Wednesday, June 30, 2010

WELCOME BACK TO IBIZA-12 day diary


IT FEELS like perfect timing to be in IBIZA NOW!
Right place, right time; we need to recharge batteries, have a rest from constant changing places, people and... tango.
Not a touristic Ibiza from holiday brochures, not a night life mekka, not a beach tourist ghetto , BUT OUR PERSONAL IBIZA with our places, ritual and people to meet... Funny to say, but for us Ibiza is mostly a.... refuge place!
Ibiza with a little hippy house on the hill surrounded by pine tree forest in the middle of the island, separated from the noisy show off place by seemingly thousands of light years. At the same time Ibiza of my friend' s castle in the vecinity of Mike Jagger doughter's residence. Ibiza with our catalan ( ibizenco) breakfast of pa' amb tomacat, jamon serrano & queso & aguacate every morning ( sometimes towards 11 - 11 30 am) in the garden. But also accepting an invitation to a fashionable restaurant, a hidden paradise for the eyes and the palete, why not?Ibiza of exposing our bodies to the caresses of the sun, without any white straps remaining after the bikini/swimming suits. And an inmediate tempation of wearing a long to the ground skirt from India we see on a hippy market. Ibiza of the hidden calas, magical places where only the inhabitants go marked by peace and timlessness. But also maybe a trance party somewhere and sometimes and why not a chill out bar as a special touch. Evenings ' at home' but as well visiting my old friends from the past and attending parties in their places. IBIZA of meditation and Ibiza of coctail parties, vernisage and see and toa be seen. Ibiza on my own, in solitude and Ibiza of vivid social life!

DAY TWO
Playa S' Illiot, on the way from San Juan de Labritja to Portinatx. One of my frequently visited quiet places when I lived in Ibiza.



Still good place for a topless undisturbed mate time. We moved from the beach to the rocks.




The second day, actually the evening, we celebrated the SAINT JOHN's NIGHT ( la Nit de San Joan), which, as I said, there are only a couple of places in the world I would choose ( SO FAR) to be on that day: Ireland, northern Sweden and Ibiza. I love the rituals of fire ( 9 bonfires in the town of San Juan, in the northen part of island,where I used to live), a big fire in Eivissa, fires on the beaches with purification ceremony, burning the old and negative and giving place to the new. A night of witchcraft and magic, the shortest night in the year. Yes, we were in the right place- having our special ' spiritual guide' Ana, whose function as a pristess in an oficial ritual-theatre piece in Ibiza, was perfectlly fullfilled. More details on this ceremony in the following chapter.


DAY THREE
Cala Benirras. My absolute favourite ( in my 'past life'); away from the tourists ghettos, only available for those who have a ( rented) car. Specially magical on Sunday evenings- the sunset with drums ( ' fa schiffo' says Alberto who considered that this ritual got commercialized and bastardized during the years of my absence); that's where I can still meet my hippy, psicodelic friends from those bygone times...


Even though it is ( obviously) a topless beach, I am POSING for the photho in a two piece bikini. Just for the modesty sake. For God's sake, I live in Argentina now and my Argentinean friends would not even strap for sauna in Finland!
Buganvilla seems to be brighter fuxia in our residence at tia Ana's house, away from all the sex-drug-rock' en roll of the island. This house on the hill, in the middle of the pine tree forest, is a refuge of piece and... spirituality!
This is another face of the island. The publicity attracts to the famous Discotecs ( Pacha, Amnesia, Privilege,el Divino...). The discos fight for their clients with parades dropping with sexuality. Calle de la Virgen ( and surrounding streets) are green light for neverending gay parade. Victor took adventage to have a chat and a photho with some representatives of the night life....

I could not help taking phothos of this colorful cornucopia worshiping the human sexual bodies...
















Congratulations for coming all the way down; back to piece and ( love) and quite of the interior part of the island.



DAY FOUR

Went to the inauguration of a new shop of our old friend in Santa Gertrudis. Champage, wine and food. Meeting people ¨from my past chapter¨... Have invitation to drop in and visit some, to have a massage with another and exchanging life and mails details with others. Tim, Vinodh, Salvia, Toni.... THEY ARE STILL HERE! Recognizable , but... so different at the same time!

NO FOTOS TAKEN. Too busy taking, taking everything in. The shop is lovely. It's the best of Indonesia passed through the filter of a good European taste.


DAY FIVE- Saturday


The light motive of the day was a journey in time and especifically meeting my friend Alejandro ( Peruanean by birth, citizen of the world like me, by destiny, now based in his Dragon Castle in Ibiza). His invitation for the brunch was flavoured by bringing along another of my ' past ' friends, with whom I only reconnected TODAY since the time I left Ibiza.

News about our lives were to be echanged- it seems to be our annual meeting with Alejandro.
Not living on the island anymore, I am very sensitive to all the details of the landscape. I love the view of the church in San Lorenzo descending the way from Santa Gertrudis.

Alejandro, by chance or by choice, chose the quite, idyllic, organic la PALOMA bar, situated down the church of San Lorenzo. Exactly when we met 2 and 3 and.. more years ago.
This time three of us enjoyed a special background of our branch-chat-a nostalgic tune of the French accordion player:

... sitting under a humangous yukka. The whole terraza was a prolongation of an orange orchard.


The melody of ¨Amelie¨was blending perfectly with the harmonic nostalgia of the place. FOR ME. After all, I play accordion myself!




I could not help immortanizing other pieces she played:



... and more. The final one, the Pokes, we sang together.


We had a lovely chat with this cosmopolitan French speaking English and singing without a French accent ( I can control my sweet French accent, she says), who had studied acting in London and now tries to live in Ibiza.


DAY SIX

My body is getting normal. I mean, I am getting back this chocolate colour I am so used to and which was wearing out more and more after my last sunbathing on the deck of the cruise. Not that I am especially being ¨lagartija¨, a lizard, but we live an absolute outdoor life, all the meals included. We are definitely not beach people, neither of us! Going to the calas we like more for sentimental reasons and no more than for an hour, avoiding 13- 17 00 hours. MOREOVER- I dont have those lousy white straps on the level of my brests and hips. Nobody should say about me ¨blanco/a teta¨ because MY tits are NOT WHITE ANYMORE! My old friends from the island joke about the loss of my.. volupciousness!

The thing I love about being in Ibiza is going around with few rags on. Getting dressed in done in none time, the less you have on, the better. I am going around practically with the same cloths on- a little top ( or none) and a little skirt which Victor describes as ' a caveman' s. No decency att all. It's quite all right to forget about the good old decency the society imposes on you. I feel quite normal and free parading with my own newly brown skin on.

TODAY Ana gives a party at our little house on the hill. Our old friends are invited. Patricio, Gladys, Silvia, Angels, maybe Carlos, Mario with his girlfriend .... It's also our annual ritual when we are in Ibiza. Usually Ana cooks her famous paella , but this time she prefers to invite us for paella in Cala Conta in the south of island.

BUT it's Sunday! The sunset drumming in Benirras! Even though my friend Hari ( another telephone call and another dinner appointment made this afternoon) says ' well, its the same old drumming, you know' and Alberto is even tougher saying ' fa schiffo' and other friends directly refuse joining me in this 'ritual' -I GO. For me even sunset with drumming in Benirras is new, fresh and intresting. I do not live in IBIZA, that's why! I look at everything and everybody in a different way. Thanks God Ana decided to drive with me, while Victor stayed at home to watch Argentina playing against Mexico. The sunset was gorgious. Is there anything like a commmercial sunset. Yes, there is- in Ibiza!



and more:



DAY SEVEN


The day seven ( in this case called Monday,but we really do not care about such details) started with our pantagruelic ibizenco breakfast at the latest hour possible ( but we still call it breakfast) to move to the glamourous part of Ibiza life. THE INVITATION to CARLA's house is a great opportunity to combine the encounter with this lovely italian person with a gorgious architecture of her... house? It is actually much more than a house- Victor, the arquitect, considered it like a luxurious hotel where only one extravagant person was living. Possibility to receive plenty of friends. We were the lucky guests to use it.


I recognized with admiration all the valuable details of the typical ibizenco house: the beams of sabina, rare to find nowdays, were even used to support the grapes and buganvilla plants.

Vast terraces and balconies everywhere with views on the hills and even the sea. Ibiza city in the distance.

A bue eye of the place was a splendid swimming pool, which we used immediately to refresh ourselves in the increasing heat of the day.

Many levels, staircases and palm trees and other plants give an impression of a labirynth where you can get nicely lost. In time as well...

Carla was consulting Victor the arquitect about the planned modifications and rennovation.

But as Carla herself said ' you cannot leave a decent italian house without lunch'; so the table was laid and the refreshing light lunch appeared.

So appeared the other lunch guests- an English friend on a visit, a French neighbour, an Italian interior decorator. And US.

Wines, melone con prosciuto, tabule, ice cream and lovely chats were had under the terrace roof, in a sweet shadow,during the hottest part of the day.


NO SIESTA TODAY! A short visit at home and we got ready for the evening event: a film projection in an appartently lovely finca Can Gabriel, organized by a Belgian cinophile, Dani. A great ' hippy ' opportunity to have an open air film, full moon over us, with tshaj and cakes and meeting good old friends, the inhabitants of the island. A mail from Dani announced clearly: ' come BEFORE THE SUNSET- you will not regret it!' So we did. A complicated description of the way ( only because we have not seen the FILM OF GETTING THERE BY CAR, attached to the mail), with follow the baloons - nonexisting, made us actually call Dani on his phone. He was just putting the baloons indicating the way- we were SOOO EARLY! As the first visitors we REALLY took the place over and aprpeciated the splendid views on Puerto San Miguel and lay down in the hommock watching the sunset..


It was probably the BEST SUNSET setting I HAVE HAD in IBIZA... Sorry, Benirras...

We only went down to the patio of projection at 21 30, to see the image of John Lennon and Yoko on the big screen. The second image was one of good old friend Dani, an ex neigbour of mine when I used to live in San Juan de Labritja. Then- uncrecognized at first, Martin, an Argentinean companion from or theatre courses and performances some 10 years ago, was greeting me! Alejandro and Alberto came as well, bringing along Natalie, a French accordion player we met in la Palona. Meanwhile the total darkness envolved us, with bright stars above ( the full moon was to come up just when film ended!) and THE NOWHERE BOY film started.

Midnight, with the full moon, tshaj and catch up chats with all those people I met after...8-10 years, with whom I share so many special moments on this island. My ex island. My ex life...

DAY EIGHT
Special mission of the day- to which our EARLY MORNING BREAKFAST at 10 am was subordinated- was to deliver the paitings of Ana to the Palacio de Congreso in Santa Eulalia, where the annul exhibion of the chosen painters of the island will take place ( this very Friday at 20 00 vernisage)
That very morning I got a GREAT SURPRISE TELEPHONE CALL- Carinne, my French-Greek friend of the ' previous island life' was HERE! She is now based in Rome, and came only for 2 weeks to give a workshop of yoga for her italian students. It was her first visit after 8 years. Only accidentaly- Patricio talking to Joseline about me- Joseline telling it to Carinne... Thanks God the word of mouth works just perfectly on the island.

Carinne was waiting for me in Santa Eulalia, in front of Palacio de Congreso. As Ana said- she had never heard anybody talking so much during the whole afternoon. We needed to catch up with those..9-10 years ! Ana deposited her double painting,

we all got invitation cards for Friday opening of this exhibitions and off we went to the Paseo de Sta Eulalia to meet Patricio and to do the shopping ( me and Carinne lost in our common world).
We found Patricio at his siver stand ( jewlery from Indonesia and India), overlooking Sta Eulalia beach. Victor and Patricio immortanized this moment by taking this photo-dont they look like a part of marionette theatre?

Then it was high time for a litte ' jump to the sea' as Carinne says, and we decided to go to Cala Llonga. On the way, Ana's memories went back some 30 years ago, where she still was a hippy and lived in a little house without electricity, running water or toilet and she and her hippy friends used to go to the hidden paradise beach near Cala Llonga. Ana decided to follow her intuition ( as her memory was blared about the directions) and find this beach. It turned out that Ana's hippy intuition still worked spendidly and soon we were high on the cliff overlooking a little paradisiac beach with... maybe 4 people on!

Down we went ( no decent path to decent, but a litte efford to get there was immediately rewarded)- we were almost on our private beach! Immediately we went to the water ( soooo refreshing) where me and Carinne never stopped talking, and then sat on this empty beach surrounded by high cliffs sipping mate ( first time in Carinne's life) and talking, talking, talking.... Thanks God we talked in Italian- Victor said. When the day grew too hot ( we have good non touristic habits of not exposing our bodies to the sun after 1 pm, - and it was already after 2 pm!) we drove Carinne to her place and back home.
INSTEAD of SIESTA we had a reading time. IBIZA incites us to read. I mean OUR little paradise on the hill, does. There are so many places to spread our bodies and activate our mind with a good book. By the pool, on the hippy patio, under the pine trees where we eat breakfast, and finally- in bed. Ana is a great reader and she always has novelties for us to catch up. Last visit was under my fascination of:
M. Houellebeq ' Possibilidad de una isla'
This time the Ana encourages us to read the portugeses Nobel Jose Saramago, so we fight over who is reading ' Cain' first, finalizing reading it all together, sometimes aloud. Obviously, there are some lighter books to read around and I want to check my sensibility on Paolo Coehlo torturning myself to finish ' Veronika quiere morir' being absolutely sure that I will never touch any other books of this... person. Krishnamurti and Eckhart Tolle are absolute must everytime we visit tia Ana. Finally, we are on a ' spiritual island' . Victor is reading Karl Sagan's ' La Connection cosmica' and I started to refresh Carlos Castaneda.... You see, a little bit of everything.

The evening is under the title of HARI. As he himself described himself: ' a fool on the hill' , as his little house is really on the hill and Hari seems like God wathing and listening to all the sagas - intrigues-love & sepration stories happening in the valleys below... Therefore Hari, apart from being one of the oldes friends from ibiza, is also a very indicated person to talk to to get all the fresh stories and gossips. Hari is gey.
As I forgot my camera ( GODNESS GRACIOUS ME!) I am forced to used the photho of my last visit in Haris house. I visit Hari EVERY TIME I VISIT IBIZA, invited for dinner and I ALWAYS see Hari in his skie blue Marrocan robe with an eye embroidered on the level of his heart...


I quickly got updated about all of our common friends and aquaintances, as well as about my own astrological configuration. Hari is very much into astrology ( Schambala) and years ago he made my carta astral. He tells me again about my Balance ( Wage) asendent with Venus ' in the house' in Twins. I have those perfect ' eckliche Kvadraten, Saturn-Venus, Mars- Saturn Aspekt and Mars in the 9th House... It all sounds magic to me, but for Hari makes absolutely sense and he confesses that he new I would not stay longer than a couple of years on this ' pipi island' .
Hari became very critical about ibiza and its inhabitants ( do not mean ibizencos, obviously):

¨Ibiza is ein Kindergarten für isoterisch Verliebte Hochstappler ¨ or ¨Ibiza ist ein isoterischer Projektionsplarkplatz wo die Leute irgentwie ihre Gebüre nicht mehr zahlen können¨....

DAY NINE

Ana and Victor went to Santa Gertrudis swimming pool for the morning session- the ritual they started a coule of days ago on Victor's request to have a ' decent swimming possibility', not a salty sea waters with waves and no idea about the distances.... I stayed at home for my every day yoga-stretching, undecently undressed ( nobody can spy me) in the garden.

The rest of the day- afternoon ( again- instead of siesta we decided on the reading session) we had a couple of missions. FIRST-to find a finca of my previous employer on the island, P. G., whom I could not join on the phone. Previously, on a coupe of occasions of our visits in Ibiza,he used to invite us for dinner and treat us generously; the feature I was only discovering in him after I left the island. The person of P. G. is not and has never been positively popular on the island. As I was strong enough to confront him, and I could deal with his acid ironic sense of humor and the blown out ego- the dinners at his place were a kind of Fellini screenplay. I decided to contact him this time again. The telephone I found in internet was answered in English. When we drove to find the finca, we found a huge bilding place recognized only with difficulty as the place we frequented a couple of times. We talked to the construction workers and finally to... a new owner of the finca. She bought it, as she explained, October last year, in a horrible state. She was trying to bring the land back to shape- she said. ' He was a very angry man. He left a horrible mess'. What about the animals - I asked. We remember the big cages with exotic birds, the fields with horses, goats and sheeps, the dogs and cats. None of them were here any longer. And she had no idea of P. G. wherabouts. He must have left the island for good. The only place I thought he might be is... Carribean where he had some of his properties.Well, with not a nice after taste we left the place. Another mission took as ' to the end of the world', to the other extreme of the island, where we hardly ever go. The inhabitants of the island are never frequenting those far away places. If you live in the north- in San Juan,San Miguel, San Llorenz, you will think not twice, but three times or five or not think at all about visiting somebody in the south, in San Jose or San Antonio. It is a pilgrimage, an ordeal-a venture to a different country with different landscape, people and energies. Especially the energies.... BUT WE were BRAVE and decided to continue our /my sentimental trip and visit Cala Jondal, with a little hotel which was my home and work during the very first stage of my Ibiza life. Many years ago- 12?13? 15???

The distance was longer that we thought, the roads were not those we remembered ( meanwhile Ibiza gained some extra motorways) and the more to the south we were getting, the more unconfortable we felt- the island was getting drier and the vegetation was more and more sparce. Obviously the energies were different. I would never live here! said Ana. I totally agreed with her. ONLY the north of Ibiza was the true, genuine, beautiful island with best energies.... Finally, after the neverending dusty country road through the pine woods, we found an old poster with the name of the hotel. We parked by the entrance. Everything was so familiar and so... strange with the moss and fogg on my memory pieces. We entered into the house- nobody in, silence. I looked around and recognized the living, the kitchen, the terraces with buganvilla- NOTHING seemed to be changed since I left. There was something stuck and stuffy about the place. As Ana would have said- the energies were not flowing. Finally, after having had a walk around the pool we heard the voice from home and the owner, B. came out. After the first greetings ( Ana knows her from meditation sessions )- I came over. She recognized me. Bla, bla, bla..... After this meeting I should have learnt to never do the sentimental journeys and never try to find people from my past. They are either not what-how and where they are; or they are stuck exactly where they were years ago, when I moved on, the world moved on... and they stayed there. Both things are sad. Depressing. We left with even more bitter after taste.
Ana decided to cheer us up with the most iconic sight of the island- Es Vedra.We went to the magnificent Cala d'Hort with Es Vedra just in front of us. It was about 7 pm, perfect and safe time for sunbathing and a little sea submerssion. We discovered that Es Vedra is so close to Saa Vedra the name of our quarter in Buenos Aires! Ana continued to tell us the stories from her hippy times, like the one of spending a night on a meditation retreat on a cave situated on the Es Vedra island, just opposite site from the one we can see.

We stayed untill the sunset,letting the gentle sunset light making our skin turn peachly bright.


DAY TEN



Day ten started with Oshio cards. Ana always throws me the cards- every single time when I visit Ibiza.
Today it was the high time. With solemn face, preparing the place on our garden breakfast table with a piece of white cloth and a picture of Budha, she asked me to approach. ONCE AGAIN, from the time I left IBIZA, the cards were splendid, favourable, possitive, showing me that I am absolutely in harmony with myself and the world. MUY LINDAS CARTAS, repeated Ana. My cards this year are following ( I was never clever enough to take a photo of them , ONLY NOW I came up with the idea. Maybe I am more relaxed and... have more time to mess around, as Victor says):

Besides, I got to know ( or repeated, as I was apparently told that a dozen of years ago..) that in a Mayan calendar ( of 13 moons, encantamiento del sueno) I am ' perro blanco ' which means love. That's enough about astrology and magic.

No, not really. In the evening I got a proposal for the group dance on the Pou des Leo beach- Danza de la Citlalmina, a mexican-Tibetan tradition. Being open, especially for ANY kind of dance and ANY kind of beach, I accepted. Sunset on Pou des Leo, surrounded by orange cliffs and caves ( leon ' s?) and a very exciting ritual which transported us to the mexican Indian tradition. I felt parcially as a little girl playing Indians. The sunset dive afterwards was a must. All the women in Eva's outfits. Men in shorts (?!). Then mate ( which I brought) shared with everybody. JUST PERFECT!



THE LATER EVENING was dedicated to our stomachs. ANA MADE HER FAMOUS PAELLA! Here we go with the proof- the last touch and it's ready! She is a real witch in the kitchen, just look at her! Carinne had a very female intuition to call just that very moment with a good news- the flight with her students was delayed so she can come and join us for paella. Lucky her! Lucky us...





DAY ELEVEN
ANA's PAINTING EXIBITION at the PALACIO DE CONGRESO. NO PICS TAKEN, forgot a camara... otherwise very quite, lethargic hot day... heat increasing and so our willingness to leave...

DAY TWELVE

the last...

AGUAS BLANCAS:




...and Alejandro's invitation to la Paloma for good bye lunch. The cicle closes. Now it' s a boy playing Amelie's melody while we drink our smoothies...