5.2 HIPPIE DAYS IN IBIZA

We crossed to the mainland and decided in Cádiz to take the train to Madrid to visit our friend Rita before moving on, for we had decided to see the Balearic Islands, which we had been told was another free paradise. Ibiza was our target, for it had been recommended by a young Nigerian we met on the ferry who sold his African wares with success in Ibiza Town.

Our stay was punctuated by the death of Franco who died just after midnight on November 20, 1975. It was, compared with the Revolution in Portugal, anti climatic. The joy of liberation was missing.

In 1969, Franco designated Prince Juan Carlos de Borbón, with the new title of King of Spain, as his successor, and in 1973, Franco had surrendered the function of prime minister remaining however as head of state and commander in chief of the military. His control however until his death had been cruel and absolute.

We made a few friends in Madrid; José, an anarchist with whom I had a mutual accord and liking, and Roberto, the son of a friend of Rita.

Our short stay over, we boarded the Trans Mediterranean Ferry to Ibiza, which would never be our home, but for many years our temporary refuge from the world until the tourist plague began.

THE NEW ABOMINABLE SICK ROSE OF SANTA EULALIA

“The Sick Rose”

O Rose thou art sick.

The invisible worm,

That flies in the night

In the howling storm:

Has found out thy bed

Of crimson joy:

And his dark secret love

Does thy life destroy.

  Santa Eulalia

The beach at Santa Eulalia was not extensive then and there were actually large rocks on the beach itself. The town was in the off season, from September to June. It was quiet and fantastic when we arrived and the old Ibiza shone through the developing tourist veneer.

Years later they imported sand to make the beach extend seaward and had the rocks removed. The first step towards "progress".  When we arrived there in January of 1976 there were Sabina pines lining the beach and at the near end towards the Riomar Hotel there was a small circular paved area which jutted out a little as a small lookout point.

Farther on, where we sold, there were empty fields with a few two-storied buildings far back and away from the unpaved path which led to Pepe's Bar, called Four Pines (Cuatro Pinos). A little further on was the Riomar Hotel, owned by the mayor. Beyond that was the small river with a wooden bridge that crossed to the other side to the villas which lined the hills beyond.

We set up on this unpaved path sheltered by the trees. There were Pedro and his Czechoslovakian girlfriend (they made leather bags and belts); Bill, a cheerful older bearded American with his South American partner; John and Glenda, an English couple who lived in their van, and a young blond Italian woman, called Jaqualine, who had once been a croupier. She sold a variety of jewelry and did well with plated bent fork bracelets.

We all sold from cloths laid upon the earth. Ninette and I started by making shell necklaces from shells we had collected in the Canaries and Ninette's macrame necklaces and bags. The others had their fixed homes, but Ninette and I, when it was late, slept on the small beach in front of Pepe's Bar and when there was rain or wind we slept in his lavatories accompanied by the rats which lived in the straw and cane roof.

However our main home was our pup tent in San Carlos. We rode to and from almost every day. It was set up in the fields of San Carlos under the eagle eye of an astute old Ibicenca widow woman, dressed always in black, called Josefina. She was as smart as a whip. She, and her son Ramón, accepted us as residents in her fields, for a small fee of course. She, as always, was suspicious of foreigners. Close to us was a typical Ibicenco house, also her property, rented  by a young group of Christians. The leader, a young charming and sincere fellow, based his life upon his certain prediction of the proximity of end of the world, which fortunately for us never came.

So we were considered Hippies. Why? Really it was because we sought a counter-culture lifestyle. All the labels of acid, free sex, and a thousand other foolish ideas had no substance of truth and were only for many just by-products, a means to escape from the real "hippie truths" of William Blake and Allen Ginsberg. Ronald Reagan considered hippies as "resembling Tarzan, acting like Jane and having the repugnance of Cheetah."

The "rue hippies" in Santa Eulalia were few, for most had moved away. We were probably the last of the true counter-culture "hippies" in Ibiza. There were hangers-on who had been there for many years who had capitulated and ran commercial bars and restaurants and such, "worms in the rose".

Most of us at that time simply considered society flawed, government corrupt and were trying to find a better way to live with individual differences as far away from normal greedy commerce.

By that William Blake criterion, all of us were hippies.

Ibiza around the beach areas was not always paradise, for in the peak season the small beaches was always crowded. However, it was better than being bound to a city with rules, regulations and the greater demands of a consumer society. In Santa Eulalia, tourists seldom stayed where we sold, for there were only rocks and no sand on that part of the shore. But the small row of trees was a haven in summer and a fitting setting.

In the off season the beaches were empty and we relaxed meeting and playing chess in the local bars. Ninette as always shone and we looked an odd pair for at the time I wore a gray, black and white striped "jalaba" and with my beard and long hair looked a little like an Old Testament prophet, while Ninette was elegant in whatever she wore. Several times in the first three years I was called upon by local old people in the Ibiza countryside to give forgiveness for some sin or other, for there was an absence of clergy. I did so formally, correctly and gladly without recompense. I saved many a soul.

Now it has been easy so far to set out the experiences that brought changes in Ninette and transformed her into the person she became, but now in Ibiza and all that happened there over so many years it is difficult to put a finger on the important experiences for her.

Descriptions and words cannot describe the person and their growing and developing nature. Living together day by day, so much is revealed and so much forgotten. I try to see all that happened through her eyes, but my own keep getting in the way.

Ninette loved the seashore in the direction of San Carlos and walked slowly along the cliff shore taking in the magic of an Island that has long since become merely flotsam and jetsam, sometimes floating, sometimes sinking below the turbid tourist waters. But then, absorbing the spirit of the few free people, there was always movement within her. The old Roman wagon bridge was another favorite spot for her reflections.

THE CLIFF SHORE

          THE ROMAN BRIDGE

We made enough the first year after the season started in June to allow me a quick trip to Barcelona, where I stayed with the mother of our Madrid friend Roberto for a few days, as he had then finished his military service. I bought white beads, shells, catches and other material that would allow us to make and sell necklaces, bracelets and earrings. Then I returned to Santa Eulalia.

The trips which I then sometimes made for a few days were the only times we were apart from each other, for our days were always passed together from morning to night. When I passed Santa Eulalia in the ferry on these trips I always, standing on the rails intently wished her all my greatest wishes for well-being until Ibiza was out of sight.

SANTA EULALIA: THE WHITE ROSE

Peak of the Season: late 70's

We sold mainly to the tourists who walked down from the hills to Santa Eulalia and the beach and others, mostly British, from the Riomar Hotel.

Two Germans had opened a Hippie Market in Es Cana every Wednesday that had its idea in an earlier market by a Swiss group and they made it an immediate success. We rented a place and rode out with all our wares. But by the end of that second year the "lucre" rot had begun to set in. The Town Council started with "no selling from cloths on the floor". We built folding tables that we could fit on the bikes for transport to our tent in San Carlos and Es Cana.

Then, since the town Council saw that Escana was a success, they decided in Santa Eulalia in 1984 that we needed to pay space rental  for the beach spot under the trees which was outside Santa Eulalia itself. But we had had eight undisciplined years. Successively we were advised that we had to pay as "autonomous salespeople" and then they crowned the tart by deciding that all sellers had to have a residence in Ibiza.

Bill and his lady, together with  John and Glenda, left never to return. That left just the three of us Josephine, Pedro and ourselves for the following year.

We found a small goat shed on the road outside Santa Eulalia leading to San Carlos at Can Vaca, and it backed onto the backyard fence of a Russian woman called Bella, whose father was a famous Russian before the revolution. She was a dignified and educated person and we were invited over often.

We made white beads of different size pearls and others with centers of Philippine shells of purple, white or pink coral and other natural substances.

It was our great fortune that Grace Kelly that year had her photo in one of the glamor magazines wearing a simple necklace of white porcelain beads. We sold and sold and eventually needed two extra people to make those necklaces along with Ninette so that we could supply the demand.

Then we were faced with a grave problem. Even with the little we worked, we were making more money than we needed and couldn't use Spanish banks or send the money out of the country.

Then things began to change for the worst. First came the cheap fare tourists and then the false hippies who bought in Barcelona and sold in Ibiza; the false gold and watch sellers and a host of other commercial thieves. A couple of Philippine shell retailers came to the shops in Ibiza selling the similar products as ourselves and we began to sell Philippine red and blue rock coral necklaces in defense. Ninette took it all with calm. While I designed new necklace and earring forms she made them all without complaint.

We bought from Bernie, a German, the leading retailer, and  he gave us sufficient discounts and first choice so we beat out the competition and we became close acquaintances. We made our table longer with overhead sunshades. It was really quite grand and while I sold, Ninette with her beauty and her calm attraction was our main selling point, for people came to talk as well as to buy gifts for home. But without meaning to, we had entered the commercial world and later realized that we had to get out.

                                                   JULY 1984

The solution we arrived at was to travel to the East and buy there exotic beads and silver and other artifacts that we could sell every season in Santa Eulalia and Es Cana. We considered that perhaps we could have the best of both worlds. It was an exciting idea.

But it was the start of a double life for us both. On one hand we remained "hippies" with just a few friends and on the other we entered into Ibiza life, always alien however to the creeping venom of the globalized and greedy mind.

The Tail Side of One Coin

By 1982 we had moved to Can Pages, for a civilized life had somehow crept up on us.

Actually it started with the Falklands War in 1982, for with our short wave radio we were always up to date.

I was a favorite with the English and Scots while Ninette was a favorite with everyone. Her languages as always were flawless and my French and German lagged behind by several leagues.

We didn't really notice at the time. We rented a civilized house, the small bottom flat of a duplex that was just 50 yards across the open field from our table. Ninette began writing regularly about the flora and fauna for the Island magazine for tourists, I was social and art columnist for El Día de Baleares and a correspondent for the Daily Mail in Great Britain.

At one point I judged the Miss Santa Eulalia contest and was lecturer and honorary professor at the University of the Mediterranean, so that will give some idea of how we were integrating. We continued playing chess, tennis, chatted about nothing at all in the bars and I started painting seriously again, thanks to our friend Martin and his wife Olga. My best show was at Las Dalias and I had galleries working in Barcelona.

                                                         OUR RUSSIAN FRIEND AT LAS DALIAS

Ninette opened a small private school of English from our apartment and the Mayor's son and daughter were among her students. She was a natural teacher and her skills blossomed the greater the challenge and complications.

We were a part of Ibiza's "foreign people".  By then the false hippies had arrived in droves. But we stayed away from them because we had special permission to sell alone on our wonderful spot. 

We had fallen from the "Natural Grace" of our previous life, but not completely, for we were one part "social" and the other part "Hippies" with our magnificent table, where we now exchanged books in English, Dutch, French and English, gave weather reports and the International News on blackboards which we had set up and gave Money Exchange information.

We were local people, but our friends were few.

There were Lillie and Bob with their son Polo; Bob had previously been in the American Consulate in China. Lewis was a fantastic Argentine chess player who was close with Phylis from Ibiza town, that had been a ferry smuggling conscientious objectors out of the States during the Vietnam war; Burrat, another Chess player who pushed me into second place in the Chess Championships one year; and Jaime, one of our few Spanish friends, another Chess freak that actually came in fourth in the championship, as Ninette who also was a good player beat him out into third place.

There was Ernie, who was on a pension from the American military after failed electric shock treatment that all suspected of being with the CIA; Ottie, a cultured older woman, who loved cats and was the only person I ever encountered who had once a contact with Al Capone and found him a real gentleman; Martin, an educated and charming Englishman who had been at one time a "second-storey man", was in great part already Sufi and Olga his partner, who was operating the Las Dalias as a Gallery at the time, and their son Julian.

Sylvia, another American, and a loyal friend. was an avid amateur painter; Roger Day and his woman were fine local potters and were Buddhists, while Pepe of Cuatro Pinos who at one time had been in the "cantera" of F.C. Barcelona, had always been our friend. There was also a very fine English portrait painter, Colin and his wife Cathie. With them we actually set up weekly exchange visit for a meal and a listening session of Classical music.

I suppose you could say that we had fallen. But not really in retrospect that much. There are many a tale that could be unfolded but this is not the place for such frivolity.

But for both of us there was one friend above all others. It was Ginger Cat. We could give her no other name because she did not belong to us. She was untamed but came to us and entered into our house to have her kittens. She was the most amazing cat either of us had ever seen. She came every day to the apartment and we never fed her, for she was master at catching mice and voles. She was a perfect mother. However her most amazing attribute was that she hated dogs and was a terrible adversary.

She kept all dogs away from our table and owned the area of the open field between our table and our apartment  in"Can Pages". It might seem like an exaggeration but I swear it to be the truth. One day she chased five dogs out of the area, jumping from back to back, clawing as they fled.

As Misty was Ninette's first Dog love so Ginger Cat was her first love of the cat world.

These, like all that had gone before, were  happy times for Ninette, who really loved Ibiza like no other I have known. She loved not the Ibiza that Westerners cling to, but the Ibiza that was both mysterious with a Mediterranean magic that was in her blood. The sun bronzed her and yet she never lost the interior gentleness and wonder of a young child.

To many it might have seemed that I was the leader that Ninette always followed, but really she was the power that in all those years drove my spirit.

Recovering the Past

There were two events which were of great importance in Ninette's life. They were the visits of her mother with her escort Damon and the visit of her father David.

When her mother came with Damon, her escort, she had become less selfish and less of a demanding tyrant, like a mother, and Ninette responded. On that visit she reached an understanding of all her mother's errors, and a great deal about her early childhood and the fact that her displacement as the reigning princess was reduced every time a sister was born. What she felt inside that always present was the strong need of approval and attention. She as a result had never really liked her thus-competing second sister. She discovered that when there is understanding then there is nothing to forgive. 

Later, David came with her younger sister Marilyn. Ninette had discovered while we were in New York that her mind had been poisoned towards David and then had reached out successfully to him, but in Ibiza they came together with a Daughter-Father relationship that made up for all the distance she had mistakenly generated from him as a child. She was no longer a Jewish Princess but had become a different sort of Princess as a free and loving person. I had a show of paintings at the time and he enjoyed his visit so much to Ibiza. He had become a person that could finally express the feelings that had been held within himself for so long. 

David bloomed in her presence and was so proud of her. He cried upon leaving. It was the last time that Ninette would see him. Marilyn too had made peace with David before they came to Ibiza and she too had become close to him.

The Head Side

The "head" side of the coin, which was also part of our life, started way back in 1978 when we began taking Asiatic trips to buy exotic things to sell. It came to a "head" in 1981 when we bought an old ruined two-storey farmhouse in Catalonia with the idea to turn it into a Buddha Dharma haven and study center.

Four years allowed the first turning of the Dharma wheel for Ninette.

The tail and the head part of the coin were always separated, but they were both part of our lives. 

It all started in the Hippie market, really. Across from us was a seller who was later to encounter her as Lama Djinpa of the Kagyu and she was to become his student, but three tables down was Hughie, who sold wares brought from India. He had just finished reading a book and gave it to us. It was a book by Lama Anagarika Govinda.

In it we found the Dharma formula that "nothing exists". For many it is sheer nonsense and many also who grasped the idea but only understood it intellectually. I had been working with Leon Festinger in New York in perception and a study we published together generated for me a clear consciousness that scientifically this was certain and not just philosophy.

The moment was propitious. Our first trip to India then served two purposes: Investigation of this idea in India, Sri Lanka and Nepal and a source for treasures for jewelry table. That is how the head side of the coin began to have its effect.