This is not Inception

I have a long history with the Ibiza; any attempt of recounting stories or divulging the depth of belonging that place fills me with would lead to a never ending story. When I first met my friend Ripp, my original experiences were still a fresh wound. Three months of a dream job in a dream location will leave an impact on you. He swears it was all I ever talked (about at the time) to the brink of irritation. Thankfully he never punched me in the face, but he did introduce me to Claire for which I gave him a very heartfelt, though alcoholicly motivated, "thank you" via his wedding videographer. She would also come to love the island the way I do, but fortunately for Ripp, she won't be talking his ear off about it any time soon.

There will always be unfinished business with Ibiza, you simply can not do it all. It's a comforting thought knowing the island will always be there. With the things that remain the same and the many things that change, it keeps calling us back. This time was no different. Even after three weeks of the place, we would go back there in a heart beat given the chance. Our friend Virginia asked how we didn't go broke after three weeks in Ibiza and the answer was simple: we didn't go clubbing. We went native. We went deeper into the dream.

Sure there was every DJ we ever wanted to see playing every night in the worlds best clubs, but there was a long list of things we always wanted to do the and know was our chance. With the exception of Cocoon on Mondays, we only went to three other parties, one of which we only stayed for an hour. The rest of the time was spent exploring the island. Of the 80 plus beaches some guides will list, we maybe hit 20. This included the very north of the island in Sant Miguel (where we caught the folk dancing exhibition), to Cala Llonga in the east, Es Cavallet in the south and Cala Comte in the west. The last of which was the most confusing to realize as we had been looking for Cala Conta not knowing it was the same beach, just listed in a different dialect (they speak up to three on the island, Spanish, Catalan and Ibicenco).

We had a manageable "to do" list, but still missed some of the islands highlights. Every new experience or adventure created two or three new ones. Swimming became snorkeling, snorkeling became deep sea fishing, and deep sea fishing became roasting the days catch on a cliffside bonfire over looking Es Vedra under a full moon while naked. We got as far as snorkeling. Even after four trips together, we still have not gone to D'alt Villa or the caves in Sant Miguel. We did however, finally make it to Formenterra. We went deeper still.

I've always been in love with Ibiza, but Formenterra revealed a whole knew level of appreciation to enjoy. It's as if you could go back in time to before the hippies, celebrities and British made Ibiza what it is today (take that statement however you want). Charming is an understatement. The beaches were prettier, quieter, with cleaner, clearer water than I Ever could have imagined possible. We had rented bicycles an attempted the ride to Migjorn, but after getting as far as Pujols, we did the math and realized we would never make the return trip in time to enjoy it. We did an about face and settled for Pujols and Llevnt. I use the word "Settled" loosely as in reality we were rewarded for such a decision. It is so picturesque, there was even a small shipwreck on one of the rocks not more than twenty meters from the shore. The more curious were constantly scorned by the lifeguard, but we were able to go snorkeling on the near side opposite the wreck.

One afternoon in Formenterra simply wasn't enough time there, leaving us with a renewed sense of returning someday. If we could see ourselves living in Ibiza, Formenterra is where we'd retire. Slower, quieter, and more charming than it's bigger sister, yet both are equally alluring in their own ways.

The ferry ride back to Ibiza was just as rocky as the trip there, but two mojitos at the sunset bar before hand made it a little more tolerable (then again, not much isn't tolerable after two mojitos). We have sat beach side at Carmens in Cala d'hort over looking Es Vedra every trip before, but not until this journey did we recognize the dragon shape for which the the rocky islands are named. Journeys like this are supposed to afford travelers insights and new perspectives, but in this instance it was comically literal.

Equally laughable is the perspective we now share that we went to Formentera to get away from Ibiza to get away from a six month around the world honeymoon.

A dream within a dream within a dream.


- Bill

Spreading love and awesomeness across the universe.

Day 63 - Monday, August 29th

Me outside amnesia in the early morning :)

It has occurred to me that those of you reading this blog who do not know bill and I personally may not understand the whole "cocoon" thing. Cocoon is a techno record label based in Frankfurt owned and run by our favorite Dj/shaman Sven Vath. There is also cocoon club in Frankfurt (we had an earlier post about that when we were in Frankfurt last month) and there is a cocoon party Monday nights at Amnesia in Ibiza. Bill lived on the island years ago when he was working for a tour company, and loved going to this party, which is now in it's twelfth year. We went to Ibiza together 3 years in a row specifically for cocoon, we skipped a last year, but now we are BACK BABY!

So, because we had to travel such a long and expensive distance to get to Ibiza every year we went balls to the wall and always made a costume that corresponded to each seasons theme. Ibiza is a little like New York in that the most eccentric and fun loving people populate the island, and no one would look twice if you were walking down the street with no pants on and say, a lampshade on your head. I have not done the lampshade thing but bill has witnessed it. Ibiza is about being free, funky, creative, energetic and generally having a good time. One year we made disco helmets, another year we went in head to toe gold with huge cocoon logos on our heads, another year we made these crazy hats and bill literally cut out thousands of tiny silver Mylar squares and made a disco jacket. These things took months to put together but definitely got us noticed. Last time we were here we strolled into amnesia and sven's tour manager came up to us and said "were you guys here last summer in silver helmets?" and promptly put us in VIP with a stack of drink tickets.

So when we decided to leave Berlin and go to Ibiza we had 3 days to get a costume together. This seasons theme was "cocoon heroes" which, in my opinion, is really about the all stars of the party but something got lost in the translation to English. I bought a bodysuit from American apparel and was basically done. Boobs and legs will take you a long way in this world but bill had to work a little but harder on his outfit. We found the home depot of Berlin the day before we left and lo and behold, they had silver mylar tape. And hot pink spray paint. Two things a person cannot live without in this life! He bought a black v neck tee and the plan was to put a design on the shirt using the tape. Now we had to make the flash symbol that was used on the flyer. This is bill's shirt going thru the creative process:

And him showing off his handy work:

He contemplated cutting down one of the local campaign signs from a street lamp because they were made of corrugated plastic, but we thought better of it because that's probably a crime or something. We settled for a cardboard ikea box we found on the street. He cut the shapes out, and packed the cardboard with some wire hangers in his suitcase. This would have to be assembled when we got there because the finished product would be about 4 feet tall.

We flew easyjet, which is basically a free for all party on a plane. It was the worst 3 hours of my life. It was our own fault for booking a flight to Ibiza on a saturday night but these crazy ass Russians sitting behind us were in full blown party mode. People were hanging out in the aisle of the plane dancing and drinking and screaming at the top of their lungs and being nuts. We have never flown easyjet before and if you haven't either here's a tip: there's no seat assignments. When they let people out of the gate to walk across the Tarmac to the plane people bolted out like it was the running of the bulls and were fighting over seats. Luckily bill and I found seats together but it was still an awful flight. One thought did occur to me as I was holding onto my tray table for dear life praying that the plane wouldn't go down because I did not want my last moments on earth to be with these insane Russians, and that thought was we had done the most dangerous thing we could ever do- booking a one way ticket to the island. There was a strong possibility we would never come back to reality.

Saturday night we went to bed early and Sunday we hit the beach. Suspicions from the night before were confirmed when after being on the beach for all of 10 minutes bill declared he wanted to spend the next 3 weeks here until we had to go to Vienna. Later that evening we stopped by cafe mambo to visit our old friend Luciano, who works for pacha selling club tickets, and to get some sangria. Luciano was happy to hear we would be hanging around for awhile, bill and him have known each other for about 10 years. They met when bill was working on the island and he's always glad to see us when we pop up every summer. We mentioned that we were going to cocoon and he immediately whipped out his phone and said (in his Italian accent) "ah yes! Well, I will put you on the guest list then!" admission to parties in Ibiza are around 60€ per person, sometimes more, sometimes a little less. So this just saved us a shitload of money. I like saving money, especially when i don't have a job. He also started calling bill "king bill" because he assumes we are somehow magically rich to spend 3 weeks here, which is not the case either.
Anyways, getting to the point of the story. We go to amnesia on Monday. Bill has to drive, obviously because I don't, so we always bring a bottle of vodka in the car with a mixer. We park the car at the club and do a little pre game action. Drinks inside are literally 16€, which is like $22 so we don't really do a whole lot of drinking, or we would be in the poorhouse. That's another Ibiza money saving tip, your welcome. We have our outfits, our flash, our camera and we are ready to go. An hour into the party we are hanging out on he terrace and people start asking us if they can take a picture with our flash. It's crazy how what started out as a little shitty cardboard box was making people so excited! We started taking pictures with everyone, of everyone, and waving the flash around above the crowd. Phrank, the cocoon photographer who has been taking pictures of us for 3 years saw us and motioned for me to come over to the booth. I climbed up onto the railing (in 5" stilettos, not the safest thing) and leaned over. He says to me that he recognizes us and we are the fucking craziest people he's ever seen. I laugh at him and tell him we recognize him also and ask him if he will hold our flash for a picture and he of course obliges.

Then he says to come with him. I get bill and we go around and follow him upstairs into VIP, then he takes us through some other door backstage. They have a whole photoshoot area where they take pictures of the DJs and their friends for the marketing of the party. He announces to the assistants that he has found "the real heroes" and proceeds to do a shoot with me, then bill, then us together. we do shots of hierbas (a local Baleric liquor) and we hang out to watch him shoot a group of friends that came in after us. One of the assistants was a lovely British girl and she explained that the photos will appear on the large screens in the club during that nights party and in about a week they will have an album of the shots they did that night on Facebook and the cocoon website, and at the end of the season she will email all the photos to everyone.

After hanging a little bit longer security came through and yelled at bill because he had shorts on. So we went back out onto the floor and danced to some of the best music I've ever heard in my life. Besides that, I think we spent half the night just taking pics of people holding the flash. I've never seen so many people so happy. The best is when you meet someone who doesn't speak any English at all because you have the same conversation, it's just through smiles and photos and the occasional high five. We must have at least 2 dozen pics of the people we met but here are just a few.

We decided to leave a little after 6 because I couldn't feel my feet anymore. I'm a stiletto veteran but dancing for 6 hours straight in high heel platforms was too much for me. We were accosted in the parking lot with people who wanted to take a picture with the flash and we struck up a convo with a spanish guy and between his tiny bit of English and bills tiny bit of Spanish we somehow managed to talk for about a half hour debating the location of the after party.

Back in the car we voted for no after party, went home, slept, and then went to the most beautiful beach at Cala Salada. I'll write about the beaches in a separate post because there are so many that are super. Beautiful that they need a whole page dedicated to them :)

-Claire