Location: El Cotillo, in La Oliva municipality, with the main façade facing the sea.
The “El Tostón” hermitage was founded by the Captain and Sargento Mayor (military official with full political and military powers in Fuerteventura), D. Sebastián Trujillo Ruiz, member of the Santo Oficio de la Inquisición (the Spanish Inquisition), the 7th of June of 1680.
The hermitage had several restoration works and extensions over its history, as it can be appreciated in the inscription it has on its façade, made in 1834.
The building is simple; a rectangular nave and the vestry attached to the Gospel wall (the north one), next to the High Altar.
The main façade has a door framed in a black masonry Roman Arch. The bell tower is situated next to the gable-end’s top side. In front of the main door there is a small Calvary with a wooden cross on top of a podium.
Its two-sided sloped roof has a coffered ceiling with geometrical motifs.
Inside the hermitage there are a number of art sacred art pieces:
• A wooden Altar Piece made in one piece, with three rows and with three vaulted niche housing several figures.
• A number of stone and wooden sculptures.
• A silver chalice.
• A sculpture of “Nuestra Señora del Buen Viaje”, the most interesting image in the whole temple, located in the central vaulted niche of the Altar Piece.
When the hermitage was constructed in the late 1600’s it was isolated and distanced from any other building. In those days the nearest country house was in El Roque. At a later stage, the fishing port of El Cotillo was built and therefore, houses were constructed around the hermitage.
Source: BOC, Boletín Oficial de Canarias.