Gabor's tattooed torso was the only thing visible across the scorched volcanic canyon. The pensioner had placed his head completely under an umbrella, so from a distance it was difficult to recognize that there was a person beneath the fabric in the desert landscape on the outskirts of El Medano, southern Tenerife.
Everything Gabor needed was next to his folding table; from a cool box full of drinks to pickles and bread as a snack. His bed for the night was a tent pitched so close he could practically roll into it.
“I retired and came to Tenerife where the weather is much better than in Hungary,” he told the Express.
“It is beautiful in March and April. Back in Hungary it is very cold.”
Gabor is far from the only one taking advantage of EU freedom of movement law to live homeless in the Canary Islands.
Both in the ravine outside El Medano and in Tenerife more broadly, local residents report that squatters from Germany and other European states regularly take over parts of the landscape without permission.
Some live in expensive RVs; others have historic caves taken over, both, local protesters claim that they damage the fragile environments in which they live.
Evidence of this is not hard to find: during a visit to the ravine where Gabor lived, the Express saw piles of trash and human waste.
When asked why he had come specifically to the place outside El Medano, the Hungarian retiree replied: “This area is not yet in the central part of the population. So here you can have peace. This is what is important to me; peace and quiet.”
Gabor said he had no problem with locals becoming increasingly frustrated with the way foreigners treat each other take over their homeland and claimed his minimal interactions had been “respectful.”
His plan is to continue living in the tent until he has enough of his savings AOW buy a camper.
He added: “It will take three to four months before I can raise enough money. [Before I was living in a hostel] but it was very expensive.
“Every month I receive a certain amount from Hungary and I can put enough aside to buy a camper in four to five months.
“After that I will leave the tent, but I want to stay in Tenerife for a longer period.”
Gabor wasn't the only Hungarian living in the ravine that the Express encountered during our visit. Two other men from the Eastern European country were picking up groceries at a local supermarket. They claimed they worked in Tenerife and lived in caves.
Anger at the way outsiders are buying up property or in this case simply moving to the countryside, has prompted campaign groups in the Canary Islands to call for regulation about the number of people coming to the island and the impact they have on the environment.
El Medano resident Ivan Cerdana Molina, who volunteers with the group ATAN, said those squatting in the caves near Gabor's tent “really made him angry.”
'I know it isn't so [their] wrong, but what right do they have to come and take this cave,” he added.