a “false lead” taking them to Los Cristianos.
Reacting to this, friend Lucy said: “Someone is trying to deter the police from him being up there. I’m starting to think he’s been kidnapped.”
- Jay, 19, was first reported missing on Monday after vanishing on his way home from a rave the night before
- Mum Debbie was told by cops at 2am on Tuesday to catch the first flight to Tenerife
- A Coronation Street star with a connection to Jay’s family published an appeal for help to find him
- Jay’s posted a Snapchat the night before he vanished showing him smiling with friends
- His friend Lucy described the teen’s disappearance as “suspicious and weird” as cops vowed to keep an “open mind”
- Jay’s mum was sent a message saying “kiss goodbye to your son” amid family fears he’s been kidnapped
- She gave a tearful plea last night and said “I just want my baby back”
- His family have endured days of bogus theories and sick messages from trolls
- Cops searched the teen’s hotel room in Tenerife for clues on Wednesday
Meanwhile, his mum Debbie and her partner, Andy Watson, claim sick trolls have contacted them claiming to know Jay’s location.
Andy said: “They told Debbie: ‘If you paid for my flights to Tenerife I will tell you where he is.’
“It’s just despicable.
“Some people just seem to thrive off people’s agony.”
‘KISS GOODBYE TO YOUR BOY’
It comes as Jay Slater’s heartbroken mum revealed she was sent a horrifying Snapchat message telling her to ‘kiss her son goodbye’ as fears grow he’s been taken against his will.
Police have searched missing Jay’s holiday apartment for potential clues to his whereabouts.
Officers went into the room he was sharing with a friend at a three-star apartment complex in Los Cristianos in the south of the island.
Apprentice bricklayer Jay, from Oswaldtwistle in Lancashire, was booked on a flight back to the UK today.
But his concerned mum Debbie Duncan, who has now been joined in Tenerife by Jay’s dad Warren, said she had his passport and she wasn’t expecting him to reappear and turn up for his plane home.