Squid Ink: The Book of Costa Blanca – a Spanish travelogue

Curso Seis

Benidorm

I have always been an obsessive traveler, but with the internet, I am obsessive about airline tickets like some people are obsessive about checking the stock market. In my spare time I check airfares to all the exotic places in the world I want to go, but my cursor always points back to airfares to London and Madrid or to Maui and Kona. Call me spoiled, but travel has always been a part of our lives. We have quit jobs, sold cars and planned maniacally so we could travel. When girlfriends have me over to their houses to look at big new furniture, I just sigh and say, yeah, that was my trip to France or wherever. One living room chair looks like a European airline ticket to me and I've managed to keep furniture to a minimum and my passport full of stamps.

We spend money on traveling to a place, but once we are there, we live like climbers and we have extensive experience traveling cheap. People ask me about the amazing French food after our climbing trips in the Provence region and I have no idea what they are talking about. We shop in grocery stores and small markets and we refrain from eating at nice restaurants.

Airfare to Europe gets cheaper in the spring. The spring weather is too cold for sun seekers and it's a weird in-between season for most travelers, so airfare drops. The secret is that Southern Spain in spring is predictably warmer than anywhere in the US. The second travel secret is that once you are in Europe, air travel gets cheaper. If you can get an inexpensive flight to London or Madrid, you can fly to Southern Spain on cheapo plane companies like Easy Jet or Ryan Air. Spanair and Iberia offer dozens of flights per day for the hordes of pale white tourists that need to go to Alicante or Malaga to sew their wild warm weather fantasies.

We return to Finestrat on a cheap spring flight and find ourselves surrounded by the British tourists again. Benidorm lies at the foot of the Spanish mountains at the sea, only 5k from the village pueblo of Finestrat and we discover that it is the center of wild behavior. There is an abundance of tattoo parlors and karaoke bars. Brits come to Southern Spain to let off pent up steam from all that cloudy weather. Benidorm is to Spain as Las Vegas is to America.

We drive along the edge of Benidorm to get on the highway to the climbing areas to the north and to get to our favorite curry house. Four hundred meters beyond the Carrefour, at the edge of the white high rise hotel mecca, the black prostitutes from North Africa line the walls of the Benidorm highway bridges. Now that we have noticed them, we start to see them at any hour that we drive by. They are fantastically out of place in Spain in their bright colored high heels, but after several visits we get used to their colorful presence and they almost blend into the fabric of the Benidorm lifestyle. Nothing seems too out of the ordinary at the Costa Blanca as the place fringes on the Twilight Zone every day. I realize that the strip malls and warehouses full of muebles, appliances and lighting stores that line the N332, also house strip bars, road side hostels and all-night dance clubs.

Back in Finestrat, at the Orange House, groups of British military units come to Spain in the spring to train for duty in Iraq and Afghanistan. The mountain countryside is perfect simulation for brutal mountain terrain in the countries where the British military are helping the United States fight terrorism. The Orange House guides teach the British military units to climb and after a few days, the soldiers are dropped in the middle of a wild mountain area and, as part of their training, they navigate their way back to the Spanish villa. They carry their own food and shelter and find water and stay out for a few nights. When they return to the Orange House, they are ready to party in Spanish style. The beer gets them going, then they are loaded into vans and driven into the heart of Benidorm for a night of dancing, Sangria and general debauchery. Benidorm is a port of call for them, just as it is for the package tourists. These guys are fairly tame though, and when they are recovering from their hangovers by the pool, we engage in fascinating discussions about Great Britain's views on the American Wars. I get a perspective I would never gain from news stories in the states. They always have a pleasant hello, they actually say "yal'right", and want to know where we climb.

It may appear out of place to stay at what seems like a military training facility, but it feels more like hanging out with a group of university students down for a week of climbing for Spring Break. One of the owners of the Orange House, Rich Mayfield, is somewhat of a climbing celebrity in the military community and in England. During his military career he saved a group of British soldiers and their commander on a summit expedition in Borneo because of his keen mountaineering instincts and his climbing ability.

One day we go with a group to the beach at La Cala Finestrat loaded with kids, volleyballs, inflatable kayaks and sun screen. This is the first time I have been to the beach ten minutes down the mountain and across the Great Divide between the mountain town of Finestrat and the beach town of La Cala Finestrat. The small strip of sand beach feels over crowded with sun bathers and rentable lounge chairs and the board walk lines up British bars next to Spanish tapas bars. I'm not a fan of crowded beaches or beach bars in any town, so I have a bad taste at the get go. The British bars flash Guinness signs and advertise local viewings of British football games. The Spanish bars serve Sangria, the tourist version, loaded with four kinds of alcohol. Fat white people in frumpy bathing suits walk the sidewalk in search of cold drinks and ice cream. They are sunburned and happy and look like tourists at any crowded beach resort in the world.

I have no intention of sitting on this beach except to be social, so, stubbornly, I decide to take a run over the mountain and over the rocky cliff that frames the beach. There is an old ruined fortress on the mountain top that I decide to look at. Benidorm and its sandy shore fielded lots of pirate attacks in the 14th and 15th centuries and so there are many cool old coastal ruins high on the sea cliffs.

The rocky trail off La Cala Finestrat beach is steep and too treacherous for most beach goers in flimsy sandals-nothing like limestone ball bearings on dry dirt to keep tourists off of a trail. We quickly leave behind the sunbathers and discover a well worn limestone trail on the edge of the Mediterranean Sea with a cool breeze and a spectacular view. This is one of those only in Spain moments when you travel 0 to 80 in two seconds. We go from overcrowded to wild sea cliff in a matter of minutes. The water shines clear and as brilliant blue as any postcard would depict and there is a small castle ruin at the top to remind us that each Spanish cliff is a historical sentinel to lost pirates. We see an incredible cove of turquoise water and run the steep trail of natural limestone steps down the other side to a cove thinking we have discovered the paradise of the seaside. But someone has discovered it before us.

As we turn the corner onto a dirt road, there are naked white men walking around with only their shoes on. Well, we are on nude beach and these pot bellied guys in their white trainers are stationed in all the best picnic spots. This is Benidorm after all. No problem for me, but it makes my husband a little nervous. We fancy ourselves quite young compared to these gay sun seekers and my husband's climbing physique leaves a few gentlemen with their tongues hanging out. These mostly non-Spanish men have taken over the most pristine cove of magical water and beach and made into their own private holiday party spot. I wonder what the local Spanish residents must think and I figure I am probably safe running here in the future if I don't mind pot bellies and gold chains. Luckily, the trails are pretty decent and prove great for a seaside run. A few trips later we notice the spot has been marked as an official nude beach. I guess that means that girls are legally allowed to swim there too. I vow to be bold enough one day to come back and swim.

After a few times in Benidorm, I begin to realize and theorize that the Spanish party as a lifestyle, but the partying centers around family and friends and I think of it as a general joy de vive. The Spanish shop, eat, talk, drink in the moment and in the present. They have festivals and fiestas at every opportunity and really don't hold anything back. Families, from elderly grand parents to toddlers, set up elaborate party tables on the beach on Sundays and stay all day until late at night. They eat well, drink steadily, but not into regular drunkenness. They stay up late at night to talk, dance and be with their friends and their huge families. The culture is very lively, loud and social. They generally snub their noses at the idea that tourists drink to get drunk rather than to drink in the life of the wine.

It appears to my naïve American eyes, that British vacationers have taken up the Spanish lifestyle but driven it into a deeper state of general drunkenness and debauchery. When I expound upon my new travel wise theory and question this business, the response is; didn't you know? This is where British bosses bring their secretaries to have affairs. Didn't you know? Southern Spain is a mecca for drugs and a safe haven for drug dealers to dump their money. I get the big duh response. Apparently drug trafficking has been thick since the Second World War. Euro hippies live cheap and wildly in Cadiz, the drugs slip easily to Malaga from Morocco and Hitler's henchman play cards with other expats in Marbella. It is Vegas to the tenth power.

But here is where I learn to be a good traveler and get over my snobbery. Benidorm is supposed to be like this. Maybe it feels sad to me that the orange groves turned into 52 story buildings like the Hotel Bali, but I am the tourist. I can go home anytime I want, or I can go hike off into the Spanish wilderness any time I choose.

The Spanish planned to turn Benidorm into a tourist mecca. The mayor of Benidorm in the 1950s, Pedro Zaragoza, planned to take the seaside village and turn it into a resort for the masses. He went to General Franco, the Spanish Dictator, told him his visionary plan and Franco gave him his blessing. Tourism would bring money into Spain at a time when Franco badly needed money. In Benidorm, in the 1950s, the bikini was banned on all Spanish beaches by the Roman Catholic Church. Once Franco lifted the ban on the bikini, mass tourism and wild tourist nights were born in Benidorm.

What I like about this, in Spain and even in Benidorm, in any particular place, in a town, or at a beach, everything can still be so oddly Spanish in the middle of a tourist wildness. It's sort of like walking the streets of San Francisco. One minute you are in Chinatown shopping for lucky cats and the next minute you're in Little Italy savoring homemade pastries like mama used to make. Worlds, morals and cultures stay divided and it keeps my mind in constant wonder. It's what makes the world tick and Spain so vibrantly interesting each trip.

Since Spanish life revolves around merriment and family, the Spanish have perfected the art of amusement parks too. That was also part of the Benidrom mass tourism plan. Humongous billboards advertise Aqua Land and Mundomar theme parks and halfway between Finestrat and Benidorm on hillsides that used to be wild with ibex like goats, the McDaddy of all amusement parks is Terra Mitica. I won't get within 100 miles of a Six Flags over any part of America and I am not a Disneyland fan, but I agree to let my son have a day at the Spanish Worlds of Fun with his football buddy's British auntie in mid summer heat. At home, he is not tall enough to drive his own go cart or ride the smallest roller coaster. But at Terra Mitica, he gets to ride on the back of Pegasus in ancient Greece and go down the Nile in a water roller coaster. He could have taken the flight of the Phoenix in Ancient Rome, but apparently he was feeling sick from the humid heat and the classical hamburgers and didn't get to do the 54 meter free fall. Only in Spain would they put the word extreme adventure into the slogan of an amusement park. The Spanish love their theme parks and they are always packed full of Spanish families.

We eat at the best curry restaurant ever between Benidorm and Alfaz de Pi. We go back twice, once for a birthday party and then by ourselves. The Indian waiters speak English and the sauces and vegetarian dishes are outstanding. We never hear any Spanish. The benefit to lots of Brits is brilliant curry in Spain. Directions to get to the restaurant, which lies off of a frontage road, from the N332, behind the medieval theme park, are nearly impossible, but it is worth going round the round about several times to find the House of India.

We find more places to run every trip we take. Running is like eating and sleeping for me, and is essential. I get really cranky without food, sleep or a good run. It ranks as number one of all the difficult parts of traveling with me. At this point in our trips to Spain I have about three running routes. One is on the left side of the Puig Campana which is all uphill and then back down over loose limestone. Another is on the right side of the Puig, which has scary barking dogs. My other stellar run is around the soccer pitch. This has always been easy for me as I can stumble out of the Orange House and run around the soft surface of artificial turf first thing in the morning. Luckily, we discover one more section of our stellar seaside run along great dirt tracks and flat roads between Benidorm and Villajoyosa. You have to do loops to go any distance, but it is always cool with the sea breeze. We rarely see any people there and the only interruptions are the cries of the seagulls gliding on the cliff's windy edge.

We keep exploring new climbing areas too. We search for a place we can all climb and where the approach is short. Guidebooks can be misleading and one day we go to a cliff called L'Ocaive near the Jalon Valley where the approach is overgrown and sweaty hot to get to. By the time we get up to the cliff, after nearly an hour of trekking uphill, we are tired and hungry. We set our gear down at the base and get out snacks and try and cool off when suddenly we hear a great buzzing of bees coming from inside the cliff. It sounds like a swarm and my son and I are instantly ready to bolt.

On one of our trips to Mallorca when we were climbing at a steep cave-like wall, a swarm of bees 20 or 30 feet around crossed a cliff near to where we were climbing. We were next to a nice group of Spanish climbers, who also came down off of their climb when they saw the bees. We all prepared for the worst and tried to put on clothing and get ready to run. All I could think of was that I was going to cover my son's body so he would not get stung. Luckily the swarm went up the other side of the canyon and we all resumed our climbing, but the Spanish climbers told us horror stories about these swarms of bees covering sheep and generally devouring living things in their path. I have an irrational reaction to swarms of bees now and I can only think how close we are to Africa and the killer bees. My husband has no choice but to get us off of that cliff and back down to the valley. We drive into the little town of Jalon and find a bar to have a lovely snack of peanuts and Fanta Limons.

We climb at another cliff near Lliber just off a treacherous little turn on the main road to Jalon. The approach is perfect with a little walk through an olive grove, although the climbing is pretty steep and technical. We would go back to this cliff several times because it is easy to get to and is reliably shady on hot afternoons.

We climb at Sella several more times when we need a break from driving or when we spend too much of the morning scoping out the two bakeries in Finestrat. The routes at the 5.10 grade, which are 6a and 6b in the Spanish grading system, climb superbly and we spend many half days working our way up steep walls on the Sector Competicion. My husband prefers to climb at the Wild Side, but we often recruit other climbers to take him there because the routes are too hard for me. We like meeting the groups of Spanish or German climbers at the crags in Sella and we often run into other climbers from the Orange House.

So, despite the mass tourism in Benidorm, or maybe because of it, we are naturally attracted to the mountain towns of Finestrat and Sella. They look wondrously authentic to us and they are not full of tourists. Finestrat is so purely Spanish with its winding cobblestone streets and Spanish festivals. There are street cafes in Finestrat we are too timid to enter because our Spanish is bad and because Spanish restaurants have uncertain hours and no menus, but the restaurants become like a mystery that we need to crack.

Near the end of our stay, we break out of our climbing hostal rut and stay at a rural hotel on the upside of Finestrat that will soon become a refuge. La Plantacion is run by an American ex pat and his Spanish wife. The grand tiled hotel becomes a sanctuary because there is never a crowd and breakfast is served in the big dining hall overlooking a turquoise pool and palms. In the morning, he steams up milk for cocoa and for Spanish espresso. She cooks amazing meals while he runs the restaurant, which turns out to be a combination of energy and perfect pairings. He brings the best bottles of local wine to dinner and she makes light, creamy sauces to bath fresh fish or lamb chops.

And as luck would have it, they have a boy the same age as our son, and they run off to play while we sit quietly to ponder what we have discovered. The grounds surrounding La Plantacion are relaxing and you can see all the way to the big expanse of the Med. This feels like country in the mountains, with chirping birds, the occasional call of a peacock and sun with a sea view. The high rises of Benidorm are hidden by the foothills and this classic villa feels like a Spanish luxury retreat, the food and ambience are that good. This could be the start of something addictive and vacation like. We will visit La Plantacion many times.