Caves and water sounds
There is a small cave, or rather tunnel, below me on these rocks which is quite interesting acoustically . You can swim right through it and the sound of the waves changes completely as you do so, from a sharp clarity with the treble accentuated to the deep bassiness and echoing sounds in the tunnel itself and then back to the accentuated treble. Sometimes from above you will hear deep booming noises that travel, seemingly right through the rocks.
Madrileno in the Med
A madrileno man that I briefly met yesterday called Pedro had a pretty good job. For six months of each year he forms part of a small crew of three who take people around the Balearic islands in a 16metre yacht for periods of 2 to 3 weeks at a time. What a life! To live in Madrid and spend the summer in the Med. I confess to feeling a little jealous.
June 13th evening
Just woken after a snooze feeling quite tired this evening for no obvious reason except that sunbathing acytually uses up a surprising amount of energy and Ive been lifting weights a lot since arriving.Its not unpleasant, more just enough to know its been happening. Doing another set of 30 now before making some dinner. Its still quite light outside even though its 9.45 now , its perfectly clear and still and just 21C, chilly for here. Goodness knows how Im going to adapt to the English summer again.
Remembering Sangre Caliente, Sangre Frio
Suddently now getting short flashbacks of making the film and all the people on board with it who helped . I feel sad I´ve lost touch with most now. I don´t think anyone was very happy it did not get properly completed, as of course was I. It would of been good to shoot scenes here if I had know about the apartments then. I´m surprised we didn´t use the cove here for shots but perhaps i didn´t know of it them. Although taking all the gear down the steep path to it would have been no fun. As it was, it was bad enough having to cart all the gear down to Es Cavallet, without being able to get a car down there. I am glad that I tried to make it and sad that it stopped me making films as it did. All these thoughts make me want to go back and try and get the ”Netplay” idea of the ground again (Edit: I can´t recall this at all today). But somehow in London I feel stifled creatively. It is as though someone has put a large blanket around me and is stopping me casting it aside, in case i get hurt. Thinking about it, that person can only be me.
Not so mundane matters
Now though i feel very much alive and happy, when i come here its remarkable what just five days can do. I feel recharged, invigorated . It is a shame that I have to go back to London again to discharge it all. Though, all being well, I´ll return here fairly soon, with the next few months. I was going to make a list of the clothes I brought here with me, as opposed to those I actually wore whilst being here. They were
White jeans shorts cut off
Two tight t shirts , one red and one white.
Brown trousers
Blue track suit top
Short sleeve patterned shirt
Red shorts
Grey flannel trunks, white Calvin K pants x 2
Red acetate shirt
Black millenium top
Black boots
Brown suede boots
And that was it for a weeks stay.
The travel kettle was very useful, as no apartments have kettles in Spain, they are not used much at all in fact, as was the portable CD player. A radio would have been good but not essential.
Wednesday 14th June mid morning
Up fairly late after a late night again, to bed at 4.30am. Not feeling 100% today, a bit sniffy and a little sunburnt as well. So Im taking it easy.
Final Squaddie update
They are back and planting little b ushes and flowering plants today. So not exactly backbreaking work today. They are unlikely to go sans tops with such easy work as it looks a bit soft.Who gets hot planting flowers out? Id have them slogging over the soil, pickaxes in hand again, then trooping down to the beach to cool off at the end of the day, stripping off naked as they go into the sea. Suffice to say this has not happened as yet and I dont think it will, although Ibizan life is full of surprises.
Back on the ramparts, last night
I finally got to meet a real Ibizencan last night up, on the Ramparts. His name was Jose and he was born on Calle Aragon , living here until he was 17 and then going to find work in Barcelona. Since then he has been back for his holidays and I suppose to see his family, assuming they too are still here, he didn´t say and I forgot to ask. He is now back for 6 months from April to October working as a booking agent for a travel agents in Figueretas. We had quite a long chat in fact, as I had many questions I wanted to ask about growing up here in the sixties. His English wasn´t that good, and my spanish is still minimal. He did speak fluent french and german though. So after a short cuddle he went home as did I getting back by 4am, as I mentioned earlier.
On Ibizan orgies
It is odd how group sexual encounters develop on the Ramparts. How they form, coalesce and split up. Like threesomes it seems that you can add one more body to the pile up and it all disintegrates into a few stragglers.
I was watching one last night but not participating there. It was curious to me to note that it started with just two men then incrementally added a little knot of people, six I think, in a circle. Then I could see more people from a distance looking and as these things always do, like in crowds, people want to at least see what is going on and often, join in. But I already knew by doing that, essentially they would destroy it or finish it . Which of course is what happened. After about three more people joined in it was already disbanding into smaller ´break off ´groups and then people slowly drifted away. About five seems to be best for this type of group sex. I will leave you to imagine the roles for such a group. Or equally perhaps to dismiss the notion with a shudder!
An eyesore
The biggest eyesore here by far has to be the Playa den Bossa hotel, which is an appalling twenty story concrete monstrosity, pretty much devoid of any redeeming architectural features. It sticks out like a sore thumb and why it was given planning permission it is hard to say but you have to think that there was some kind of underhand deal going on somewhere. It probably happened in the boom of the first tourist era of the seventies, when Ibiza was more desperate to promote itself, by encouraging tourism on the island. Did they know what they were hoping for? As I´ve already mentioned, many young Ibizans in that era were leaving the island in order to find work in larger cities like Valencia and Barcelona, Madrid, the capital, of course as well. Such building work providing local young men with the work opportunity to stay here , while women were then employed as chambermaids, cooks, tourism advisers , reps and so on. It is easy to be judgemental but I didn´t live here when I was young. Luckily den Bossa playa and resort is in the German package holiday area and no-one else need go there. I can nevertheless imagine the full horror.
Wednesday June 14th mid evening
So I am almost at the end of this particular Ibizencan sojourn. A beautiful end to the day, clear skies, very warm, it is still 26C and calm seas. Puig des Molines is a beautiful place to watch the sunset. I am almost thinking about being back here already , I hope others can come with me then in August. I´ll be disappointed if they cant come.
Now all that remains is for me to pack my bags and head towards the airport around 2am for an early morning flight back into London. Always a sad occasion , particularly when you´re back in the airport queue, with all the other returning Brits as well.
It almost seems longer than a week , yet the time has also gone very quickly. although I suppose in all honesty I have not accomplished anything special, it feels like much has happened though nevertheless. Considering i only began to write this account four days ago a lot has been added. And hopefully it will serve to remind me of what was going on in my head in this short time frame. Looking back much appears to be about sex for some reason but actually I´m not sure if that´s a fair or apt summary overall. Nevertheless equally we didn´t call our safer sex trilogy Sex Love and Life without some reason. There are a few things that happened that I have not covered at all. All in all its been an enjoyable week and I feel it was time enjoyable well spent. I gave my weights back to the apartmentos owner Antonio to store until next time in August. I cannot help but feel that many of the problems that I have in London wouldn´t happen here though. The sun is finally disappearing behind the hills west of the airport and so this is adios Ibiza for the moment.
On to An Ibizan Diary September 1995 (an ongoing work)
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