Villa Winter isn’t exactly easy to reach. Although many guide books describe the route across the Jandía massif on the western coast to the legendary beaches of Barlovento, most fail to mention that only confident drivers should attempt the journey, ideally with an off-road vehicle. The western coast is a lonely place, devoid of package-holiday tourists staying at the comfortable hotels of Jandía, who expect a well-maintained lido. Those who venture here are looking for solitude, nature, and untouched landscapes. The only exception: the bar in Cofete, which has served as a popular meeting place for the arriving adventurers, researchers, and excursionists for a while now. The proprietor Faro surprises visitors with warm-hearted hospitality and excellent cuisine.
Cofete is a strange place, just a few hundred meters from Villa Winter. Once a village inhabited by medianeros, the farmers of Jandía, it displays a few scattered stone houses today, few of them permanently occupied. Most are used as weekend residences by locals from Morro Jable. This is where Gustav Winter, arriving from Gran Canaria with his yacht, first set foot in Jandía. The oldest building in town: Casa Blanca, once the tenants’ estate and service building. The outer wall on the right-hand, older part of the building closely resembles that of Villa Winter’s. The windows are covered in concrete in the same way as those of the villa, aiming to prevent access to certain rooms. While one half of the building is accessible to tourists, who are also most welcome at the bar, the other half remains closed off, not even allowing a glimpse inside. The Spanish construction company Lopesan S.A. purchased this building, as well as Villa Winter and the surrounding area.
Another special feature of the area is a hill next to the town of Cofete, visible from a distance and the only elevation far and wide. Even if this hill behind the bar of Cofete seems strange, it probably conceals at most a type of natural bunker and a limestone oven. Nonetheless, some view it as a cone of debris, the result of subterranean excavation work …
The book MYTHOS WINTER – Die Wahrheit über den deutschen Ingenieur Gustav Oskar Winter (The Myth of Winter – The Truth About the German Engineer Gustav Oskar Winter) will be published soon in a German, Spanish, and English version. Illustrated with numerous images, maps, and photos, it will unveil the secret of the legend of Winter on Fuerteventura …