Rally De La Sal
Classic car club Ibiza |
| Every 2nd Sunday of the month the classic car club meet at the Casi Todo Cafe in Santa Gertrudis. |
Classic Car Rally
The island's annual 'tulip rally'
3rd Rallye de la Sal 2005
Yes, it's that time of year again! Easter came and went, the clocks went forward and the sun came out - we're back in heaven! To celebrate and perhaps instigate the imminent summer madness, those responsible for the annual 'Rallye de la Sal' motorcade around the island got up to their usual tricks using the Rally as an excuse to do a Hells Angel style terrorisation of the innocently tranquil, out of the way villages quietly emerging from their winter hibernation.
Unwittingly roped into this excuse for men to behave badly for two days, and now composing an apology to the island cricket team for whom I was supposed to be auditioning on Good Friday!, I decided to enjoy this first day of Easter the Spanish way, by starting on Maundy Thursday.
To anyone unfamiliar with the 'Rallye' the procedure is as follows:- twenty four old but diverse and beautiful cars pull up outside El Divino early in the morning. Their owners quaff coffee whilst waiting for their turn to race off. With fifteen seconds to go the co-pilot is given a piece of paper decorated with dots and arrows and kilometres and miles referring to the distance between what each dot and arrow attempts to describe. From time to time one would reach an instruction to pause for twenty minutes. Invariably these spots, at which one was forced to twiddle ones thumbs for twenty minutes, featured spots of outstanding natural beauty and a cheap bar - Santa Ines and Es Vedra from Cala d'Hort spring to mind.
It was at one of these meddlesome spots that I realised that I had been duped. This is not a race... the purpose of this exercise revolves around maintaining a constant speed of, say, 36 km.p.h. (22 m.p.h.) - a bicycle can go this fast? Try doing it in a 3 litre Austin Healey or Lamborghini! The point is that you are directed, as if you were blindfolded beyond the next 500 metres, down incredible new roads that you never knew existed, but will use from now on, at speeds that invite you to absorb all these new bits of the island that you thought you already knew inside out.
No, these crazy Hells Angels on four wheels aren't tearing up the tarmac, they're inviting you to parts of the island only reached by Heineken and the people who have been industriously laying tarmac over all of the island's previously undrivable caminos.
The Classic Car Club meet on the 2nd Sunday of every month at the Casi Todo Café in Santa Gertrudis. If enough people turn up and nag them long and hard enough, then perhaps this annual event can be repeated more than just once a year. The illustrious organisers, Brian Pollard and his team, won't thank me for that suggestion, but will, I hope, accept the gratitude of all involved for the organisation and dedication that went into this elaborate game.
