Monday 7/4 - Wednesday 7/6
The group waiting to board the boat. So many people got burnt on this trip to the island it was like Red Lobster's Lobster-fest at dinner that night.
Our cruiser
the group on the deck
Monday
Today we were scheduled to go on a trip to Tabarca Island to snorkel. In the morning we all hopped on board a nice ferry that took us to the nearby island that was only about 3 miles in circumference maybe. I love riding on those ferry boats and going to the bow, feeling the wind in your hair, watching the boat cut through the waves, and taking it all in with your friends. It reminds me a lot of Guatemala (M). Only 6 people live there all-year-around, but in the summer there is a modest little town of restaurants and gift shops that subsists on tourism dollars. We were divided into groups to go snorkel and since I volunteered for the last group I went with some people to a smaller neighboring island just a hundred yards or so away through shallow water. This heap of rocks was particularly fun to climb around because you could see how the crashing waves had carved it into all sorts of fun shapes. At the highest cliff of the island a bunch of people were wondering whether the water was safe enough to jump. I decided I could climb down and check it out since my trusty Chacos were far superior to anyone’s flimsy flip-flops. After making certain the water in the whole area was several feet over our heads I climbed back up (which was harder than I expected and the razor sharp rock gave me a bit of a scrape). Still people were hesitant, so I said I would jump first. I always love a good cliff-jump! I looked over the ledge, spotted my entry point and leaped out waving my arms like wild. After I got down safely there were a handful of others who made the 2-3 story jump. I climbed back up and did it 3 more times!
The leap into the blue. One of our student managers was definitely not pleased that we did this, and another one yelled at us to stop then gave in and the third one joined us to "supervise."
The little island we swam to. The dots on top are people.
After that exhilarating adventure I went with a couple people to walk around the perimeter of the island. There really was nothing there besides the measly town in one corner a cemetery in the other and an old prison in the middle. The water at the small beach there was incredibly full of plant junk, but we got out of it by swimming out through the big rolling waves to the buoys. Later on the beach, the girls forced us to have a girls and guys “photo shoot” much to our chagrin.
We we courageous explorers on our expedition around the island.
The city across the bay where we swam and hung at the beach.
Finally it was our turn to snorkel. I was really surprised that taking groups was a legitimate business on the island because all we did was go out to the middle of this cove and watch the same type of gray fish swim around. I think over 30 minutes I saw 3 types of fish and they didn’t even come to the boat unless the boat guy threw out bread to make them swarm around us. Real natural, haha! There was no coral or anything, just a bottom of thick sea grass 15 feet below us. Still I had fun swimming around with my snorkel gear, but I feel like I could have easily managed that myself. Once we were back in the boat our guide gave us a glass of sangria, he made sexual jokes with all the girls, we got our limbo on, and we had a dance contest. Somehow everyone voted that I won the dance-off so apparently I got the prize of “spending a night” with the guide. Since we were the last group we got to ride back to Alicante in the small speedboat. It was a ton of fun because he swerved back and forth over the waves and we would hop off our seats as the small boat bobbed up and down. Back at the dorm we played an energetic game of soccer (our student manager, Mohsen, gets so excited for our pickup games!) within our group and got ready to go out for the 4th of July!
Our lively snorkel crew complete with our guide Antonio.
Tonight everyone wore a white t-shirt and blue jeans or some other form of red white and blue and some were even lucky enough to carry one of the mini US flags that I had brought from home and had been passing around all day. For one night we were unabashedly and obnoxiously American. First, we went to Austin’s to have a relaxing drink and watch guys run around dressed in American flag clothes squirting tequila from a super soaker into people’s mouths. Our next stop was our favorite dilapidated dance club, Carpe Diem. Even though it was a Monday night it was packed for the fourth of July and they were playing the most American songs possible. I had the most fun I had ever had there dancing with all our friends. Next we migrated to Mulligans where our girls enjoyed dancing on the bar and our French friend really acted his age.
Celebrating the 4th of July!
Our Iwo Jima reenactment.
I left with these two girls who said they wanted two walk the 2 hours uphill it would take to get to our dorm from downtown. I knew it was an awful idea, but I stuck with them humored them for a little while until I convinced them to flag down a taxi. We definitely celebrated the Fourth in style!
Tuesday
We left early this morning (9:15) for our daytrip to the neighboring city of Elche. We were supposed to go to two different company visits today, but both canceled just a couple days ago so we are going to a different company and visiting a museum. The museum was pretty cool and set within the castle of the city. A lot of people were just too tired to enjoy it. We did see Elche’s famous palm tree oasis. They said there are something like 200,000 natural palm trees in the town and it’s really rare to find such an abundance in an arid desert-like climate like Elche’s. Then we visited a shoe company called Panama Jack’s (Havana Joe’s in the US). It was quite interesting to see all there operations. We learned that Elche is the 2nd largest city for shoe manufacturing in the world. A company called Pikolinos is another shoe company across the street (this is one that canceled on us).
A nice building in the park we walked through to get to the castle in Elche.
The castle tower
Panama Jack makes mostly work-type practical boots. This is there staple shoe. The advertisement behind was created in-house (like all their advertising) and shows Adam and Eve wearing these boots because "they get you where you need to go" (out of Eden). I appreciated it.
The warehouse full of leather. It reminded me of our basement when we had that pile of leather for years. I went along the shelves and tried to name all the animals represented.
That night most of our group took a tour of the castle in Alicante and since I had already done that I got in some major slacklining outside the dorm. It’s kinda fun how most of the people walking by will stop and gawk for a while at this weird tight rope act I’m attempting. By the end I was able to walk across the line about half the time, so that was a great accomplishment. Now I need to practice walking backwards!
Tonight we introduced the Mizzou students to their first BP tournament at Havana. It was a pretty full field, but Quinten and I got to the 4th round, which was farther than ever before, until we were beat by some of our friends. I ran into my friends Kathryn and Caitlin who I discovered are some of my Delta Sigma Pi (business frat.) brothers from Wash U. in StL.
The only Mizzou Deltasigs on our trip with the two Wash U. Deltasigs. We just made up that hand sign and I'm excited to bring it back to Mizzou.
Wednesday
This morning we got up early to head to the huge tourist city of Benidorm to the north of Alicante. It should have been a 1 hr. tram ride, but by the time we took the tram backwards to the start of the tram-line where the tram company wanted to take a picture of us which made us miss our tram it turned into a 2.5 hour mess of a journey. We were all under the impression that the tram company was going to give us a presentation and explain their operation, but they definitely just wanted our picture in their station for publicity purposes. It wasn’t even a good picture because the lady took it as we were still getting settled and only half the people were smiling!
When we finally got to Benidorm we walked deep into the city until we reached some government building where we received a presentation on tourism in Benidorm. Benidorm’s economy is based off of the 4-million tourists who visit each year for it’s pristine beaches and numerous water parks, zoos, aquariums, golf course, etc. It would have been cool to learn about the internal operations of the division of tourism but instead we were fed a bunch of inconsequential, irrelevant statistics about stuff like how many beds are in all the 4-star hotels of Benidorm. Half the group was put to sleep by the end of the 30-minute presentation. After this lackluster start the day picked up because we were free to roam around Benidorm for the rest of the afternoon.
The pristine beach at Benidorm was more beautiful than any I had seen yet.
I went with a small group to eat at an Italian place and then visit the beach. The water was ridiculously clear and the sand was incredibly hot. I had a great time body surfing on the sizeable waves and playing crack the egg with myself (you curl up in a ball in the shallows and let the waves buffet you down the coast). We leisurely strolled through the town stopping at various shops (I bought a Spain flag!) on our way to the tram and got to the station just in time to catch the last tram they would have to Alicante for a couple hours. We were incredibly lucky!
My tortellini pasta.
Couples come up to this nice plaza that overlooks the city and has beaches below on either side and they attach a lock to this structure and then throw the key into the sea. It symbolizes their everlasting love (our interminable bondage ;) )
On the plaza overlooking the city. Benidorm actually has a decent amount of skyscrapers unlike Alicante. The funny thing is that Benidorm is only bigger than Alicante for 2 months of the year (July and August when the tourism is at its peak).
When I got back to Alicante I realized I had to really hustle in order to buy my bus tickets to Barcelona for that weekend, eat, pack, and make travel preparations for my trip to Brussels that weekend. I got out of the dorm just in time to catch the last bus to Alicante for the night and was relieved to be through with the hectic preparations and by 2 am I was on my 8-hour bus to Barcelona. I am really looking forward to seeing my friends in Brussels Thur. night (after I fly there from Barcelona), but a lot of them said they might be leaving to travel Europe for the weekend, so that would be real crappy. Especially since I’m traveling solo because no one else would care to go to Brussels with me to see my friends. I’m just planning to go with the flow and trust that everything will work out.
Hasta Luego,
Cóle
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