PAUL R. ROCES
@Pavlinrodriguez
Perlora (Asturias)
Friday, August 16, 2019 - 01:14
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When one walks through the holiday town of Perlora, it is difficult not to remember that sentence of Crematorio , the fabulous portrait of the boom and the wasteless Mediterranean waste of Rafael Chirbes : "Time, the rat that eats everything". Here, in the Asturian council of Carreño , the jaws of the rodent have not stopped crushing in recent years without compassion. The vegetation has been gaining ground to the almost 200 villas that make up the 20 hectares of this former summer recreation place between the beaches of Huelgues and Carranques . The vines slip through the gaps of the broken glass of each house and the garbage accumulates before the graffiti on the walls.
When night falls, silence gallops through the four empty streets of the complex except for a small beach bar near a recreational area. Year 2019: Perlora, ghost town on vacation .
Among the undergrowth, the green color of a Rural Box cap and a brown striped shirt on a white background stand out. There, as if time had never passed, sitting on the porch of one of the dilapidated villas, Chus continues. As if it had been anchored to the place in one of the summers between the 60s and 80s. "The whole family always came here to this villa, which was from Hunosa [public mining company]. I keep coming all the summers for a walk and I feel in the same place, "he says. Because this man, already in old age, grabs his cane with strength and points to Langreo Street , where before the cries of the mothers were heard calling their children to pick up at dinner time. Boys and girls from Asturias , León , Málaga ... who fluttered through the semi-deserted streets today.
Perlora was occupied by more than 2,000 people in 15-day shifts every summer between 1952, when the Franco's vertical union laid one of the first stones of what would later be the tourist boom with this vacation town, and its closure in 2006. In total 54 summers in which public company workers and their families enjoyed these accommodations for a period of two weeks. It was the summer prize for employees of the Hunosa mining company, the Ensidesa steel company, the Caja de Ahorros de Asturias , the Riotinto mines and, among others, some municipalities. "A luxury vacation when there was no vacation," Chus recalls.
Of those 54 summers, 35 are an "important" part of the life of César Quintanilla , a former worker of the holiday town from Segovia and now residing in Asturias . At his reception desk he received vacationers. There he made "good friendships that last over the years" and even found "the love" of who, with children and grandchildren in between, is still his wife, Marisa Mediavilla . The receptionist; She, waitress.
The summer of love in the Cantabrian version, "freedom" in the agony of the Franco dictatorship
On the asphalt of Perlora he continues to remember what was the beginning of that story in 1974. "They were other times, there was less freedom for everything and, in the end, we spent here all day stuck, it was normal for marriages to come out," he recalls. "We were holding hands in the city when we left work and when we met a security guard we let go quickly so that the manager did not find out," he laughs.
That was not the only marriage that was forged in the residential complex. David , click and kitchen assistant between 1969 and 1973, found Petri , a member of the cleaning service. They got married and settled in Asturias. "There are many marriages between workers, but there are also between workers and customers. And then there were also affairs that did not end at a wedding. We worked a lot but gave us a little time to everything," recalls David. The summer of love in the Cantabrian version, "freedom" in the agony of the Franco dictatorship .
And, between that love, time for memories of youth, nostalgia in a wide staff of workers who at that time moved between 16 and 30 years. "There were many of us who became men here, we learned what life was and what it was like to work with people in your care when you were just a kid. It was a meeting point for many people," says David. "It is not the same to work with people than with machines. A machine breaks down and you fix it, but people had to make them feel at home and here they were delighted," says Quintanilla. So delighted, that they still keep the contact alive despite the passing of the years: "There are families with whom we are still in contact to congratulate Christmas and the other day a friend named Manuel Crespo from Malaga asked me for Facebook , because he recognized me and we were friends in the 70s, "he explains with some pride.
But if there is a memory that endures in the common ideology of the place, that is that of farewell parties and night outings. "They had parties every 15 days when the old residents left where they took out turntables and guitars. Let them tell you, you'll see." César Prieto speaks, author of the photographic book I worked in Perlora , and that with eight years he spent a summer there with his uncle. "We went to the parties of Candás , Gijón , Avilés and then we returned on the first train in the morning. Once we got up to eight people in a 600. You arrived from outside, you entered the kitchen and spent the day as you could many times, "David moves to the past. "We could go in and out at any time but the women at 12 had to be inside. Some trap we did and we played a job," adds Quintanilla.
We set up a boxing evening with the bad luck that came to the chief of staff. They were fined 25 pesetas for not having a license
Long summer nights in Perlora, but lack of activity never became a problem for those who were there for two weeks on vacation or for those who spent the summer working. Verbenas, dances ... and even boxing evenings : "One day we mounted a fight between the workers and we had the bad luck that the chief of staff arrived. There is still a certificate of a fine of 25 pesetas that they put to boxers for not having a license. "
Precisely those parties have not gone out despite the closure of the complex, because its workers resist forgetting Perlora. Every October they meet at a restaurant in the area so as not to lose contact, which they also maintain through their Facebook group. Did you ... work in Perlora? , which is around 200 members. A mass of old and current photographs, comments of all kinds and even memories for a deceased flood the publications of the social network. "Good to see you so handsome", "a meal of 10" or "what envy" are some of the most recurring messages.
"When we get together for meals is the best, we start at one in the afternoon and most of the time we end up doing it there at night," recalls David, who still treasures a "fantastic" memory of the "family" of Perlora . Because precisely family is the word that is repeated most in each testimony . A family that last January 26 also met in the holiday town on the occasion of César Prieto's book. "An unforgettable day" for some members who continue to go to the place where it was forged.
"My wife and I are walking along the route from Candás and we walk there," says Quintanilla with the "sadness" of the decline of the place but with the "satisfaction of spending the best years of life there."
"Even if it is abandoned, I don't stop coming," Chus insists, pulling away some of the vegetation with his cane. A vegetation that like "that rodent", time, continues to engulf the facilities of the ghost town that survives in the memory of its former inhabitants.
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