Thursday, June 19, 2008

Urban Camping

I just got back from a camping trip through the Balearic Islands off the East coast of Spain:

Here's basically what happened:

Day 1 - Friday, June 13, 2008

Got home from Radiohead concert at 2am, showered, finished packing, went to sleep. Woke up STARVING at 5:30am, ate some cereal, got dressed, went to the bus station.

Karli, Adam, Deja, Alex, Elyssa, Josh, Sebastian (Adam's friend) and I all made the bus to Valencia. John Karlo (who wasn't actually coming on our trip but his trip coincided with the beginning of ours) missed the bus but met up with us in Valencia. We had some boat confusion about which boat we were actually on since apparently Spain is just on strike in general right now and a lot of things aren't working out (e.g. the truck drivers are on strike so we don't have food), but we worked it out.

We wandered for a while, Valencia is way cooler than I thought it would be. We had a picnic in the park, wandered to a bunch of other parks and playgrounds (including a SLIDE PARK) and then got some coffee and killed time until our bus to Denia (where our boat left from).




(photos from Deja)

By the time we got to Denia, it was dark out and we didn't know where to find a campsite. Deja, Sebastian and I split off and slept on the beach and the rest of the group slept together somewhere else.

Day 2 - Saturday, June 14, 2008

Woke up at 5:30am on the beach.

Walked for what felt like hours to the Isomar boat, met up with the rest of the group while we were waiting. Got into Ibiza and decided to cross the island to find a camp site, but first ate Indian food and went to an internet cafe to check our e-mails and see if there is an alternate to expensive ferry monopoly as far as inter-island transport (there isn't). We crossed the island, camped on top of an abandoned one-story concrete building with a puddle of water dripping through the roof. To get onto the roof, we had to use a rusty bed spring frame as a ladder.

Once we got up there we lit some candles, ate our food, split 2 bottles of tequila and had a rapping/beat boxing session. Before we went to sleep, we all made predictions of who would wake up with the most mosquito bites, since we were sleeping next to standing water and had a pretty intense bug problem.

Day 3 - Sunday, June 15, 2008

Woke up to everyone laughing at Deja whose eyes had swollen to slits and had a lip that looked like it had undergone a cheap collagen injection from her bug bites:

Everyone else had a few bites, but I'm pretty sure she won. We walked down to the becah and spent all day sitting around. At one point, Karli, Sebastian, Adam and I rented a Zodiac boat and drove around the island.


We said bye to Josh and Elyssa and went back to the main city/club part of the island to wait for our ferry to Mallorca. We wandered around for a while, lost Alex, and then got a 6€ beer since everything on Ibiza is expensive. While we were drinking, this woman who Deja saw doing coke in the bathroom and her equally drugged boyfriend sat at the table next to us (with their dog). I then realized everyone on Ibiza is on drugs pretty much all the time.

Day 4 - Monday, June 16, 2008

Took the 1:30am ferry to Palma de Mallorca and managed to somehow get in early (at 6am) so we didn't get the best night's sleep. We went to breakfast and then wandered around while Alex slept on a bench in the train station because she wasn't feeling well. (Probably heat exhaustion from the day before.)

Then, we took a bus across the island to Alcúdia to catch another ferry and got some Tex-Mex food at a mediocre restaurant where every item on the menu has a random US city or state tacked o0no to end of its name (think Burger Oregon).

We caught our ferry (which entailed retreiving Alex from under the bridge where she had been sleeping all day and then immediately going to hell and back to find the ferry office), missed the last bus to Sant Tomás (where Marc and Ross were), caught a bus to a closer city, took a cab, and hiked in the dark for at least an hour to get to their camp site. We had a fire.

Day 5 - Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Our beach:


Woke up on the beach and decided to walk into town to get coffee and more food. We went back and went swimming/snorkeling and Ross talked me into climbing the rocks to jump off, which was a bad idea since the rocks were ridiculously sharp and hard to climb.

Then i sat on the becah all day and read. Eventually, the rest of the group made a shelter since they were all really sunburnt and wanted shade in which to drink their tequila (sombrero, scarf, and mustache included on the bottle) while I sat in the sun and read more.

We made another fire and then ate dinner and went to sleep.

Day 6 - Wednesday, June 18, 2008

Crazy blue Menorca sea:


Marc and Ross left before the rest of us got up to catch their boat back to Barcelona. Then, we woke up and hiked to Sant Tomás and got coffee until it was time to catch the bus to Mahón (where mayonnaise was invented AND where the airport is). While killing time in Mahón we went to the gin distillery and had some free samples.


Our flight was roughly 9 million years late and then the Barcelona Nit bus system kind of let us down but we got home eventually and showered and by the time I got in bed (roughly 4:30am) I literally said out loud: "Oh my God, a real bed," before falling asleep.

2 comments:

P. Kennedy said...

Mosquitoes can be dangerous but, to most they are only a persistent annoyance. Mosquitoes are parasitic, they hone in on the carbon dioxide we emit while breathing so they are difficult to avoid. It seems to be helpful to wear light colored clothing.

DO NOT SCRATCH as this can lead to secondary infections, possible scarring and also open portals to some very nasty bacteria (MRSA aka flesh eating bacteria). My advice is to use a product called Mitigator Sting & Bite Scrub – I did some of the original research on the product while looking for controls for the red imported fire ant and I can attest that it actually removes the toxins or venom. It has baking soda, papain (the active ingredient in meat tenderizer) - to absorb toxins and walnut shell granules to open the pores. Scrubbing with your fingertips substitutes for scratching with your fingernails and since it has no harsh chemicals or foul odors it can be used with children and reapplied as often as needed. This is an excellent product to also use for the treatment of the stings or bites from bees, wasps, fire ants (stops the blistering), ticks, horse flies and chiggers. It was only sold to the military until recently. You can now find it in stores or on the web at: www.biteaid.com or at: www.mitigator.net

eduardoelsalvaje said...

I LOVE MENORCA