Ibiza, Ayahuasca, and a Dead Cat
A new friendship (with minimal financial investment)
#15. Make a New Friend
A lot of people don’t know this, but Ibiza has a real spiritual side. There’s more to the island than just sex and drugs - there’s also ayahuasca and tantric massage.
I was there for a conference, and the magic of the old town had charmed its way into our little club of speakers and panellists. It was set in the cosy rooms of the Universitat de les Illes Balears, where the only audience members scattered across the plastic seats were the other people presenting that day. We’d spent the night before getting lost together in the winding steps and narrow lanes around the castle, nourished by canapes and a warm Mediterranean breeze.
It was a weird mix of hippies and venture capitalists. In Ibiza, they told me, you can party alongside a tech billionaire and a beach-tent hobo on the same yacht. I guess I must have been the hobo. At our post-event dinner – a bougie beachfront restaurant where you had to decipher the male or female toilets from brogues or high heels tied to the doors – I rubbed shoulders with a sixty-seven-year-old Essex geezer turned crypto journalist called Basil with a twinkle in his eye and a fondness for cocaine, and the perfectly coiffed hair of the daughter of the former European president. We, in our gang of newly minted holiday chums, tucked into grilled fish while we splayed our toes into the sand beneath the bamboo table. Everyone drank fresh white wine, except for me, and one other person, Paulo.
At six foot three with the body of a muscle-dude and shaved skull to boot, Paulo was not the kind of person I’d naturally hang out with – yet we connected over deep spiritual chat. Me, about how 9/11 was an occult black mass to usher in the Aeon of Horus; him, about how he wasn’t sure about all that but it sounds cool I guess. He was however into covert CIA studies on transcending the space/time continuum via meditation, and how slang like ‘wicked’ and ‘sick’ to denote something good is a sign of how our culture is spiritually sick (bad way), and I couldn’t help but concur.
Over mille-feuille, our club made plans to hang out over the remains of the weekend. I kept my distance. I’m about as social as a mouse in a cattery - and besides, I’d booked myself into the Nobu Ibiza Bay, a glamorous resort with pools, sushi, and, most importantly, no children (especially my own). I had a spa treatment booked: a very expensive Thai massage. If I’m honest with myself, the conference was just an excuse.
The hotel was so fancy, there was no door on the bathroom; it was so fancy, the lobby smelled like a high-class escort. It’s the kind of hotel that convinces you H. G. Wells’ Eloi and Morlocks already live amongst us, where the elongated guests float around like gazelles asking, ‘Excuse me, where might I find the organic blueberries?’, while the squat staff with thick, hirsute forearms bark, ‘I CLEAN NOW?!’
As I sat blanketed by the blues of the pool, sky and ocean, a pair of conference panellists walked along the beach, chatting before my very feet. I hid behind my book, How to Win Friends and Influence People. I had a massage to get to, after all.
As I waited in the spa reception, another guest tried to book a treatment. It was fully booked. ‘Don’t you know who I am,’ she wailed without a hint of irony, her long face etched in contempt, or at least it would have been if her expertly plumped visage were capable of showing emotions and if the deadened husk she called a soul were capable of feeling them. ‘I have the most expensive suite here!’
My masseuse led me outside for my rubbing. I bounced across the sand – although, a little perplexed, as I find it hard to relax into a massage in public, even if it is on a beach. And why is it on a mat on the floor? And why hasn’t she asked me to disrobe? And why is she stretching me like this? And where’s the oil? And why does it hurt so much? No, this was not the massage I was expecting, and I couldn’t believe how much I’d paid for it, as I lay there quietly seething and thinking about saying something for ninety minutes.
I slouched back to my room to write a moderately worded email to the front desk. I was utterly unfulfilled. Surveying the poolside revellers from my room was frustrating too; being married and sober in Ibiza is like being a double amputee in a glove shop. Worse yet, and I know this sounds strange, but seeing all these inflatable influencers primping and preening in the Nobu Ibiza Bay hotel felt somehow, I don’t know, vain and shallow.
I had an epiphany. Through all the luxury resorts and the partying and the Instagrams of Ivy Group sushi tacos throughout my life, I’d always been looking for something, but never finding it, not in these places anyway. I’d been looking for meaning and connection.
I watched a rubber woman contort over the pool, buttocks in the air, while she made her 12-year-old son take photos for socials.
Ding!
A text from Paulo. Would I like to go foil boarding with him? Yes. Yes, I would.
He picked me up at 10am, sand in the footwell of his car and acoustic guitar on the radio, and we trundled to the beach, where his multimillionaire friend Bertie was setting up the boards. I’d never done foil boarding before and was stoked to try. He’d arranged for a group of disabled veterans to do it. I got chatting to them. They said I looked like Jack Whitehall, which I took as a compliment but from these army men was probably not. I learned their trip was arranged for them by a charity; they would travel the world to exotic locations for a sesh and wild activities like surfing in Hawaii or mountain climbing in Nepal, for free. And isn’t that fair enough, after all that they had been through. But as the hours crawled by, I couldn’t help but think they were a little bit selfish, if I’m honest. I mean, I’m sorry, I know you were brutally crippled sacrificing yourself for your countrymen, but do you think I could have a go now please?
I never did get a turn, and it looked like a lot of fun. I sighed internally, I wish I were disabled.
Nevertheless, it was a beautiful experience sitting in the sand under the Balearic sun and shooting the shit with my new friend, hearing these veterans spin awesome tales.
When my wife tried to call, I had to send her a text. ‘Sorry, can’t talk, e-boarding with Paulo and Bertie.’
When it was all done, Paulo took me on a private tour of a multimillionaire’s estate. His friend was looking after it while the owner was away. It was technically an illegal settlement – the owner had never sought planning permission. It was so large we had to drive from one building to another. It was both grand and bohemian. I noticed a languorous cat beneath the shade of a palm tree by a plunge pool. I ambled up to give it a stroke and a tch-tch hello. It was dead. It was just that kind of place.
The three of us gathered around the enormous pool, frog fountains spitting water amongst olive trees, and took a selfie. Against all odds, it seemed I had made a friend.
The following week, Paulo sent me a text.
‘Hey Patrick, how are you? Given that we had such a good connection, I would like to invite you to be my life coaching client. We are talking about a 6-month program, with weekly 1hr calls, all with minimal financial investment from you. What do you think?’
Well reader, what DO you think?