Ibiza Town

...all this that I know Ibiza so well.

And it is in spite of this that I still have great fondness for the Island that still has areas that even I haven't seen yet, notwithstanding the fact that since leaving the island in November 2003, I've been back on 5 separate occasions. If all the White Isle had to offer was San Antonio and 24 Hour parties, I probably would have left after my first week.
Don't get me wrong, I'm a big fan ...
...fuel to the argument that Ibiza is full of Binge-drinking, drug taking drop-outs.

After leaving Space and heading over the road to Bora Bora Beach - a free entry pre-Space/post Space meeting place, my recollection of the afternoon becomes somewhat patchy because the weather was nice and the drinks were cheap. Sorry. Don't worry though as Mrs Curator kept an eye on my shoes for me.

Monday morning arrived in the blink ... more

Back in the day, when I only had 6 (Yes I counted them, I bet you did/will too) grey hairs and before I made the now obligatory grunt as I clamber out of bed/ a chair/ the car, I was a Rep in Ibiza.
There is a popular misconception that "Holiday Rep" is short for "Holiday Reprobate" and in some cases, from my own experiences, this is very true.
However, I feel I have earned the right as someone who has "been there, done that" as well as seen every "Essex Boyz On Tour" 'Comedy T-shirt' to shine the torch of explanation into the murky darkness of wonderment.
I can honestly say that before I started life as a holiday representative, I thought I knew what hard work was. Silly me. Let me furnish your good selves with an example.
On Friday at 9am, I would start work, and on Sunday at 8pm I would finish. Now obviously I didn't work every waking hour of Friday, Saturday and Sunday. That'd be both foolish and illegal.
Out of the first 24 hours (The day I used to call 'Friday' before days and nights became a mush of irrelevance), I was working for 21hours. Out of the next 24 hours that holidaymakers call "Saturday", I was working for 18 hours. And to top off my weekend, I'd finish with an 'easy' 12 hour stint.
Adopting my best Lloyd Grossman accent, "Let's look at the Evidence.."
From a total of 60 Earth hours, by which we all abide, I was working for 51 hours. And that was just from 3 days. Reps only get 1 day a week off, and although the other 3 days of my week were mere 10 hour days, that still adds up to an average of around an 80 hour week. Assuming there were no flight delays. And as we all know, there are ALWAYS delays.
Some workaholics reading this might scoff at me complaining about a mere 80-hour week, but then the coup-de-grasse is the wage. Appropriately named 'basic wage' of a hefty £70 per week, or 88p an hour, are not exactly footballers wages.
If you multiply the average working week over a 7 month long Summer Season, I was probably working for a total of about 6 1/2 months. I slept every other Monday.

It is because of all this that I know Ibiza so well.

And it is in spite of this that I still have great fondness for the Island that still has areas that even I haven't seen yet, notwithstanding the fact that since leaving the island in November 2003, I've been back on 5 separate occasions. If all the White Isle had to offer was San Antonio and 24 Hour parties, I probably would have left after my first week.
Don't get me wrong, I'm a big fan of partying - I can party with the best of them.
(There was, on more occasions than I dare remember, times when I would go out on a Tuesday and wake up on a Thursday. Sometimes I'd still have both my own shoes in the morning. Sometimes I'd have a combination of other people's footwear. On one instance I woke up on a boat that was making its way to Formentera).
It's just that when I'm abroad, I like to try and integrate as much as possible with the locals. This doesn't involve wearing union jack shorts cleverly teamed with a checked Ben Sherman shirt and ankle-boots. Whilst I'm on this subject, can I ask who wears shorts with shoes? And WHY?! It always seems to be people who shouldn't have been allowed to leave school until they'd learnt how to tie their laces properly. Instead they improvise by tucking the loose bits down the side of the shoes, allowing the swagger between British Pub and British All Day Breakfast Café to be punctuated by an annoying scrape of heel on pavement. What is the point in going to the trouble of booking a foreign holiday if you're not going to do anything foreign whilst you are there?

In a bid to avoid as many British people as possible, I booked our flights through the Spanish national Airline, Iberia Airways. There are several advantages to doing this. Firstly, it was cheaper than any of the so-called "budget" airlines like Easyjet, ThomsonFly or BMI. Second, the flights were at a civilised hour, rather than 4am check-in for a 6am flight, or a long wait on your final day for a flight that departs at 2am, we flew mid-afternoon, and returned on mid-morning. Admittedly, we did have to go via Barcelona, but this only added 40 minutes to our total travelling time, and when I'm saving money AND not losing sleep, I can cope quite comfortably with the extra reading time.

In Ibiza, on a Sunday afternoon, there is only one place to go. That place is Space. (The club, not the outer atmosphere) Space is a club that is open during the daytime, because partying at night is just, like, *So* passé darling.
Whilst we used contacts from previous visits to secure ourselves a place on the guest-list, others have to pay the princely sum of €30 to enter, and then the drinks will set you back a small fortune - I paid €12 for a Vodka and redbull, and even when I went all tight-fisted and switched to water, I was still robbed blind by €8 for a 300ml plastic bottle, the same bottle that costs 35cents in the shops opposite the club. It's little wonder Space bosses can afford to pay their resident DJ's anything up to €10,000 for a 4 hour set!
Opening at 8am and staying open until 6am Monday morning, Space has often been voted "worlds Best nightclub" although in my opinion, there are better venues and better DJ's elsewhere in Ibiza. The reason Space is revered by so many is because of the Terrace. The Space Terrace is the stuff of legend, giving an outdoors feel to what is ordinarily an indoor experience. Add to the mix the aircraft that fly low overhead on their final descent to the nearby Eivissa Airport, and you've got a recipe for a guaranteed great night.
However, I've said already that I'm not going to go on and on about the clubbing, because all I'd be doing then is adding fuel to the argument that Ibiza is full of Binge-drinking, drug taking drop-outs.

After leaving Space and heading over the road to Bora Bora Beach - a free entry pre-Space/post Space meeting place, my recollection of the afternoon becomes somewhat patchy because the weather was nice and the drinks were cheap. Sorry. Don't worry though as Mrs Curator kept an eye on my shoes for me.

Monday morning arrived in the blink of a bloodshot eye, and after clearing up the mess left by the visiting beer monkeys (those pesky creatures who steal all your money, take a crap in your mouth and ruffle your hair whilst your sleeping) we headed to the beach for some well-deserved rest and recuperation. More recuperating needed by some of our party than others. Not mentioning my name anywhere. At all.
Beaches in Ibiza are plentiful. There are officially 55 public beaches to choose from, from the 3km long beach in Playa D'en Bossa on the south coast, through to the plethora of tiny Cala's that stretch round from the rocky north west coast to the salt flats in the south.

Which beach you choose also dictates how rich, cool, or brave, you are too. There's Cala Jondal, the beach beside Jade Jagger's Ibiciencan mansion for the calibre of sunbather who doesn't mind paying upwards of €30 for the hire of their double-bed sized sun bed. Did I mention that was for a half day? No? Socialites don't do all-day sunbathing by all accounts. Then there are Cala Comte and Cala Bassa beaches, as featured in the Multi award-ignored film "Kevin and Perry go large and drag a 3 minute sketch out for 2 hours". Even though these 2 beaches are tarnished forever by their immortalisation, they happen to be my favourite (not least because a sun bed is €5 for the entire day).
It was on one visit to Cala Comte in 2003 that a friend and I learnt a very important lesson in life. A lesson I have never, and will never forget. No matter how hard you try, it is absolutely and positively physically impossible to run and laugh at the same time.
A light jog and giggle, yes. But jogging is not running and giggling is not running.
To Sprint and Guffaw? Not a chance.
I learnt this invaluable lesson as a fellow rep and me had cleverly, but not entirely deliberately, managed to avoid catching the last bus back to San Antonio after spending a day at the beach. As we were gearing up for a 5-mile cross-country yomp to get home, Simon (my fellow Laugh/Run struggler) spotted one of our Hotel's staff, Jenny, leaving the beach car park in a cloud of dust. We ran, and in an attempt to catch her attention, we ran and we shouted. No problem there.
Running and shouting is easy.
The science started when I heard exactly what it was that Simon was shouting, in his attempts to charm us a lift home.
It wasn't

"Jenny, you're lovely, I love you, please take us home!"

Nor was it the normal shout-for-attention

"Jeeeeeeeeeeeennnnnnnnnyyyyyyyy!"
No. Just as we were reaching full-speed, Si screamed with every ounce of strength in him:

" JENNY, YOU FAT LESBIAN! STOP THE CAR! "

Because Jenny was indeed, both a lady of the lady-loving persuasion and had enjoyed a hot meal or three in her time, I could quite see the logic in Simon's attempts to personalise his shouting to leave Jenny in no doubt that it was she who we were shouting for. But before we could catch her, I could feel my legs giving way beneath me as an inner-monologue battle raged inside my head along the lines of:

"Hello Legs, Diaphragm here. That's a funny thing to shout"
"It wasn't funny, keep running, idiot"
"no, no, we can't run, because I want to laugh"
"You can't laugh, we're running"
"Laughing is far more important than running"
"aah……… fuck,"
"Note To Brain: Disengage Legs, Diaphragm needs to convulse uncontrollably "

The dust cloud got smaller and I'm sure that Jenny actually accelerated (she denied we were ever there), and we were faced to lament our discovery over the long walk home. Incidentally, another lesson I learnt whilst living in Ibiza is that there's nothing Casual about "casual sex". It is equally as hard work as regular sex. But that is a story for another time.

The sun sets spectacularly on our Tuesday with the sky melting from deep blue into deep ochre, oranges, and reds as we are sitting at Café Mambo drinking 'Café Con Leche en Basso' on the famous "sunset Strip" in San Antonio listening to the 10th edition of a chillout CD that has all the same songs on as the first, fourth, sixth and eighth editions, only in a different order, after a day spent catching up with old friends and acquaintances. The colour of the sky contrasts nicely with the red hue emanating from my chest after too long at the beach on Monday.

On a Wednesday on Ibiza, there is a market that trades under the title "Hippy Market" and is sold by reps all over the island for day-trip excursions on the promise that there are "Original Hippies" selling "Trinkets, Jewellery and Bongo drums" amongst other items, under the pretence that these Hippies are some of the original Hippies who settled on Ibiza in the 1960's. It's complete Tosh. If you go to the Hippy Market on a Wednesday (the only day it runs) then you'll be there alongside half the island's tourists, as they look round what are a few nice arts and crafts stalls, interspersed with Hundreds (yes, hundreds) of identical stalls staffed by Lucky-Lucky men and women who apparently believe that because their fake glasses and watches are for sale on a stall, as opposed to for sale from inside their jackets on the beaches, that the tourists will trust them more.
The sad thing is, they're right, and you see row upon row of Timmy Wholefinger bags, Channel 5 perfume, and Christine Door sunglasses, being bought by someone from Durham who then goes on to say at the top of their voice

"You can't tell it's fake, can you?"

No dear. Of course you can't. Is there really a 'D' in Louis Vuitton?

If you want to go to the proper, un-commercialised Hippy Market in Ibiza, then jump in your Hire Car (essential for independence, and probably cheaper than paying for Taxi's everywhere) and head for the East Coast, above the town of Es Cana (where the Tourists S(h)it(pp)ty market is), and look for a tiny village called "Las Dalias".
Although not entirely untouched by commercialism - you can still but the Bongo drums here, this market has a much more rustic, local feel to it. And you're less likely to get your pocket picked too.

Thursday, our last day, and I've saved the best until last.
We head into Ibiza Town, known locally as Eivissa.
Ibiza in olden days was a very important island, being one of the last known locations for the Phoenicians and more recently, the Carthaginians.
A quick history lesson, to save some of you from Googling 'Carthage'; The Carthaginians were the race of people from whom Hannibal built his army that fought the Romans and who Hannibal then set off across the Alps with his Elephants.
Ibiza Town was founded by these ambitious Carthage folk in the year 654BC, and although most of the original features of the town are constantly updated and modernised, the D'alt Villa (old town) part of the city is a world heritage site, and is simply incredible.
From the top of the hill that dominates the skyline, not only is there a fabulous looking Cathedral (which I have yet to get inside, mainly because it's only open until midday, and I don't do mornings)
but there are a maze of narrow and winding cobbled back-streets with a mix of independent and well-known shops that cater for absolutely everything a shopaholic could ask for and more. The More being the ironically named "Calle de Virgen" or "Virgin Street". Ironic because if you were to walk up this street after midnight, you get to have a glimpse into the life of glittery and glamorous gay folk who bring their own unique sense of fun and style to their little quarter of town. Just be careful not to accidentally stumble into any "dark rooms", as these are not places for people who are feint of heart, or unsure of sexuality!

Friday Morning, and we hand back our hire car, complete with full tank of fuel that cost us all of €15 to refill, and the only thing left for me to do is sit on the aeroplane, diary in hand, trying to work out when I can come back to carry on discovering new reasons to love this place.

 

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