We awoke to the sound of our alarm clock for the first time on our trip, and quickly got ready. We refuelled the car, dropped it off at the rental place, took the shuttle bus to the airport and checked in a bag – avoiding the whole bagging our liquids separately thing.
Once checked in, we had a bagel and croissant breakfast at the airport before flying back on a totally uneventful flight. The taxi driver we got in Berlin was a crazy driver, but we ended up back at home safe and sound – though no faster than the normal and sane taxi drivers. Driving like a madman does not, is seems, save you any time!
Back at home Odin, the cat, was very happy to see us. We cleaned up a bit and shopped for the next few days.
We woke quite early and had breakfast at the hotel. It was a decent continental breakfast!
Simon Likes breakfast
Breakfast was nice
After which we packed our gear and stored the large bag at the hotel for the day while we headed out to explore the other lighthouse on the island. Some 10 minutes of tiny roads later, we arrived.
The other Lighthouse
Butterfly
Spikey plant
Bee!
Unfortunately there wasn’t that much around to see besides a few flowers and a super calm butterfly, and the weather wasn’t quite nice enough to stay long, so we headed to a nearby beach, stopping to smell the flowers on the way. Or photograph them anyway 😉
Manja doing her thing
The results
of Manja doing her thing
A few minutes of dirt road later, we arrived at a beach with the coolest little bar-shack, which I failed to take a picture of. After relaxing a bit we started to collect plastic on every beach, feeling like we were really making a difference. A young lady even got inspired and joined in! Starting a movement 😉
Pristine looking beach, even better after our cleaning 🙂
At the next beach we walked along to a bar, and when we emptied our collected rubbish bag, this awesome little lizard stopped by to say thanks!
Walkway to the beach
Pristine Nature
Removing the plastic
A Bag in progress
A small bag carried away
Lizard says thanks!
After this we hit the famous Playa de illetas – one of the beaches voted as best in the world a few years running. It was pretty, though I feel like the Aussie beaches can definitely compete!
One really cool thing was a section where the waves from the opposite sides of the sea met – which was particularly fascinating today as one side was calm and the other very choppy and rough.
How
Pretty
Is
this?
As it was getting toward lunchtime we decided to try one of the beachside bars and have a pizza… It really wasn’t that great, so we won’t recommend the place here. With some food in our belly we headed to “one last beach” on the choppy side of the cove.
The last beach we visited, however, was a sobering experience. The whole beach was completely littered with plastics – which I’m pretty sure were largely washed up. There was even tons of plastic nurdles… Which were totally impossible to pick out. I spent a good 15 minutes on a 10×10 cm spot, and only just managed to clean it. You could spend days here trying to clean this up.
Walkway to the other side
What?
Seriously?
Nurdles! No!
Basket of plastic
PLastic everywhere
Completely covered
All around us
Tiny chips
And Toys
Basket full
Bag full of tiny bits. Our futile efforts of cleaning
I mean seriously, what are we doing to our planet?
Somewhat deflated, but feeling re-energised about minimising our plastic use, we headed back to the scooter, picked up the bag and went to the Marina and caught the ferry back. The weather was turning, so we were quite happy to have a seat inside this time – luckily the waves were not too bad yet.
Last ride on the scooter
By Formentera! It’s been swell!
Back in Ibiza we headed back to the car and were a little relieved to find it exactly as we had left it. This was our last night before flying home, so we had an Airbnb close to the airport.
Nice view from our airbnb
Artsy accommodation
This made dinner a challenge, there was a lot of options but mostly in locations where we couldn’t really park nearby and Manja was struggling to walk too much after we had spent much of the day on our feet. So we decided to try a local pizza place which had some really creative pizzas. I tried the Pistachio while Manja had a Diavlo. Both were unfortunately lacking in flavour, but they did have a nice chilly oil which we used to spice the whole thing up a notch
Fancy plain pizza
Simon still happy
Back at the Airbnb we packed our gear ready for the flight the next day.
Today was Ferry day, with us heading over to Formentera, the Island just off the coast of Ibiza. We got up early to make sure we would leave by around 10, because we were booked on the 11:30 Ferry. Unfortunately for us, according to the schedule, that ferry didn’t exist. WTF?!? We had booked it months in advance, and Manja had not got a cancelation message.
So I gave them a call. Well, I tried to…. but no one answered. I tried the other 3 numbers they had listed, and no one answered there either…. We were starting to get a bit concerned but continued to get ready and pack our gear. As we sat outside and waited for our breakfast (Breakfast was always served in the sun on the verandah overlooking the farm, really beautiful!) I decided to try once more. And someone answered! I asked if she spoke English, and luckily she “did a little”.
I told her of the plight of our ferry and she just said “Okay, you take the 11 or the 12″… and hung up.
So we had breakfast and got going, deciding on the Ferry at 12. That would give us plenty of time to find a carpark and waddle over to the boat.
Bye car, see you in 2 days!
Along the way I decided to be a rebel and specifically ignore some instructional signs….
No! I will not use my index finger!
On the way we even found the booking counter, by pure chance. Given we were already here, I decided to confirm and ask about our tickets again. A lovely young lady explained it in perfect English: “Oh, we do this all the time this season, because the booking system is broken”.
Right.
Well, a stamp and some white-out on our form later, we headed down the pier to our allocated ferry. The ride was nice, a bit choppy at the beginning but calm enough for us to comfortably sit outside on the terrace facing the front.
When we got to Formentera we went straight to the scooter hire place, where we got a scooter with no worries. Because we had taken the fully insured version – apparently uncommon – we had the most interesting introduction. There was a lot of “But you are fully insured, so do whatever you like…”
Like
“This is the locking mechanism, so that no one steals your scooter. But you are fully insured so do whatever you like”
*Mimics throwing away the lock*
and
“This is the luggage box. Be careful opening and closing it, because it can bend. But you are fully insured, so do whatever you like”
*Mimics elbowing the box closed*
and
“This is the centre stand. It will keep the scooter upright, use it rather than the side stand where the bike may fall over. But you are fully insured, so do whatever you like”
*Mimics kicking the scooter*
Ready to scoot!
With the intro done, we also got a map of Formentera, where they recommended their personal top 10 – And told us what places are not worth it at all, with similar expressive and funny gestures.
We loaded up – and I mean loaded up, we took all our electronics as we didn’t want to leave them unsupervised in a car – and headed over to our hotel. With a backpack on Manja, we only just fit on the scooter. Hilariously, we were also followed by a police car for half of our trip, which made me sweat a bit… but they did not seem to care about our load at all. Perhaps they had been told we were fully insured?
One thing to note: A fully automatic scooter has 2 brakes. The back brake is exactly where the clutch is on a motorbike, so I stopped a bit roughly once or twice….
But we managed to get to the hotel in one piece, and we carted all of our non-essential-but-precious cargo into the room. The Hotel and room were really nicely renovated and setup.
View from our room
Kissing Swan Towels
So cute
After that we jumped back on the scooter and zipped all the way over to the other side of the island. We were going to check out a beach on the way, but the dirt-road really didn’t agree with Manjas foot, or my feeling of being on the right road 😂
So we stopped at a cute old windmill instead, where we also caught sight of a pretty quick black beetle.
Ancient Windmill is still
Cool beetle is not
Did not want a photograph taken either
Being on that side of the island, we headed to the east coasts lighthouse, which had a charging station for electric vehicles! Go Formentera!
The Lighthouse
Electric charging station
View from the lighthouse area
View from the lighthouse area
From there we slowly made our way back, one sight or beach at a time. Each time we walked a beach, we collected some rubbish as well. Here are some of the finds today, from otherwise pristine beaches.
I don’t even know what this is!
Rope
Hairtie
Plastic children’s bracelet
Not quite new waterbottle
Our rubbish gathering bag 1
Our rubbish gathering bag 2
Our rubbish gathering bag 3
Our rubbish gathering bag 4 with bonus ropes
When we got back to the hotel it started to cool down, so we dropped by and changed into some slightly warmer clothes, before heading into “town” to find some dinner at around 6:30. We quickly found out that no restaurant was open until 7, and that they all seemed to serve standard Western fare – Pizza, Pasta, Schnitzel – or had a very seafood heavy menu, with little or no fish. As Manja doesn’t like shellfish, and we didn’t really want a standard thing, we ended up settling on a grill place where I had some Charcoal grilled calamari and Manja had a salmon pasta.
As we finished dinner we realised it was sunset time, so we paid quickly and “rushed” to the beach… Well walked as fast as Manja could manage. We knew we didn’t have a perfect viewing angle, and we also knew we would not make it to the beach where the sunset would be most spectacular. So we headed to the local beach and walked toward the sunset, which really was stunning that evening. As we walked, an old hippie lady stopped by and offered to take a photo of us – well, almost demanded. Manja already whispered “If she takes my phone, you have to run after her…” But she was really just a sweet lady wanting to take a picture of us 😁
We enjoyed the sunset before heading back to the scooter in semi darkness. When we got back to the scooter, we rode to the hotel where we dropped into bed without even writing a blog… Which was easy because we didn’t have internet reception in our room 😂
We woke up to the sound of the Turkey (GOBBLE GOBBLE GOBBLE), but felt we had slept enough anyway and got up to get ready for breakfast. A feast was once more provided for us.
Today was Labor Day, but our host assured us that it didn’t mean much on Ibiza and pretty much everything would be open. We asked about the Hippie Markets specifically and she said “Oh, I sure hope so, because I plan to go this afternoon!”.
Reassured we set off, remembering that we still had 2 ice-tea drinks from the supermarket two days ago, which made for a refreshing drive.
Red Tree of Life
Green Tree of Life
When we got near there was a big sign saying “Hippie Market Parking”, so we pulled in and paid the attendant. As we walked over to the markets themselves, we walked past 2 other carparks… Clever marketing by the first guy! Luckily the prices were all the same and the distance not that much greater. We spent about 2 hours walking through the markets, which had everything from the typical cheap imports to high quality handmade things. As with all of these types of markets, price was not necessarily an indication of quality 😉
We didn’t find anything that took our fancy in particular, so we decided to take a lucky dip from one of the vendors. Manja got a Ring and I got a random bracelet, and we were both amused. Even more amusing was the question “Did you get engaged?!?” from her family when she sent a photo 😂
Hip Hip Hippy!
Hippy Markets
Hippy Simon
Wide variety of Watches. Me loves Watches
Lucky Dip!
Lucky Dip Results!
After being tie-dye, net-dresses and dope paraphernalia’d out we decided to make a move back to the car and to our next stop, which was unfortunately closed. Not to be stopped, we headed on over to the Can Marça Caves, which had both a beautiful view and some caves to visit. Manja even made it down and back up all the steps, a definite improvement 🙂
The caves themselves were interesting, but nothing to write home about. The history seems cool but the guide was pretty disinterested. Back in the old days, smugglers used the caves for stashing contraband and had even marked an escape route high on the ceilings: Just in case the local law decided to visit, the smugglers could get out and escape on land. They did have a fancy waterfall light show, where they recreated the waterfall that used to flow through the caves originally. I guess this means they diverted water somehow… But the guide did not give details.
View over the ocean from the cabe entry
More view, less zoom
Selfie Manja
Lizard!
Pretty Lizard!
Cactus at the ocean
Small flower in field of big flower
Yellow flower, blue ocean
Caves, normal light
Caves Fancy Lights
More fancy light caves
Waterfall fake
None the less it was interesting and the photo opportunity itself was worth it already! On the way back we even found a few birds which Manja managed to snap!
Fast little
Birdy
Spot the Birdy
So, did I smuggle this picture from an Australian image or really see it on Ibiza?
As she was patiently waiting for birds to land, I noticed this tree, and once more thought: Australia or Spain?
After these caves we decided to hit a beach for a coffee and a break. We got to a beach, which was nice enough and had a cafe, but was not nice enough to entice us to stay all that long. So we decided to just have a coffee and ice-cream.
A nice looking beach with a weird feel
After our break, we went to yet another beach 20 minutes away. We got to the carpark of the beach and Manja said I didn’t park properly. I have no idea what she is on about.
Parking Perfection
The beach was a bit of a scramble to get to – yet another challenge for Manja – but we managed to get down the inclines and stairs without much hassle. Here I took Manjas bandages off and she cooled her heels in the water.
Calm and cooled, we settled on the waters edge and chatted away as the sun slowly set and the tide came in… Well /I/ chatted, I guess I was probably chewing poor Manjas ear off 😉. This stopped suddenly when a wave reached our towel and we jumped up to get out of the way. 😂
With the water having reached where we were sitting, we decided to trek back to the car and go and search for some dinner. Manja had found a well reviewed Tapas place near beach #3 for today. When we got there we found the nicest beach of the day, although the sand was still pretty brown. As the sun was setting, it quickly got cold though, so we walked down the road to the Tapas place. Feel really had a nice… Feel, and some pretty good Tapas. They also served us one of their home-made Limoncello – Which ALMOST made it a bad idea to drive home… Maybe I was just a little bit tipsy by the time we got into the driveway.
This place feels
A Simon (introduced species)
Entre
Mocktail
TAPAS!
Yum Yum
Cheeeers!
When we got home Manjas foot really ached, so I put her feet up, re-bandaged them and applied the ice-pack while I wrote this blog 😁
After all the walking yesterday, Manjas foot really needed a break and I could really feel my legs too. So we slept in until about 9 and got ready for breakfast by 9:30. It really was a fantastic spread, which we enjoyed sitting in the morning sunshine and met the farms guard dog “Rocky”.
Rocky Guarding your feet
Rocky deserves pats!
Simon at breakfast with Farm background
Simon with Breakfast with house background
Breakfast for two
Yes, I look like I was here alone, but Manja was taking photos, promise!
The next few hours were spent with feet up, relaxing and reading. We talked a bit about how Manjas foot was going and we decided that maybe it would be worth having it checked out. A friend of hers even recommended a german doctor and with a german health insurance card you can get treatment without a problem. So in the afternoon we headed over to the local medical clinic, where we were registered and then sent to Emergency. The triage nurse called for a “Nacha? Nancha?” but given we were the only ones in the room we figured she meant us. When she pointed to the screen we understood: Reception had spelled her name “Nanja” and the “j” in Spanish is pronounced “ch”. The triage nurse took the bandage of Manjas foot, took one look and got a serious face on, asking us to move into the next room while she was already dialing a number. Not 10 minutes later the most casual looking dude rocked up to take a look. Turns out he was a doctor (wearing what I can only describe as sneakers and jogging pants) and he decided that X-Rays would be prudent. These, however, are not available at the medical clinic. He would give us a note and send us over to Emergency to the Islands main hospital. I was cool as a cucumber, and totally relaxed the whole time. Not tense at all.
Completely at ease…
Thinking that it may not be possible to get an appointment today, Manja asked “Do you think we should go today?” to which to Doc looked at her incredulously and said “Yes, I think it is a very good idea to do this today”. I really do love these types of miscommunication, while I was maybe just a little tense because I don’t deal well with injuries on other people, that made me giggle a bit.
While the nurse bandaged up Manjas foot, I went with the Doc to get the paperwork. When we got to his office I had to smile – turns out he was a paediatrician, either that or children just love to draw for him and stick their pictures on his walls. 😂
When I got back Manja was bandaged and ready to go, so we headed off on our drive to the Hospital – almost all the way on the other end of the island… Well, so 25 minutes away. When we got there we could take our pick of carparks – as in parking structures – which all had vacancies. We chose the closest to emergency and headed on in. We showed the doctors note to the reception person, who started to take down Manjas details and as he was doing so a door was ripped open behind us and someone jelled “Nacha?” – We knew this game by now, but she wasn’t even checked in yet! Talk about efficiency.
Turns out the person calling us in was the Hospitals triage person, who took a look at the note and sent us back to the waiting room. We sat down and were called up again not a minute later, this time by an orderly who plonked Manja into a wheelchair and drove her over to the X-ray room. 5 minutes later we were back in the waiting room, X-rays complete.
For contrast here to those who don’t know: The german system is much less effective than this. The Australian system isn’t this good either. This place has being a hospital tuned to a fine art.
Now we were processed, it appeared that the system understood Manja was in no danger. People with lacerations and wheelchairs were treated before us, even when they arrived after us. We settled in preparing to wait for quite a while, but only had to wait for about 1.5 hours before an orderly wheeled Manja to a doctor. He checked out the X-rays and pronounced “Nothing broken. Soft tissue only”. He proceeded to confirm we did everything right for this injury and it would take 3 weeks or four to heal. Woohoo! Dr. Simon to the rescue! Now, let’s all agree to never ever come to Simon with medical stuff because he is seriously grossed out by it!
I was quite elated and Manja had spent her time waiting wisely and found us a nice restaurant to head to for dinner, called the Boat house. Today was cloudy and a bit colder, so we were glad to find it had a table inside, right next to a heater, when we arrived. It was really nicely themed with an old-school driftwood naval style and was a really lovely dinner. As the hours passed, we left just before sunset and got back to the hotel just after dark. A blog entry later, we dropped into bed.
We didn’t sleep all that well, so we packed our gear and went off to hunt breakfast. Manja had searched out a healthy option today, so we headed to Wild Beets – a Vegan, Gluten Free, Organic place… which was maybe just one or two options too far. It was fine, but nothing spectacular, and I had the worlds smallest granola while Manja had an egg free spinach omelette.
Tired Simon
Nice looking, but average tasting, Breakfast
None the less it was a decent, all be it expensive, breakfast snack. We decided to give the Salt shop another go, surely it would be open by now. But when we got there it was still closed, only a construction worker inside putting up some new shelves… Maybe the place generally doesn’t open? Suddenly a lady brushed past us into the shop saying something in Spanish and … closed the door. Not open I guess!
We decided to just head to our next Airbnb who had said that it would be fine to get there a bit earlier. It turns out to be an old farm, accessible only via a fairly long and fairly bumpy dirt road. As we arrived we were greeted by a charming old local farmer who pointed us to a beautifully renovated building where Mari, our host, greeted us and showed us around. We were free to roam the entire farm as we like and explore as we want. We decided to relax a bit in the sun on the veranda where I spent a bit of time catching up on writing blogs while Manja read some lonely planets about future travel locations. Then we took a photo-tour of the farm, where we found, amongst other things, a cool old bike, a turkey, a goat and a whole load of flowers.
Such pretty presentation
Modern room
Gobble gobble gobble
Storage pizza oven?
Bike
Another Angle
Another Angle
Handlebar
Another Angle
Another Angle
Goat
Close goat
Wheel
F
L
O
R
A
A
N
D
F
L
O
R
A
Tree
Flower
Cactus
When it got a bit windy we decided to head out and try our luck at the Salt shop again….. which was Open! Woohooo!
Look! They open!
Browsing the shop we found a nice necklace which we both liked, so we picked it up with some Ibizan “Flor de Sal” as a souvenir. I think the necklace suits her well 🙂
Pretty! Also, Manjas new necklace.
We dropped by another couple of local supermarkets. In the first one we didn’t find anything which spoke to us, but the second was a cool farmers-market style place. We picked up some drinks and I grabbed a ham and cheese croissant, because I was ravenous.
Lovely supermarket
Plastic Free Tomatoes
Interesting drink
gobble gobble gobble
On a whim we went to check out Babylon beach…. Which turns out to be a beach bar that was closed. However, there was a nice walking trail along the coast here, and Manjas foot was doing okay. So we walked along the coastline, which really did remind me of Australia. What do you think? Australia or Spain?
Australia or Spain?
Babylon Beach
The walkway
Red Soil
Great Ocean Road
Simon watching the waves
Waves watching Simon
Waves watching rocks
Rocks watching waves
Rocks
Waves
Ladder to the ocean
Purple Flower
Other Purple Flower
More Purple Flower
Lavender Purple flower
On the other end of the seaside walk we googled for some dinner options and Manja found a nice tapas restaurant just off the port, which would be a 20 minute walk from where we were…. at normal pace. Giving ourselves twice that time to account for Manjas foot, we slowly headed over there. On the way we found some pretty pretty roses… and a cat.
At one point Manja saw a funny looking tree and decided to try tree pose… Either that or she was adjusting her bandage 😂
Yoga…
… or bandage fix?
Unfortunately the place didn’t serve dinner until 7, so we had to kill 45 minutes, which we did by checking out the township nearby. Among other things we found Nikos cafe!
Goofy looking Simon in front of Nikos Cafe
We really did want to have Tapas for dinner, otherwise we might have checked it out 🙂 So we headed back to the tapas place, which had a nice seat by the window for us. As more people arrived it got a bit too touristy, including a projector screen playing animated features for kids, but for the time we were there it was quite nice!
T A P A S
After dinner the plan was for me to go and get the car, while Manja waited somewhere so she didn’t have to walk so far. Unfortunately we didn’t find any nice waiting stops, so she walked all the way back to the car with me. Tough as nails!
We drove back to our Airbnb and put our feet up for the night… Especially her broken one!
We woke up and checked out Manjas foot. Not terrible! She could hobble along slowly. As we were getting ready we wanted to pick up the ice-pack from our hosts…. But they had already gone out. Damn. We wrote them asking when they would be back so we could grab the ice-pack and they said “Don’t worry, just go in and grab it from the freezer!”
Oh, Right! We’re in the middle of nowhere, locking doors is optional. Fantastic! Two minutes later, ice-pack on foot, we drove to a small breakfast cafe Manja had found for us. Turns out they didn’t have a menu, but the waiter suggested a simple but nice breakfast for us – Toasted Ciabatta with fresh tomatoes, Avocado and grilled cheese. Simple but really delicious with fresh produce. Turns out the place was an art gallery cafe, so we had a look at some of the art as well. None of it spoke to us enough to buy, but it was nice anyway.
Restaurant
Nice Breakfast
Someone eating nice breakfast
As we moved, the cold pack kept slipping off Manjas foot, so I McGuyvered my belt to hold it in place. I was pretty happy with my engineering prowess 😀
Next stop would be a salt shop – Manja loves these – but it was closed when we arrived. Next door was a supermarket of local produce though, so we browsed that for a bit and decided to come back to it another day when the salt place was open.
Salt in our wounds, the salt place was closed
Super Can Guasch was open though
They had fruit
Manja did not let me buy these chillies
On the way to the next stop, Google said drive left, so we did. 500 meters later it told us to take the 4th exit on the next roundabout…. Also known as doing a U-Turn. We were just about to do so when we saw an old-timer exhibition on the other side of the road, so we completed the u-turn and stopped for the exhibition. Turns out that this was pretty much a meeting of the old-timer owners on the island, many of whom still just drove their cars as regular transport!
Car show
Rusty car
Bike
Steering wheel
Convertibe car
Blue car
Yellow car
Stripey car
Yellow truck
Black car
Half car, full bike
White car
Old car
Old car info
Being old-timer out, we wanted some time on a beach and decided to head over to Platja de ses Salines, a nearby beach. It had a carpark fee, but was totally worth it. Unfortunately the water was still a bit cold for swimming – but was perfect for Manjas foot. Ice pack no longer needed! We spent a bit of time sitting around on the beach before slowly wandering up to one of the bars. Turned out to be an expensive tourist trap, so we kept on walking – all the way to a so-called “Holy stone” where we saw not only the stone, but also some lizards darting about. We decided to put the newly acquired tripod to good use to get a few close-ups of the colourful guys!
Me
Beach
Cool Tree
Lizard!
Old building site, probably a fortress
Holy Stone
Holy Stone!
Hugging Holy Stones skeleton
Rebellious Simon
On the way back I could not help but be a rebel… You may have to zoom in to get it 😉
As is our way, we collected abandoned plastic as we walked, carting a full bag off the beach by the end.
Rubbish
We thought we would head into the local town to get some fro-yo but the shop was closed and the area somehow uninviting. It felt abandoned – but I think that’s just because the tourist season hasn’t started yet. Importantly though, the place confirmed that I am a VIP:
Who’s the VIP?
Being 4pm, we decided to try for an early dinner at a cafe which was a 5 minute drive away…. Which turned out to sell €500 bottles of champagne with matching food, which we decided was a biiiit too pricey for an early dinner 😉
While I walked back to fetch the car, Manja found another cafe with a nice name: Yemanja! We just had to give it a crack. Toward the end of our drive there we hit a tiny winding road toward the beach. Weirdly it had taxis streaming in the opposite direction. We didn’t think much of it, until we got to a point where there was a guy on the road, who directed us into to a carpark on the gravel area next to the road, Festival style, but free. Errr… Okay….
We decided to go with it, so we followed the crowd. Wearing a T-Shirt and shorts, I felt much underdressed, but Manjas confidence persisted and we walked to the restaurant. Once there we had a look at the menu, a bit pricy but not terrible. Manja asked off-handedly if they have an event and the Maitre’d looked a bit disappointed and said, “No, that’s next door. It’s a good party if that is what you want, we are just a restaurant.” Manja totally charmed her with a confused look while saying “No, we are just hungry and want to eat. No party needed”. The Maitre’d beamed and said “Well! Then you are in the right place!” We immediately got two seats at a beautiful table with an ocean view. They even moved it half a meter into the shade for us when we realised that we would burn lobster red if we stayed there. I have no ideas how people managed in the full sun… (Well, actually I do. Loads of alcohol!)
We had a pretty nice Chicken Paella. Service was slow, but it was a fantastic people watching event. Retrospectively I should have taken some better pictures of the crowd! This place had everything from 16 year olds, to glamour couples to rich old guys…. You know, the whole spectrum one could expect! The table next to us had the most amusing group of locals – a few guys who were joined for drinks by streams of girls dressed to impress. All was fun and games until the bill came and the boys all got a bit pale, but split the bill before heading to the party next door. Based on the wad of €50 notes the waiter carried away I’m guessing their hip-pockets were hurting.
Our dinner meanwhile was delicious but too big for us to finish. We skipped dessert and headed off, almost swimming against the stream of people still arriving.
Entree
Happy Simon
Paella!
View from the Table
For sunset we wanted to get to the spot where Manja twisted her ankle, because its supposed to be an excellent spot for sunsets and it’s not actually well known for twisted ankles. When we got there we realised that others had the same information, with no carpark to be had nearby. I dropped Manja off and drove around a bit before finding one about 10 minutes away. I rushed back to make it just in time for sunset – and it was pretty as always.
Beach
Beach
Sunset
By the time we walked back to the car Manja was completely exhausted. We quickly rinsed the sand off us before dropping to bed for a reasonably early night… Well, I wrote this blog, and she’s sleeping next to me right now as I am finishing it 🙂
I awoke to the sound of our alarm clock. It was dark.
Bleary eyed I go to turn off the alarm, it’s 4 in the morning. Why on gods green earth would anyone set an alarm for 4 in the morning?!?
Then I remembered that we’re flying to Ibiza today and jumped out of bed, scaring both Manja and the Cat. We rushed to prepare everything. Shower, feed the cat, feed the girlfriend… What am I missing? Oh yeah, eat.
We had some leftover fruit and vegetables, so Manja made a quick smoothie while I made a Guacamole on toast. We are winning at early breakfast! Shove everything into the dishwasher, wait, not the cat. Stack the dishwasher and the automatic feeders. What’s that noise? Oh, Taxi is here!
We got to Tegel with an hour to boarding and needed the time. Security today was a nightmare, it took almost 30 minutes to get through. Luckily we had booked as “premium” members meaning that we could just take our luggage in as carry on provided they met the carry-on requirements for liquid and size. Having planned ahead, ours did and we boarded quickly…. And then got to wait for everyone else to board. This whole “premium” concept could still use some work… Another 30 minute delay thanks to not being able to get a take-off slot immediately and we were off.
Welcome to Ibiza!
On the flight a father who was traveling with his son (around 5 or 6) passed out. Credit to the crew, they did an awesome job. The dude was fine in the end too, no idea what happened.
Some 2 hours later we landed in Ibiza. An immediate question was: How many luggage handlers does it take to unload the cargo?
The most chilled luggage crew ever
When we got out of the airport we were greeted by fabulous weather. We didn’t even get grumpy when the shuttle bus to our hire-car company didn’t turn up for 30 minutes, while all other rental shuttles came and went. We got the rental SUV. No idea how this category of car is “small car” but whatever. It’s a Nissan “Juke” and I cannot recommend it so far.
Promo shot of our rental vehicle. Thankfully it is a rental and we will be able to give it back.
We drove about a bit and headed to a lookout near the Airbnb we would be staying at for the day because they needed a bit more time to get the room ready. It had a beautiful view!
Some dude ruing this picture perfect panorama
We decided to follow a trample path, which required a small jump off the main platform. Elegant as two mountain goats, I jumped down and Manja…. twisted her ankle. Badly. It flared up like a balloon.
Well. FFFFFF….ruitcake.
I helped her get back to the car and we did the good old Rice thing (Rest ice compress elevate… Thanks St. Johns!) sans the ice and compress because we had no facilities to do so. We considered what we would do next. Manja was thinking that Howling in Pain might be good and I was thinking that passing out might be good. Our thoughts were interrupted by a friendly local calling and saying (in almost perfect English) “I’m so sorry, I do not speak English. But your room is ready. When will you be here.”
In a few minutes said we and decided to put off our other plans until later. We arrived at the Airbnb and the host was kind enough to give us some ice – which I applied with a small amount of pressure much to Manjas dislike. She was sitting outside on a metal chair, and promptly cut her finger on that. Neither of us have ANY idea how she manage that, but a band-aid later we discussed what to do next and look at the surrounding gardens.
Welcome to Casa del Mar
…where the cactus are
… and the palm trees too
…purple flowers in bloom
…and nice sunsets too
The ice wouldn’t last that long and a proper bandage would be a good idea. So we headed to a local pharmacy in San Antonio…. only to find it impossible to park the SUV anywhere in the old town of little streets. Then by complete fluke, we found an open-air carpark (Read an area of dirt road next to the actual road, which the locals decided to park in). We parked to consider our next move and found a pharmacy across the road.
A short walk (in terms of distance, or a long one in terms of time and pain) later we had an instant-ice pack wrapped around Manjas Ankle in a pretty professional looking bandage.
Bandaged and Cooled.
Well, in a bandage anyway. By this point we were quite hungry and hunted for a cafe…. Anywhere near a carpark. Manja found such a place a 10 minute drive away, so we headed over. Turns out the place was right at the beach and made awesome looking pizzas. So we decided to have an early Ibiza Pizza dinner. (See what I did there?)
Ibiza Pizza
View from our table
We also waddled over to the seaside and let Manja cool her ankle in the ocean for a bit, as the ice-pack was starting to loose potency.
Beach Therapy!
From there it was back to the beach near our Airbnb, via a supermarket, to have a cheese, chorizo and balsamic snack dinner. We even managed to record the sunset for a bit after the party people left.
Balsamic, Cheese and Baguette dinner-snacks
Sunset
More sunset
For some weird reason we both felt tired, so after heading back to our Airbnb we dropped into bed.
