Red Slave Huts

The pans were colour-coded — white, red, blue and orange — so ships knew which loading point to come to, and each group of huts belongs to its own pan.

Built in 1850 like the white ones, they housed the enslaved men and women who worked that section. Each hut sleeps two to six in a single low room with a doorway and one small window at the back. Before the huts existed the workers walked to Rincon and back each week, roughly thirty kilometres in each direction.

They are less visited than the white huts because they are further down the road, which is a reason to come rather than not. Late afternoon is easiest — there is no shade anywhere near them and the middle of the day here is punishing. No charge, no guide, no shade. Fifteen minutes, on the same drive as the salt pans, the flamingos and the lighthouse.