Formentera aka Paradise

That's what everyone calls it in on the travel websites, and boy, they weren't joking. One of my Italian friends recommended that we check out Formentera, and I owe him a huge thank you for the recommendation.

Formentera is a little island that's a bit south of Ibiza, and we walked over to the port to hop on a ferry. We got quite the shock when we found out that it was 91 euro for two return tickets. Ouch.

We hopped on board, and J ended up getting a bit seasick from all the bobbing around. Luckily, the ride was only about 30 minutes, and he recovered as soon as we landed. He wasn't the only one - I looked  around to see several people clutching their seasickness bags.


As soon as we landed, we noticed a row of shops renting out cars, motorcycles, mopeds and bicycles. I decided that it would be a great idea to ride bikes to the beach, Playa de Illetes, and we rented a pair for about 14 euro and put down another 16 as a deposit for the two bikes. We had a bit of trouble finding a bike for me since I'm pretty damn short, so I ended up with a child's mountain bike. J was pretty happy with his girl's city bike with metal basket.

Somewhere along the way, we took a wrong turn and ended up in the middle of Salinas Nature Reserve, which was designated as a World Heritage Site in 1995. Talk about a good wrong turn! We ended up biking along a very scenic dirt trail and tried to avoid running over the island's ubiquitous green lizards.


As soon as we found our way to the proper road heading to the beach, we immediately made another wrong turn into another dirt trail, which also turned out to be quite fortuitous because the trail dead-ended at a open-air restaurant run and patronized by locals.


I had been warned about the incredibly high prices I was sure to come across in Formentera's restaurants for really crap food, so we were overjoyed to find a place where we could get delicious hamburgers with chips and drinks for around 25 euro. I don't think the restaurant even had a name, but it was right by Playa Llevant and the owner's dogs ran around as we ate our lunch.


We headed back to the main road and finally got to our destination, Playa de Illetes. It's no longer the high season, so the beach wasn't crowded at all and a large German family with very blond children were the only ones splashing around in the water. The sand was white and soft, the water blue and clear. The sun wasn't too strong and the breeze just right. We just couldn't ask for a more perfect day.


We dropped off our stuff on two lounge chairs and popped open an umbrella so J could have some shade. Just like in Barcelona, a guy walked up to us shortly after to collect the rental fees - so nice and easy! It should've been about 18 euro, but he charged us only 12. Sweet!

Anyway, my butt was majorly hurting from the bike seat, so I was more than happy to just lay there on the lounge chair for a bit. Then I got bored so I headed into the water.


The water was really calm with zero waves and quite warm. I kept walking, but the water was shallow and it didn't get up to my waist until I had walked a good 10 meters in.


The water was cooler the farther I went out, so I headed back to shore after splashing around a bit. J also took a quick dip in the ocean, and then we both lounged about for a few hours.

Nude sunbathing isn't uncommon here so it didn't faze me much when I saw the topless women, but I did get a slight surprise when some people were running around in their birthday suits. Definitely wouldn't see that in LA, but it didn't seem as weird in Formentera for some reason.

Anyway, we hung out for a few hours before the sun looked like it was finished for the day, and we hopped back on our bikes to head back to the marina. It was a much shorter 2 mile ride back, but my butt was hurting the entire time.

Returning our bikes was super painless, and we hopped on the ferry to head back to Ibiza. The ferry this time was so big that we were sure that it was going to some other destination like Valencia so J and I went around asking people again and again to make sure that this was going to Ibiza. Paranoid much?

Thirty minutes later, we were back in Ibiza and we walked back to our hotel and showered before heading out to dinner at the Jackpot Restaurant, which is one of the restaurants on our hotel premises and is connected to the casino (hence the name).

We arrived right when it opened at 8:30pm, and the place was completely empty. We got our choice of tables, and since it was a bit cool outside, we sat in this entry type area that was between the outside and inside parts of the restaurant.

The Mediterranean menu had a heavy emphasis on seafood and was very reasonably priced for that kind of restaurant. And to our great surprise and delight, the portion sizes were epic! After snacking on the olives and bread and the cream of zucchini aperitif, I was pretty much done before my starter even arrived.  Luckily, I had a very helpful assistant in J.

 However, I think even he got a bit scared when the server showed up with the dessert tray. She had an array of different cakes, and J got a slice of almond cake while I decided to go native and ordered a local dessert called flao, which is similar to a cheesecake made with aniseed, lemon and fresh cheese. I think both our eyes nearly popped out of our heads when we saw the huge slices she was doling out. She proceeded to plate it in front of us with careful daubs and swirls of different fruit and chocolate sauces. It was pretty amazing to watch it done and almost too pretty to eat. But we did. All of it. Cause that's how we roll.

We finally staggered out of there 2 hours later, when the restaurant began to fill up. Apparently 10:30pm is a perfectly reasonable hour to have dinner.


As for J and I, it's bedtime and our stomachs can start a long night's work of digesting the enormous meal we just had.