October 1, 2004, 9:50 pm
So we spent our last day here today, the last day of this truly
amazing 2 week vacation. Yesterday, after our little beach experience
at Cala Llonga we went to the town of Sant Miquel where they
have a live performance of folkloric dancing every Thursday
evening at 6:15 pm.
The performance was inside the white-washed church's inner yard
and we sat down with another 40 to 50 tourists to watch a group
of about 10 children and teenagers who were all dressed up in
traditional Ibizan outfits. The boys wore black or white pants
with vests over a shirt and red long hats, almost like nightcaps.
The girls all wore headscarves and some of them wore traditional
Ibizan wedding dresses with 13 layers of skirts!
They performed a number of dances, with the boys jumping and
kicking their legs up high, while the girls mostly walked around
them, demurely in tiny little steps. Obviously some courtship
and wedding dances, the instruments were mostly a flute, a metal
instrument that looked like a sword that was used for percussion,
plus a little drum. Some of the flutes played were introduced
by the Egyptians around stwo thousand years ago. The boys also
used very large castanets. Definitely a very interesting experience,
in terms of dress, music and dance, Ibiza is a very unique culture,
extremely different from the typical Spanish or Andalusian stereotype
of flamenco dancing.
A wedding dress in Ibiza: 13 layers!
Today we went into Sant Antoni where I took a 1.5 hour boat
ride (8 Euros) on a glass bottom boat. We went around the south
part of Sant Antoni bay to Cala Bassa. A diver was also on board
and at one part we stopped and she dove in and brought back
a few animals, 2 sea worms, a sea star and a very thorny animal
whoīs name I forget. We went around the islands off the Bay
of Sant Antoni, beautiful area. On the way back, the shipīs
crew served local champagne in a unique, curved flask that deposited
the drink directly on the recipientīs tongue. Some of the boaters
quite willingly partook of the ritual.
We then spent the afternoon at Platja des Comptes where we went
swimming and watched a beautiful sunset in front of the little
islands off the coast. It was crowded at the beginning, but
it thinned out nicely around 3, 4 pm or so and we had more space
on the beach. One local man came back from diving with a harpoon
and he brought in an octopus which immediately drew a crowd
of onlookers from the beach. Just before sunset we went to a
smaller little cove where we saw a jelly fish just floating
around, against a backdrop of golden rocks, which alerted us
to the imminent sunset.
Many people congregated and the sun dropped slowly but surely
into the water, just to the right of one of the larger islands
off the coast. A fitting evening to our last night in Ibiza.
All in all, itīs a beautiful place, just large enough for a
week of exploration and compact enough so we never had to do
much driving, the biggest distance on the island from one point
to another I believe is 40 km.
Glorious sunsets on Ibiza.
A great vacation!!!
Useful books about Ibiza:
Related articles:
Click here for my
travel report from Barcelona.
Click here for my travel report
from Tarragona.
Click here for my travel report
from Sitges.
Click here for my travel report
from Javea.
Click here for my travel report
from Ibiza (1)
Click here for my travel report
from Ibiza (2)
Click here for my travel report
from Ibiza (3)
Click here for my country
travel guide on Spain.