They’re battered. There's no prettier way to put it. Waiting for my flight out of Ibiza, I watch a procession of sun burnt, sleep-deprived, muscle-sore party boys and It Girls ouch and groan their way to Departures. As a blonde Brad Pitt look alike passes out on the bench beside me, his friends stand around helplessly, weakly clutching their six packs and water bottles. After some feverish mumbling, they hoist him up, and wobble to their gate. Think: Saving Private Ryan. In slow motion. With tattoos. And massive hangovers.
A weekend in Ibiza, hedonistic party capital of the world, can be rough.
In the sixties, this island, a part of the Balearic archipelago of Spain, became famous as an idyllic refuge for hippies tripping on flower power, ‘love-not-war’ philosophies and acid – not necessarily in that order. Gradually its distinctive music and anything-goes attitude drew bohemians and rock stars, artists and party chasers, the wild and the reckless from all over the world. If you were hip, cool and anti-establishment, Ibiza was the place to be.
Eventually, the 24-hour raves, fuelled by trance, alcohol and a cocktail of chemical uppers (illegal but absurdly easy to obtain) earned it the tag ‘Gomorrah of the Mediterranean Sea.’ By the late nineties, the Vengaboys were trilling about ‘going to Ibiza,’ but for a large part of the party world, the island was ‘over.’ It had become too accessible, too obvious, too crowded. A metaphor for bad behaviour, desperate partying and juvenile high jinks.
Till now. My friends and I land in Ibiza to find it in middle of a rejuvenation. The hippies and artists are reclaiming the North, along with the likes of celebrities like Jade Jagger. The Gucci tourists are back to sipping sangria over spicy paella in Eivissa Town’s graceful medieval Dalt Vila area, flush with designer boutiques. (We’re told that “rupee squillionaire” Lakshmi Mittal’s yacht is anchored here.) Electronic Dance Music, Ibiza’s greatest export, plays everywhere, a sound track to sunsets, full moons and baking afternoons on the beach. And the clubs, some of the best on the world, are vying with each other to source designer DJs and host supremely riotous party nights.
It seems like the ideal place for three girls to channel their inner hippies. We're concluding a hectic two week holiday, and after hefty doses of culture, history and architecture in Barcelona and Lisbon, we plan to do little besides lounge about in a zen-like stupor all day, soaking up the music, art and atmosphere. And of course, party through the nights.
This is the start of the ‘season’ – which stretches from June to October. We head to rocking San Antoni to watch sunrise from Café Del Mar. However, with its regulation bouncers and grimly chic waiters it seems rather naff so we amble down a line of sea-facing cafes to find a breezy bar with zingy mojitoes and wonderfully eccentric customers.
As the sun goes down in a flaming chaos of colour, a shy Spanish man with a braided beard teaches us tricks on his unicycle, watched appreciatively by the local Don Juan who chats us up using his scruffy dog as an icebreaker. A British playboy, who lives on his yacht, introduces us to passing friends (“everyone knows everyone else here”), and between it all our tousle-haired Argentinean waitress gives shopping tips. This fluid confluence of nationalities is a large part of Ibiza’s magic.
We choose Pacha, arguably the island’s best known club, to party the night away. Although Pacha has clubs around the world, from New York to Munich, its flagship is in Ibiza. It’s Flower Power night, a tribute to the island’s most colourful phase. Bathed in joyful pink, yellow and blue light, the front doors open into a multi-level room where hundreds of people dance to the Beatles, Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin... The energy is palpable, the music infectious.
Our charming Polish friend Maciek, a global nomad who has spent six months of a year working in Ibiza for the past 10 years, shows us around the club’s five rooms, capable of holding 3,000 people in all. We dance. We lounge. We sing, ‘All we are saying is give peace a chance,’ with a thousand people, hands in the air. The night ends on the terrace as day breaks, watching the sky slowly turn a delicate shade of blue.
In time-honoured Ibiza tradition, we wake up by afternoon and stumble out with sunglasses, hats and hangovers. There’s a dizzying variety of new age fetishism on offer in town, from snake massage therapy (150 Euros an hour) to nude power yoga. We settle for caffeine instead, sitting placidly at a café, watching determinedly botoxed women in clingy dresses totter by.
The buzz at the café is all about David Guetta, who organizes the ‘F**k Me I’m Famous’ nights at Pacha every Thursday, bringing in the likes of Will.I.Am, Taio Cruz and Black Eyed Peas. Since we’re in the mood for a more placid form of clubbing, we head to Bora Bora beach to snooze in the warm powdery sand while all around us beautiful people in gym-toned bodies and designer swimwear groove to the beat of yet another DJ, in yet another bar.
Maciek drives us out of town to demonstrate why he loves Ibiza on our final day on the island. We glide past wide open fields, quiet beaches and glittering salt pans, Ibiza’s white gold. And always, in the background, the deep blue Mediterranean sea. Our last few hours on the island are spent on Las Salinas beach, soaking up the sun, watching cold jelly-fish laden waves wash upon the shore and listening to a DJ dreamily spin that now intensely-familiar Balearic beat.
