Christian, the engineer who left his life behind 20 years ago for Spain’s luckiest island: “I devoted myself to the land and my chickens”

It’s not people who change when they travel - it’s the journey that changes them. And that’s exactly what happened to a group of tourists who visited Tenerife, one of Spain’s Canary Islands, and never wanted to leave. Not just to live there, but to reinvent their entire way of life. Goodbye stress, hello rhythms of the land. The protagonist of this story is the perfect example. For 20 years he worked as an engineer, until one day he decided he’d had enough.

“I walked away from everything, bought this farm (La Sabinita), and devoted myself completely to the land and my chickens,” Christian says. “In some parts of Tenerife, you can grow plants from nearly every region in the world - tropical, Mediterranean, even alpine.” Now he also grows mangos and rents out garden plots.

“A way of life more than a job”

Lauding Tenerife’s “unique climate” Christian adds the island has “a balance we have to protect. Here, everything has a purpose; nothing goes to waste. It’s a way of life more than a job.” His farm also has community gardens open to people who live in the city - regulars who usually come on weekends to grow their own vegetables and learn to read the land’s natural rhythms. “This way, the bond between those who produce and those who consume becomes real again,” he explains.

But one obstacle he’s run into is a complicated one: water. “Water can be a problem sometimes,” Christian acknowledges. “We have specific windows when we’re allowed to use it for our fields and animals, so we need to manage it carefully; otherwise, it might not be enough.”

On the island, at certain times of year - especially inland - irrigation water is distributed only on certain days of the week, and farmers have to get by with reservoirs, rainwater collection, or shared irrigation channels. Such struggles with water availability are a source of complaint: all the while, after all, many hotels have it on tap year‑round.

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