Ibiza: Swift escape from reality
Ibiza is a magical place.
Galya and I have this tradition of going to a warm place once per year to run away from the world, to completely disconnect and dive in forgetfulness, to recharge and eventually rethink (depending on the amount of Mojitos)...
After Prague, Venice, Barcelona, now we chose Ibiza...attracted mainly to the renown nightlife and ever sunny days. There we go, we are in Ibiza - small piece of land thrown in the middle of the Mediterranean sea. Exactly in the same way like it is hidden in the mist of the sun, Ibiza also hides its secrets going far beyond Pacha, Ushuaia, David Guetta (and certainly beyond West End, which will be explained later).
First of all, for me Ibiza was a Paradise of beaches...every day we visited two.
Day 1: Cala Gracio & Cala Gracioneta - cute little beaches, surrounded by trees, cactuses, rocks, cliffs and abundant in fine sand...and boobs. Yes, 80% of women decide to become one with the nature and go topless. Nothing wrong. After the first swim in the soup of boobs, you just start benchmarking...
Day 2: Port des Torrent & Cala de Bou - those were a bit more rocky, a bit more populated, but still nice and clean.
Day 3: Cala de Bassa & Cala Conta - these two were absolutely gorgeous. I haven't seen that many divine beaches but those put the benchmark really high. Crystal clear water...I thought that in the movies they make a special effect so it has this blue-greenish color, so one can see the bottom and the fish swimming around people's legs. But no - it exists, right there for free in Cala Conta. This couldn't get much better, but I would have liked to have a little longer to enjoy and drown in carelessness.
AND I need to put for the record that I drove a boat AGAIN...in such moments, maybe because of the strong Sun, but I start thinking - at which point did I decide that I need to work for a Corporation? At which point I decided that career is my path? Why not having a bar with a hay roof, or why not driving a boat?
Ibiza was as well ...Sunsets.
There is something ridiculously crazy and charming about those Sunsets in Ibiza. Everyone has seen a Sunset, right? It's beautiful and inspiring and all that. It could be romantic, exciting...but in Ibiza the Sunsets are something beyond SPECIAL, they are magnificent events. I have never seen a place where EACH evening hundreds of people would get together just to say goodbye to the Sun and welcome the night, and when the giant red ball completely disappears behind the horizon, people would start applauding and some insane euphoria would crawl within each spectator. I found it absolutely mind-blowing. There are Sunset bars (constructed so that people can watch the Sunset), Sunset pre-parties, Sunset after-parties, Sunset music, Sunset cocktails, Sunset meals...the life in Ibiza is organized around the Sunset. The Sun is the God in Ibiza (and this God brings tons of business to the little island, too!).
And what happens after the Sun retires in its red boudoir? People somehow free released, they feel that this it the time when no one will see or remember them... (no photo materials here...my camera doesn't make good photos in the dark).
You can choose to go to West End - this is a street, really long one, densely populated with bars, the "callers" in front of the bars literally would pour tons of (cheap) alcohol in your mouth so you enter in their bar. The age there is a subjective concept but let's just accept that everyone behaves like they are in their teen years, the craziest of them. If you are not ready to go back to those years and handle that hangover.
An obvious alternative are the big clubs of Ibiza...meaning the biggest clubs in the world. The audience is different, though. First of all, for one simple reason - they are insanely brutally expensive. Get ready to pay 9-12 EUR for a bottle of water, or 18-21 EUR for a long drink. We love techno music, we love clubs, we love the night, we had to go...But it does feel wrong to spend this amount of money on a night club. If you do crave for some glamour and an all-night shift of dancing, those are your places.
In Ibiza life is easy. The most crucial decisions that you need to make are which beach to visit, how much to drink, where to eat, how to enjoy better. Your most stressful moment & biggest worry is: are you gonna catch the SUN tonight??
Maybe it is what they call the "Island fever" but it catches you so fast and penetrates in every membrane of your body and your brain. It is as if someone touched us with a magic wand, someone put us in a 4-day meditation mode. We need to aim for something rather permanent than temporary, and this is what we did. Disconnecting in such a way from our Brussels reality, devoting to the Sun and the Sea, we somehow took the chance to look within ourselves but also to take a breath away and look from outside at our lives, to rethink, revaluate, appreciate...
Galya and I have this tradition of going to a warm place once per year to run away from the world, to completely disconnect and dive in forgetfulness, to recharge and eventually rethink (depending on the amount of Mojitos)...After Prague, Venice, Barcelona, now we chose Ibiza...attracted mainly to the renown nightlife and ever sunny days. There we go, we are in Ibiza - small piece of land thrown in the middle of the Mediterranean sea. Exactly in the same way like it is hidden in the mist of the sun, Ibiza also hides its secrets going far beyond Pacha, Ushuaia, David Guetta (and certainly beyond West End, which will be explained later).
First of all, for me Ibiza was a Paradise of beaches...every day we visited two.Day 1: Cala Gracio & Cala Gracioneta - cute little beaches, surrounded by trees, cactuses, rocks, cliffs and abundant in fine sand...and boobs. Yes, 80% of women decide to become one with the nature and go topless. Nothing wrong. After the first swim in the soup of boobs, you just start benchmarking...
Day 2: Port des Torrent & Cala de Bou - those were a bit more rocky, a bit more populated, but still nice and clean.
Day 3: Cala de Bassa & Cala Conta - these two were absolutely gorgeous. I haven't seen that many divine beaches but those put the benchmark really high. Crystal clear water...I thought that in the movies they make a special effect so it has this blue-greenish color, so one can see the bottom and the fish swimming around people's legs. But no - it exists, right there for free in Cala Conta. This couldn't get much better, but I would have liked to have a little longer to enjoy and drown in carelessness.
AND I need to put for the record that I drove a boat AGAIN...in such moments, maybe because of the strong Sun, but I start thinking - at which point did I decide that I need to work for a Corporation? At which point I decided that career is my path? Why not having a bar with a hay roof, or why not driving a boat?
Ibiza was as well ...Sunsets.
There is something ridiculously crazy and charming about those Sunsets in Ibiza. Everyone has seen a Sunset, right? It's beautiful and inspiring and all that. It could be romantic, exciting...but in Ibiza the Sunsets are something beyond SPECIAL, they are magnificent events. I have never seen a place where EACH evening hundreds of people would get together just to say goodbye to the Sun and welcome the night, and when the giant red ball completely disappears behind the horizon, people would start applauding and some insane euphoria would crawl within each spectator. I found it absolutely mind-blowing. There are Sunset bars (constructed so that people can watch the Sunset), Sunset pre-parties, Sunset after-parties, Sunset music, Sunset cocktails, Sunset meals...the life in Ibiza is organized around the Sunset. The Sun is the God in Ibiza (and this God brings tons of business to the little island, too!).
And what happens after the Sun retires in its red boudoir? People somehow free released, they feel that this it the time when no one will see or remember them... (no photo materials here...my camera doesn't make good photos in the dark).
You can choose to go to West End - this is a street, really long one, densely populated with bars, the "callers" in front of the bars literally would pour tons of (cheap) alcohol in your mouth so you enter in their bar. The age there is a subjective concept but let's just accept that everyone behaves like they are in their teen years, the craziest of them. If you are not ready to go back to those years and handle that hangover.
An obvious alternative are the big clubs of Ibiza...meaning the biggest clubs in the world. The audience is different, though. First of all, for one simple reason - they are insanely brutally expensive. Get ready to pay 9-12 EUR for a bottle of water, or 18-21 EUR for a long drink. We love techno music, we love clubs, we love the night, we had to go...But it does feel wrong to spend this amount of money on a night club. If you do crave for some glamour and an all-night shift of dancing, those are your places.
In Ibiza life is easy. The most crucial decisions that you need to make are which beach to visit, how much to drink, where to eat, how to enjoy better. Your most stressful moment & biggest worry is: are you gonna catch the SUN tonight??
Maybe it is what they call the "Island fever" but it catches you so fast and penetrates in every membrane of your body and your brain. It is as if someone touched us with a magic wand, someone put us in a 4-day meditation mode. We need to aim for something rather permanent than temporary, and this is what we did. Disconnecting in such a way from our Brussels reality, devoting to the Sun and the Sea, we somehow took the chance to look within ourselves but also to take a breath away and look from outside at our lives, to rethink, revaluate, appreciate...
