This really is a small world. The little beach town I work in is barely on the map and somehow I manage to bump into two of my fellow Royal Holloweigens- and they’re very very Swedish. Both are blonde with rather perfect teeth, strong jutting jaw-lines and friendly mannerisms. I manage to differentiate the two by their hair-styles, one having a huge matt of glossy hair brushed back into a crowd-parting quiff, the other short and shaved after a meeting with a set of clippers. After getting over the initial excitement that yes, we go to the same university, and yes we have somehow ended up in the same area of Spain- we make plans. They’re only here for a few days as Quiff dude is very busy, jetting off here and there in between working for some sort of Swedish business that his uncle owns. (I remember at this point the finds of my facebook stalking- where I discovered his boat house to be larger than my mum and dad’s house put together…)
The other one, clippers, has a slightly more interesting history- I mistakenly thought he was also a fellow student as I’ve seen him lolling around campus a fair amount, but actually it turns out that he’d gone to Thailand on a bar-tendering course for three months and slightly over indulged in the culture, managing to fail and wasting a whole lot of money and air fares. Fail a bartender course. In Thailand. Bravo Clippers.
He is very sweet to be fair and his English, although slightly broken is endearing and they make excellent company for the next two days. We sit on the beach the morning after we meet- they’ve come prepared with a cool bag of beer, a parasol but no sun-cream or water, and Quiff dude shows me the leaflet that’s tightly clasped in his hand—which apparently holds the key to the days' master plan…
On the beach next to my town is a Guinness world record attempt to have to most amount of women on a beach, in bikinis. “You think they will be topless?” He asks me hopefully. I tell him I’m not sure, but he can always hope.
Since the bikini shenanigans doesn’t kick off till about 4pm we sit on the beach near my apartment. The boys are suffering from last night’s antics, (Bushwaka, a paddling pool and a lot of mojitos…) and decide to remedy this by ordering screwdrivers; vodka and orange juice, with the belief that the orange juice with all its natural vitamin C goodness will apparently perk them up. Nothing to do with the vodka of course. A few of these and they’re good to go.
The bikini event is being held on the beach in the next town so it seems easier to walk along the coast into Campo Amor rather than getting a taxi. We’ve been walking for about 20minutes when I realize that I’ve slightly miscalculated the distance. By a fair bit. Campo Amor is indeed the next town, but in my mind’s eye when we’ve been wandering home along the beach, the consumption of alcohol may have possibly made this stretch of beach blur together slightly.
We get to the port and have to walk through the boat yard to get to the other side. None of us had the sense to bring shoes or flip flops under my directions of we-don’t-need-shoes-its-only-round-the-corner, so we hop around on the hot tarmac past boats, their suspicious looking owners and a massive dog chained to a jet ski (???) until we get to other side. As we’re coming round the corner I’m not sure what I expect- screaming women in bikinis? Quiff dude and Clipper’s eyes popping out of their heads? The beach overcrowded with over-zealous bikini lovers spilling into the sea?
The reality is somewhat different. Whether we’re early, or whether the screaming women in bikinis are warming up somewhere, we turn the corner to see a beach full of people yes, but not necessarily all women, with a stage at the front with a middle-aged South American women performing some rather peculiar dance moves, bending in all sorts of weird and wonderful ways which is making my lunch not want to stay in my stomach. The danger of advertising a supposedly full beach of scantily clad women, is that there will probably be more men turn up to ogle at this sight than the participants of the record-breaking attempt…
There are all sorts of bouncy castles, bubble machines and activities going on, and we wade through the stalls and people towards another beach bar. I see a strange sight of two small children dressed up (or rather being swallowed by) large inflatable sumo wrestler suits and are happily bashing eachother, loosing their balance and rolling around the sand- the probability of them getting up again unassisted being next to none. I think of the sweat. And gag slightly.
Quiff dude is as generous with his money as Spain is with the sun, and before I can protest I’m handed a bucket of beer. He’s not impressed with the lack of women. We drink beer and jump in and out of the sea, the boys turning to look at the shore repeatedly in hope of the mystery bikini clad women. I’m not quite sure what they’re expecting- a stampede of women to arrive down the hill? Coaches to pull up and oiled up ladies to fall out?
I start work in an hour, and I’m in the wrong town, with a bucket of beer and two Swedish dudes who are getting more drunk by the second. I power walk it back to Mil Palmeras and leave them trailing behind, find a clean t-shirt and shorts somewhere in my apartment, drink a pint of water and skid down to the beach bar. The Swedes are already there and a slacking slightly. This is due to a major lack of sleep and a mahooosive hangover that has been slyly hidden under a fair few pints of beer and glasses of screwdriver today. I give them two large coffees. With a splash of brandy in it.
They disappear off to dinner as I get on and do my mojito-making thing, and return with a new zest for an alcohol-fuelled evening- I have great fun testing cocktails on them.
“Let me be your guinea pig.” Quiff dude tells me. At your own peril my boy…
-La Melodia (the Melody special) honey rum, lemon slush, splash of Cointreau, and splash of grenadine.
This is my personal invention, sweet and refreshing, and everyone at some point when they’ve been down to see me at the beach bar, has had one.
Being the queen of the mojito with fresh mint plants growing in pots out the back, I dish out a couple of them and then its starts getting silly. I mix gin and blue curaco with lemon slush and a splash of vodka, then bacardi and lime with mojito flavor mixer… and Quiff dude and Clippers are still standing. Quiff dude is wearing a rather trendy brown straw hat and gives it to me to try on, instructing me to keep it in the beach bar. If I know quiff dude, it probably wasn’t cheap and I when I ask him why he wants to abandon such a hat his reply is (as he’s leaning lop-sided on the bar) “I want to think of my hat somewhere on a beach bar in Spain when I’m back in Sweden.” How romantic and bohemian.
(The hat came home with me I’m afraid Quiff dude, its hanging on my coat rack in Essex now. Sorry.)
I finish work at 2am, pop home for a shower and change and meet them in one of the bars up the road from the beach bar. They’re there waiting with 3 fishbowl glasses of a red sticky looking potion.
“Whats that?” I ask suspiciously.
“I don’t know,“ Quiff dude replies quite incredulously, shrugging his shoulders. “I just ask for drinks.”
This is one of Quiff dude’s most interesting qualities- he seems to have a palate for ALL alcohol, or rather, he doesn’t have a palate for a particular taste, or flavour; he’ll drink it all, and then ask for more. After the potions are consumed we get a taxi up to the Bushawaka bar and there is talk of them heading off to a nightclub. Sadly Clippers is DOA when we get out of the taxi and disappears of to his apartment despite Quiff dude’s protesting. He’s done quite well considering he’d actually woken up that morning passed out in the kitchen floor with one sock on… Quiff dude told me his parents thought it was rather amusing taking their breakfast with a young, unconscious, semi-naked person being climbed over.
With Clippers gone, Quiff dude takes on an inexhaustible thirst for partying; there aren’t enough hours of the night for him, he rocks out on the dance floor like nothing you have ever seen- it's stuff made for Youtube, making shapes that Basshunter would be proud of. His only disappointment is that no one has any ecstasy tablets.
“Where you from, the 80s?” is my friends response to his pleads.
When we start heading home about 4.30 Quiff dude disappears. I know he’s flying early next morning and am wondering as we head home whether I should have done more to ensure his safety and well-being when I get a phone call.
“Ahh mel- could u call me a taxi? They don’t understand English- I’m somewhere in La Zenia, near a MacDonalds…”
Now I’m amused/worried for two reasons- firstly there isn’t a MacDonalds in la Zenia. The nearest MacDonalds is hell far away and if he’s there I’m seriously impressed. Or slightly concerned. Secondly, trying to get a taxi at that time of night out there is like hoping that a space man will land and take you off to the moon. I call one for him and hear no response from my friend, good or bad, and so and fall asleep when I finally get back to my apartment...
Now this is the first time in a while that I’ve slept in my apartment on my own, not necessarily out of choice. “Miller’s Villa” as its fondly become known over the years has a reputation of being something of an open house, the number of people that have stayed in it over the years being on par to the population of china. There are always people BBq-ing, passed out on a sofa, making a cup of tea (without a kettle) raiding the fridge or blocking the toilet, regardless of the time of day or night, so to actually be on my own for once, should have been peaceful, but I hate it. This apartment was made for noise and people and so I fall asleep only due to the fact it’s nearly 5am and I have to get up at 7.30 to clean the bar.
-5.30am-
There are two men, in my apartment standing at my bedroom door. It’s still dark out but I can make out two stocky figures in the doorway. I hadn’t locked the front door because it gets jammed and it freaks me out the idea of being locked in. I’m not awake enough to work out whether I need to start screaming when my eyes start adjusting.
“Sorry Mel, sorry, we just thought you’d be up and about, we’ve just been out and thought we’d walk past and see whose around, have a drink or something?”
Miller’s Villa’s reputation precedes me. Its the two guys that run the only English bar in town, perfectly harmless (well, some would say that’s debatable) but harmless to me anyway (again perhaps debatable) so I get out of bed in my PJs, the hostess in me stopping myself from telling the burly bartenders to f*** off –its-5.30am-and-you-scared-the-sh**-out-of-me…
“Anything to drink Mel?“ One them asks me hopefully. He has the lightest blue eyes you’ve ever seen, they look like little torch lights against his tanned, (often slightly red) skin. In the cupboard is superfluous amounts of gin, the fridge a carton of fresh Orange juice- viola! We sit on the patio, me curled up in my PJs, them with their gin and orange juice and they sit and entertain me with their hilarious (although repetitive) drunken talk until 7am. It’s a slight challenge to get them to leave, one of them in particular as he knows he’s in for a bollocking from his wife for being out all night, again. Torch light eyes informs me that he won’t be in trouble if he says he’s been out with me, which I find hilarious- since when am I the sensible one ? (Although I probably am compared to the burly bartenders.) I must have mistakenly given this impression this summer as somehow over the last two months, I’ve been given keys to two beach bars and the English bar and left to run one of the beach bars all by myself. Perhaps responsibility suits me? I literally force them out the gate so I’m not late for work and pull on a t-shirt and shorts to go clean the bar.
I always walk the long way around to the bar along the promenade- I’ve said before seeing the sunrise is my favourite thing in the world here, and this time of day is so unbelievable bright, but without the intense heat. The sand looks so soft I resist the urge to go and roll around in it: a huge tractor comes along at night with a big sieve-like contraption attached to it and cleans and levels the sand, so it’s perfectly flat and ready for the next day. I love leaving the first footprints on the sand, as if you’re the first person to ever touch the beach.
Tractor dude is actually quite interesting, he stops for a Coca Cola ever now and again in the beach bar- the tractor only comes at night usually between 3 and 6am and he’s seen all sorts on the beach at that time as I’m sure you can imagine. I asked him once if he’s ever run anybody over- since its dark and I see him going a quite a speed. “Not yet,” was the reply.
The beach is empty at this time, just a few people going for a morning walk (nutty ones for a morning run.) The sun hasn’t had time to heat the streets yet so the light leaves this fresh clean feeling on your skin, it’s like an energising shower, always 100% worth the lack sleep just to feel that in the morning. (The other option of course is to actually go to sleep and wake up in time to see this.)
I clean the bar- or rather I dance around with a mop playing the music system full-blast and collapse back into bed until lunch time when I’m awoken by the next friendly face.
I need to learn to lock the door. This particular friend is nicknamed ‘trimmed’ which I presumed was in relation to the fact he is a hairdresser, but I was informed otherwise- apparently the name is attributed to another well-kept area of hair. Nice. His ever-optimistic face pops up at the door nearly every morning and I often find him asleep out on the garden furniture where he’s given up trying to wake me up, given up trying to make a cup of tea, (no kettle) and given up on life in general.
I give him a kick, find a bikini and try and call Quiff dude to find out whether he ever made it back to Sweden…
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