On the ground with the desperate search for missing Jay Slater in Tenerife

From the winding main road which 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 Tuesday 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.

While the beachside resorts of Tenerife enjoy 26C-degree heat, the weather can change dramatically in the mountains, with wind and mist appearing in a matter of minutes.

One elderly Spanish couple, whose holiday home is on a hidden dirt track embedded in the mountainside, watched the police search from their back garden.

In difficult terrain, police officers can be seen combing through the bushes and climbing down the ravine in search of clues. When asked about the search, they dismissed the idea that authorities had eased off their efforts and said they had seen helicopters, drones and dogs in the surrounding area over the last four days, but without any result.

Meanwhile, Spanish police are investigating a possible sighting of the teenager in the town of Santiago del Tiede, after a grainy CCTV image showed a young man crossing the road last Monday evening.

Less than a mile from Masca, the walk takes hours due to the winding steep roads and dangerous hillsides. Around the town square, which has been decorated with colourful bunting ahead of an upcoming festival, a few posters of Mr Slater have been pinned to noticeboards and bus stops.

They were placed there by his father, Warren Slater, who visited the town on both Sunday and Monday and issued a plea for information to reporters.

“I just want him to be found. I just want my son back, end of,” he told The Sun.

“What more is there? It’s been a week now, a week of nothing. So somebody somewhere must’ve found out something. Somebody.

“It is a living hell. Unless you’re going through it, you cannot explain. Please, please please, if anybody knows anything, just come forward and help us.”

Speaking outside a small cafe, one local woman, Anita, said: “We often have hikers go missing, every summer it is the same.

“Police come for a week and search and then they go – sometimes it can take months for a body to be found as the mountains are too difficult to search.

“People have said there was a sighting of him here, but no one knows anything – his family came here but there’s nothing to show he is here, as far as I know no shop or cafe has seen him.”

Others shrug their shoulders when asked, perplexed by the level of media interest in the area, while local mayor Emilio Navarro said that “all our resources and means” are being used to find him.

Questions continue to swirl around the nature of Mr Slater’s disappearance, after he phoned his friend Lucy Law at around 8.15am last Monday, to say that he was lost, dehydrated and only had 1 per cent battery on his phone.

He had been enjoying a holiday with friends in Tenerife, joining other revellers at the New Rave Generation (NRG) festival at Papagayo Beach Club last Sunday in the tourist area of Playa de Las Americas.

Yet during the early hours of Monday morning, he travelled 23 miles away to the remote village of Masca, a mountainous area popular with hikers. He had met two British men during the festival, and accompanied them back to their Airbnb before setting off at around 7.30am on his own.

Little else is known about his whereabouts, except for an eyewitness reporting that he had asked for bus timings, before walking in the opposite direction.

Among those to join reporters at the search site were a couple who said they enjoyed “dark tourism”, and who had spent the last few days observing the operation. They are among several internet sleuths and conspiracy theorists who have travelled to Masca in recent days, with many posting their findings on social media platforms such as TikTok.

In response to wild rumours, his mother Debbie Duncan said: “I really hope I am not taking my son home in a body bag. I really cannot believe the British public are not supporting me in trying to find Jay. This may happen to any of you one day.”