Spain - Si Bueno

Well life goes on, doesn’t it? Whether you are here, there or somewhere else. Whether you are paying particular attention to the line of a million sparkling diamonds spread across the sea or just paying the phone bill online, life goes on. Most of the people visiting Benidorm stroll along the stunning promenade, play in the sun, drink a frothy pint, sip a café con leche, have a laugh or two, and then fly away home. The best of their Benidorm days are only a whimsical manifestation of who they were and what they did during that moment in time, but now, this morning back at home, they have to pioneer themselves back from the comfortable folds of escapism to the tough stretch of reality. Soon enough, only a single jiffy later so it seems, even the strongest happy memories of Benidorm begin to fade – and that’s the beauty of it. Benidorm is just a happy dream. You cannot roll it up and take it home like a wet towel; you have to leave it drying in the sun. You cannot export the sensation of life in Benidorm to another time and place, you can only export yourself. You cannot own the aura no matter how much time you have or money you pay; you can only enjoy temporary immersion because permanent residency would never be the same. So life in Benidorm goes on, new people arrive all the time while others roll up their towels and leave – but we’re still here. For the moment anyway. Can you spot us in the crowd? We’re over here – walking along the promenade.

We also spend time in our apartment on the 14th floor of the Levant Lux. Yes, we changed homes after eight days. All the apartments on the 2nd floor are in the shade most of the time and feel cold. When we asked Mourad at the front desk about changing rooms, he wanted to know why. We replied that apartment 2c is very nice but not enough sun. He spent a few seconds on the computer and then phoned the head housekeeper. Between the two of them, they found an apartment that would be available for the duration. He said, almost apologetically, we have only the 14th floor available, apartment 14C. Can you move on Saturday? We don’t know why he was apologetic; we could not have done better because, even though we didn’t know it at the time, fourteen is the top floor. So we moved. Planta catorce has views of fireworks, glimpses of the sea, shoreline and Alicante, people walking, pubs, lovely deluxe and delicious sunshine, mountains and more. What took us so long, we wondered? Well, it was The Elevator. On two we could climb the stairs. On catorce we ride in one of two little tiny elevator cars that are so small they have to have mirrors on the ceilings to double the space. They lurch and jerk and rattle and bounce (can you please come and fix them, Byron?), but in actual fact the ride is a small price to pay because, as it turns out, now we are dead even with the locals. Seagulls. They glide past our balcony when we are fine dining on baguette and cheese and laugh at us in their special laughing way, always with a keen eye on our victuals. During a fly-by this morning Richard commented that it’s a good thing birds aren’t afraid of heights. I said, ‘you could be a British comedian with an observation like that’. You see, Tony Scott, the fellow we saw two weeks ago said, ‘what did one bird say to the other while they were sitting on a perch?’ The answer is, ‘do you smell fish?’ Of course neither of us or anyone else in the audience got it until Tony repeated it about catorce times. Well, do you get it now? Another joke he told was about the woodworm that went into a bar and asked, ‘is the bartender here?’ Of course we didn’t get that one either until he repeated it catorce times. Oh well. We’re Canadian…

Most people working in hotels and restaurants in Benidorm speak more languages than sharks have teeth. Of course, everyone speaks Spanish, but many also speak English, Dutch, German or French. Front desk representative, Mourad, the fellow I was just telling you about, came to the Levante Lux Apartments from Algeria a few years ago, fluent in Arabic, French, Spanish and English. He looks so normal, standing there behind the counter, doing his job. This unassuming, polite and handsome man. He studied at university for a degree in graphic arts, but he could not find a job in that field in Benidorm so he went to work for the Levante Hotel Group. His language skills alone put him at the top of amazing. He is married to an artist, also from Algeria, and they have a three year old daughter who goes to Spanish school. They have applied to the Canadian Government for the right to live and work in Quebec, because French is his first language after Arabic, and because he has a friend who lives there who told him Canada has the best life.

My first unfortunate discovery in 14c happened the day after the move. When I tried to use the shower the whole contraption fell off the wall and crashed noisily into the bathtub - nozzle, hose and bracket. No matter what, I could not re-attach the bracket, so I took a bath instead. The issue was soon reported to Richard that we would have to ask the front desk for maintenance. Well after a few tapping and drumming minutes Richard said, ‘I think your problem is solved’. ‘What the sam hill’, I said, ‘did you fix it?’ Sure enough, the bracket was tight on the wall with the hose nestled perfectly inside and at the proper angle. ‘How did you do it?” I asked, amazed. “Well I used the screw driver that I always carry with me, then I had to make a spacer for a washer and I put it all back together’. Note to self: What do we really ever know about people? I have been travelling with this man on overseas trips since the mid ‘80s. I did not know he carried a screwdriver. No wonder he is my hero.

My second unfortunate discovery came later that week. And it was big. High floor, sunshine, lovely view indeed. Benidorm weather took a nasty turn. Fog, mist, low clouds, rain, cold, windy. Even an entire tool kit couldn’t fix it.

We’ve had time to explore a few nearby coastal towns; there are many and some are lovely. Number one on our list of course, was Calpe - about ½ hour away. We just had to go back. We first visited Calpe in January, 1997 and stopped for lunch at a gorgeous little outdoor café called the Peanut Bar, right on the promenade with brilliant sea view, fabulous location and drop-dead-gorgeous owners. The restaurant was quite new and the proud owner husband told us that a seaside life in Spain had been their dream. He said that his wife was from France and he was from Belgium, and between them they spoke seven languages (I said seven!). He was hopeful that they could handle the slow season in Calpe, which was when we were there, because in the busy season he knew their business would take off. Our lunch was charming, delicious and downright memorable. How could it not be when the food was prepared by a beautiful French chef who inherently knows about croissants and cheese and wine and poodles? And the table faced the promenade where dozens of Europeans strolled by on a beautiful sunny day. So the mood of the place seared into the ‘favourite travel memory’ section of our brains like a branding iron. When we left the Peanut Bar, Richard and Donna agreed that if a person could live and work anywhere in the world and had the intelligent advantage of seven languages, then Calpe, on the sunny, upscale coast of Spain was as good as it gets. We were envious. In fact we were downright jealous. So from that day forward the Peanut Bar received the highest rating on our ‘living a good life’ measuring stick. We told everyone about it.

We next visited Benidorm in January, 2000 and took the train to Calpe to see if the Peanut Bar still justified the highest rank. We stood aghast. The place was closed out, grown over, abandoned – like a western movie scene where the tumbleweeds bounce along the dusty road and the swinging doors of the saloon sway mindlessly in the wind. We know that restaurants come and go all the time, all over the world. We know that many businesses in resort areas are vulnerable and as unstable as Calgary weather. But the Peanut Bar was special to us and we were counting on continued success for our own reasons. It was very depressing. It still is.

So this trip, almost eleven years later, we again returned to Calpe on the first of our visits to surrounding towns. At the place where the Peanut Bar had been we recognized that someone else (and who knows, maybe even more) had opened a restaurant at some point - but it had long since closed. Sadness came upon us again, not for the loss of the replacement restaurant but because of the cold wind that blew through one of our favourite sunny daydreams. We will always wonder about that lovely couple. What happened to them? And where are they now?

Meanwhile, life in Calpe goes on. It is a lovely world-class destination that has attracted long-stays and inventors for years. The resort areas spread along two beaches, one that parallels the city centre and the other that faces the sea in a gorgeous resort setting filled with massive and modern condominium development. Both have up-scale, well maintained promenades. The second beach is quite deserted in the winter months but even then it is popular with Dutch, German and French Europeans, many of whom winter in Calpe every year. Unfortunately this is where the Peanut Bar was located. Ifach Rock is Calpe’s grey signature statement - it sits at the corner of the two beaches and towers high into the sky. It is visible for miles and can easily be seen from Altea and Albir. Calpe is accessible from Benidorm and Alicante by Alsa Bus Lines and the tram train.

A few days later we rode in comfort to Denia on the tram train which leaves once an hour from Benidorm. We had never been to Denia before and were quite amazed to see how ‘Dutch’ the city centre looked. Reminded us completely of being in Holland, in Gouda for example. We wandered around and found the port where the ferries leave for Ibiza. Hmmm, tempting…but for another time. Denia’s boast is a massive castle on the mountain right in the middle of the city, similar to Alicante and Malaga. We stopped at a quaint little coffee house for café con leche and croissants that you would swim the Med for – they were sooooo delicious. Denia, a lovely but unremarkable city that we wouldn’t want to move to. The best part of the day was the tram train which hugged the coastline for miles and provided exquisite vistas of life in coastal Spain.

The route for city bus number 10 takes you to Albir and Altea, two lovely little resort towns that are connected to Benidorm by a very interesting half hour bus ride. A & A are bedroom communities that are separated from each other by a span of pebbly beach. You can easily walk from one promenade to the other along a gravel sidewalk. Altea is just lovely with dozens and dozens of seaside restaurants that are busy day and night. We noticed that meals are a little more expensive.

The tram train that runs from Benidorm to Alicante is not diesel, it is electric. It departs twice an hour and the trip takes about 1 hour 20 minutes. This trip to Alicante was our fourth (over the years) and while we were there we stopped by the Hotel Rambla to see what happened with our reservation. When we cancelled the booking online in Calgary because of the flight delay, the cancellation confirmation said we would be charged for the room because we were already inside the penalty period. The gorgeous young lady at the Rambla front desk went into the office and checked for us. ‘No’, she said, ‘everything is okay. You were not charged’. Good to know. That left us with a clear conscience to source out delicious food for lunch somewhere in central Alicante. And find it we did. Bet you could never guess where we ate. It was outdoors in the middle of Alicante’s remarkable pedestrian boulevard that runs parallel to the harbour. We shared a footlong sandwich – vegetarian, lightly toasted. Yes, we chose Subway, if you can imagine. And it was delicious. So much for sampling exotic Spanish tapas. Oh well, it’s only food, right?

Alicante boasts a large harbour with hundreds of yachts and sailboats – glamorous accessories of the wealthy. In fact the contrast takes your breath away, the stunning rows of expensive white fibreglass set against the expanse of shimmering blue sea. But who are those people that can afford to pay for parking in a harbour in a downtown parking lot? Where did they come from and what do they do? Everyone in Calgary has been complaining about the high cost of parking for years. Well we say, ‘ha!’ You should see the size of the stalls in Alicante harbour if you think downtown Calgary is expensive!
The day we were there the sun streamed down to earth with legendary brightness and we couldn’t think of a single reason why we should be anywhere else on earth at that moment – except for one thing. Grandkids.

That’s all for now. Hasta luego!