Ibiza – Part 2

Tuesday ended with probably the best meal I’ve ever had. We went to Hostal La Torre, which is extremely expensive (and not something we’d normally do), but it’s an Ibiza tradition to watch the sun set at least once, and if you eat at La Torre you get a view of the sunset…. if there’s no cloud!

But TBH an hour before we got there, I wasn’t sure I was going. I felt terrible – probably the worst I’ve felt since what I think was my reaction to my covid jab a month or so ago when I really took a turn for the worst. In short, I felt sick, completely out of energy and just wanted to curl up and give up – I was laid on the bed face down and just felt like going nowhere. But had a coffee and hoped it would kick in. It did, but heading out I still felt pretty ropey, and had it not been for such a special night I wouldn’t have gone.

At La Torre we had seats facing the sea, with a great view out on the terrace of the potential sunset…. and the sun then promptly dropped behind a bank of cloud! A pod of dolphins turned up which was beautiful but pointless to try to take a photo of – it would have been 3 pixels of slightly different texture, and better just to enjoy the spectacle. We ordered food, and it has to be said it was one of the best meals I’ve ever had – everything aside from T’s salad was a peak experience, and I had Beef Entrecote which was simply sublime.

Played safe and had more Creon than normal with it, and didn’t have a dessert. The sun made a brief appearance through a tiny break in the cloud so we could mostly see it set, which was beautiful, and I managed to keep it together as the symbolism of sunsets is a little difficult at the moment.

T had dessert (essentially a creme caramel, but the best one I’ve ever had the luck of sampling) and some heaters were brought out as it was getting a bit cold. Something seemed to be wrong with one of them as a number of us had coughing fits at this point, and for me it was a little worse as the pain in my chest makes breathing deeply difficult – just at a time when I needed to do it. We paid and left, but getting back to the car was a struggle – purely because I couldn’t really breathe properly at this point. There’s a reason why I didn’t want a gas hob at home, and this illustrated it perfectly.

I wanted to drive to Sant Antoni and take a look around but wasn’t up to it – 2 hours out and I was pretty much done, despite spending the day taking it very easy, it’s clear that a late night takes it out of me much more than it used to. Plus breathing is pretty important, it turns out!

Wednesday we took it very easy – pretty much not done a lot other than eat and drink and take a half hour walk up the sea front, and a quick trip to Lidl to get stuff for lunch, playing it very safe with food like we’re back at home. It rained for some of the day, so Ushuaïa may be ‘interesting’ if it rains (which it looks like it might do).

We drove to Ushuaïa – funnily enough there’s parking everywhere there, I don’t think that many people go in sober…. and got there with a couple of hours to go, having prepped fully with pain killers as appropriate.

Sidebar. I’d emailed them about a week ago, telling them the full situation, that this will be my last time in Ibiza, that we stayed for one night during our honeymoon and that I need creon to be able to drink some drinks (such as any non-alcoholic cocktails with milk in) or eat any food – which we had planned to do in there. Their response started positively – “Dear Darren, thank you for reaching out and for sharing something so personal with us. We are truly sorry to hear about your diagnosis.” – and then proceeded to tell me no exceptions, take it before you arrive. Having not read it clearly, or given a crap. So, that did leave a slightly negative taste in the mouth. These clubs make enormous sums of money. Some of that could be dedicated to allowing better accessibility for people with health conditions – many worse than mine – to enjoy being there perhaps one last time. Instead, flat no.

This removed the chance of spending more money while in there, so I just drank a lot of water when leaving the car, and headed over the road…

We headed in, via the animated LED tunnel whcih has clearly been designed to fool the weak-minded into taking photos for their insta/blog/whatever. Suckers.

I could build one of these. If I had time.

Got in easily without needing out passports or anything else. Could have easily brought in the creon secreted into a wristband specifically bought for the purpose as half of it was hollow…. could have done..*

The only bit that raised any eyebrows was as soon as I got in, I got my earplugs out. A bouncer instantly went into “what’s all this then” body language mode until he realised what I was doing. Quite funny seeing that happen – maybe people do blatantly drop pills in front of them as soon as they’re in? Anyway, went in to the last tune of the guy before Dmitri Vegas and Like Mike, and then a surprising lull.

Here it hit me though why Pacha was different the other night. It was much busier here, and much more chance of people bumping into you/pushing past. One of the symptoms of what’s going on is that my scar and surrounding area are very sensitive – if I scratch them wrong then it will hurt for a fair while, and it’s quite a weird feeling (which my oncologist couldn’t explain as I was getting this during the time I was seeing her). So I spent quite a bit of the evening with one arm or another across my chest, and it was needed a couple of times when I got bumped into. I was also feeling pretty sore there anyway (this comes and goes on different days), so dancing a lot was not on the menu.

The music was pretty full on. We’d listened to it before, and it’s kind of hardstyle remixes of songs you mostly know, but it made a lot more sense in Ushuaïa because of the light show:

… and because at other times there were flames…

… including from the speaker towers so you’d feel the heat. It was a real spectacle and a really good time.

T noticed a couple of times that I was pretty quiet. There are so many things that can set you off in this sort of situation – all the things you’ll be missing out on. The sound and the lights are the big ones, but there’s an intangible element about a group of people all dancing together and enjoying something in the same way at the same time in person. Granted, I couldn’t do this every night (never could have), but this is something I’ve loved each time I’ve been here. T has proposed coming back and getting a room here when Garrix is playing so we could be on the balconies and watch the show. Which I’d love. But I have no idea if I’ll be OK (or even alive) by then, so that was a difficult 5 minutes thinking about something which is simultaneously great and terrible.

Towards the end I did get pretty into it – I saved myself until the last 10-15 minutes or so (it ends at 11):

And then it was over. Aside from of course the obliga-encore, a ramped-up version of Opus:

It was a proper experience, and worth staying until the end for. Worth coming here for. And worth pacing myself for, so I could do the right two hours at the right time.

And then, just like that, it really was over. Time to go home. Which previously has involved being in the bun-fight for too-few taxis and taken ages. But we just walked to the car, and drove home. I’ll take that as a tiny win. And the punchline? As soon as we got into the car (I kid you not, I mean, to the second), it started to rain!

So that’s the main part of Ibiza done. Our flight isn’t until 8, check-out is 11, but we have the hire car. Weather is looking pretty poor though – as I write this it’s 07:50 and it’s grey out of the window, and going to rain for most of the morning…. might clear up later, so who knows?

* T did this. For me. She’s amazing.