Puig, Valentí

Revistes Catalanes amb Accés Obert

IBIZA, 
T H E  ISLAND O F  DREAMS 
THE ISLAND OF THE JET-SET'S SUMMERS AND THE BABEL OF THE 
DISCOTHEQUES STILL WEARS A HALO OF IMPECCABLE BEACHES 
AND A LIGHT THAT FIRES THE IMAGINATION. 
V A L E N T ~  P U l G  A U T H O R  
T R A V E L  
rriving by sea in the early morn- 
ing, the outline of the city of Ibiza 
-on the Balearic lsle of the same 
name, surrounded by the Mediter- 
ranean- has an air of sensuous sorcery as 
it rises from the blueness of the little bay. 
The still-sleeping island looms up like an 
apparition, bewitched by the Latin stillness 
and its far off air. Two Roman statues -a 
duumvirwith toga and the goddess Juno- 
guard the entrance to the ancient city 
which, after the fall of Carthage, formed 
part of the great Roman Empire, with full 
confederate city status. When Phoenicians 
and Carthaginians dominated the sea 
routes, Ibiza was a flourishing cosmopoli- 
tan settlement. Under the Carthaginians, 
Tanit-goddess ofsensuality and fertile life, 
symbolized by the dove and the pomegra- 
nate- watched over the island which, in 
more modern times, was to be visited by 
those in search of a new quietism. Dispos- 
sessed of spiritual well-being in the west 
-though heirs to its material well-being-, 
these visitors have cometo undentand the 
value of the lesson of Mediterranean scep- 
ticism. The island of the jet-set's summen 
and the Babel of the discotheques still has a 
halo of impeccable beaches and a lightthat 
fires the imagination. 
Ibiza has suffered every invasion imagi- 
nable: the ancient sailon of the Mediter- 
ranean, Greeks and Cartaginians, the Ro- 
man ships, the Vandals, the Ostrogoths 
and the Byzantine Empire, the Saracens 
and the Vikings. Tanit, the Roman gods 
and Allah have al1 been wonhipped 
there. A monument on the port proclaims 
Ibiza's gratitude to its pirates for their help 
against the Turks on four separate occa- 
sions. The coats of arms of the noblest 
families can still be seen on the aristocratic 
houses of the old city. lnternational frenzy 
could scarcely disrupt the peace of its 
streets and squares, immersed in a gentle 
metamorphosis from dawn to dusk, like a 
mirage, reading to the blinding light of 
August or the softness of autumn. 
The island has an area of 567 km2 and a 
landscape which is generally flat, with lit- 
tle high ground, where one finds rosema- 
ry, heather and savine growing. In h e  
rural area, the churches -a refuge in 
times of attack- with their towen and 
porches, show charaderistics of Arab 
mosques. The whitewashed houses are 
dauling, simple volumetric beauty to 
which new units are added when more 
space is needed: a functional idea much 
appreciated by modem architects. On 
moonlit nights, the whitewcsh of the 
houses seems almost phosphorescent. 
Ibiza was the setting for altemative 
cultures during a lost era of westem civili- 
zation. Sheltered by the island's atavisms, 
groups of disenchanted young people of 
the sixties hoped to find a more human 
way of life. Ibiza became the Mecca of a 
pilgrimage which could start in Berkeley, 
Manhattan or Camaby Street and end up 
on one of the island's solitary beaches 
before embarking on the next stage of the 
journey to Katmandu. These countercultu- 
ral ceremonies took place where, dec- 
ades before, the local peasant communi- 
ty's rituals still took place. In the old city, 
the cathedral is an example of a fascinat- 
ing architectural phenomenon: it was built 
over an old gothic temple which, in tum, 
had been built over an Arab mosque, built 
on the site of earlier Punic and Roman 
temples. Perhaps this sedimentation of op- 
posing charaderistics and the inbreeding 
which is so cornmon in Ibiza are iwo poles 
of tolerance and survival living side by 
side with the cosmopolitan rituals and ex- 
cesses when the unruffled calm keeps so 
many summer nights alive with iwo hun- 
dred night-clubs and three thousand bars. 
But the attraction of prosperity does not 
totally upset the island's anthropological 
equilibrium: perhaps it is a mistake to 
speak of the iwo lbizas every time an in- 
ternational castaway of the latest fashions 
and trepidations passes an old peasant 
woman dressed in black, because Ibiza 
- a t  the height of summer or on a winter's 
moming in the cafes where the floating 
cosmopolitan population gathen- is a 
unique, paradoxical symbiosis, a unique 
microcosm brought to life by the in- 
compatibilities that have been overcome, 
by clearly understood interests and the 
contradidions that its vitality quickly as- 
similates. Beyond the hotels and disco- 
theques there is a little clump of savines 
and, further on, the unexpeded cove, 
majestic in the evening light. When the sun 
goes down, it lingen on as a vague nos- 
talgia. In the old city, every tum brings a 
new vision of the beauty of the ancient 
labyrinth until, finally, above the port, we 
achieve a triumphant view over the sea 
and the island. The salt-marshes of Ibiza 
create the illusion of stillness and, at the 
same time, there is the optical illusion of 
the water that sparkles in the wind over 
the ponds or silently evaporates under the 
blinding light of midday. The ancients said 
that Ibiza was three days' and three nights' 
ioumey from the Pillan of Hercules and, 
today, its blue is still that of the ancient 
gods that linger over their awakening. 


Ibiza, the Island of Dreams

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Revistes Catalanes amb Accés Obert