Tuesday, July 14, 2009, late evening

I am writing this, exhausted, from a little seaside cafe. There are short, thick palm trees lit from above by the red-orange light from sodium lampposts -- the palms resemble giant pineapples, thrown about the tiled path of some kind of surreal Candyland or Wonderland. The owner has two dogs, which scamper under the tables sniffing for dropped scraps -- one white, with beautiful curls, and the other smaller, black, older, and blind (but no less eager in her pursuit of food-smelling things). I am listening to Spanish soft rock on the radio, and the soothing crashing of the waves.

We came here for lunch, and I had a meal -- freshly squeezed orange juice, a baguette with tomatoes, mozzerella, basil, olive oil, balsamic, salt, pepper -- that was refreshingly simple. 

We saw Tiesto last night. The set was maybe four hours long, and I was surprised to find that he started with house, remixing a lot of indie and electronic music I really love: 

Empire of the Sun, Sara and Tegan, Postal Service, Killers, Black Ghosts are the ones that stand out in my memories.

I enjoyed dancing to these mixes.    

The boys were upset about the house, but about halfway through, he switched back to trance (with plenty of the Sarah McLachlan mixes they so love [which nauseate me]). 

The multicolored laser light display on a curtain of falling water was really beautiful, but the flashing wall of LEDs behind him (At one point, I began to feel dizzy, and turned away in fear of having a seizure.) and the gold-lingerie-clad dancing gogo girls were too, too saccharine.  

We scootered back at six -- the air against my skin was cold from the night and sticky from the sea salt. Venus was there in the sky, assuring me as always: the sun will rise, yes, don't worry -- it will. And she was right; the sky had turned a pale  dawn blue by the time I hurried up steps to bed.

I awoke in the afternoon, and after lunch, we went scootering about Ibiza's southern coast. On the way, we passed abandoned octagonal windmills and crossed kilometers of salt marshes, where sea water is pumped into shallow, flat areas where the water evaporates. Little sandpipers wade cautiously through these pools, perhaps searching for worms in the mud below. Not surprisingly, the marshes smell strongly of sea salt.

We eventually came upon a beach that was like none other I had ever been to -- in every possible way -- but I will have to write about that tomorrow, since the cafe is closing, and I desperately need sleep.