1995 Eivissa (Ibiza): Crrraaaaaaccck! The muffler roared

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Gran Canaria

 

1995

3 Months

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1995 Eivissa (Ibiza): Fish Monger

A Roar

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1995 Gran Canaria: Potpourri

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Heading Home

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With Dad

Back at Home

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1995 Eivissa (Ibiza): Crrraaaaaaccck! The muffler roared

Saturday 7 Oct 1995

Daniel

The weather for the last twelve hours can best be described as "tumultuous"; being in Sant Joan is like being in the "bowling alley of the gods". It started late this morning - a cool morning, so I had my long pants and Gore-Tex emergency services search-and-rescue jacket in the back of the truck. As Daniel and I drove into town I'd remarked on the wonderful clouds; there were thunderheads rising thousands of feet into the sky, looking like the invading fleet in Star Wars. It was cool enough that we sat at the Round Table, under the overhang of Fernandito's second-story apartment. After the expatriates had come and gone to whatever passes as work, and only a few of us were about, the heavens opened up.

Not just the "heavy rain" that comes around this time of year, but a torrential downpour from hell - complete with hail (!) - brought everything in Sant Joan to a standstill. People ran for cover, most of them to the café. The sky turned an even darker shade of black, and thunder began to march up the valley from the south. (Earlier I'd taught the village children how to convert the time measured between seeing lightning and hearing the resultant thunder into kilometers from the strike.) Each time Thor rained his mighty armament down upon us the kids all counted and pronounced the advance of the storm. Soon they stopped, as the lightning was right over the café, and the entire town shook violently with each strike. Then people were quiet, sipping their coffee, huddling together.

Red Dirt For me, the strangest thing about the storm was that I smelt no ozone (the conversion of O2 to O3 by the lightning) nor felt any static electricity upon my skin. The storm having passed, the people unfolded like flowers in the early-morning sun. Hail was still to be found on the ground; ice the size of peas. The kids were skipping around, underfoot. The adults drank up and went back to work. I went for a walk, merrily splashing my Teva sandals in the cool puddles. The air was very humid, full of the smell of dust and fresh growth. The plants were going like mad, thinking it's the rainy season. The earth (pictured at right) was a deep red color, a thick heavy clay with a soothing red tone. I was reminded a bit of Native American art and pueblo-work I'd seen during my travels in Arizona.

The aftermath of the storm were light on humans, but heavy on the infrastructure. Power surges had destroyed at least one of the power stations (Eivissa has several small stations, unlike larger places, who are all tied together on one power grid), and Telfonica's switching stations seemed to be grounded about as well as everything else on the island (that is to say, not at all). Two of Daniel's phone lines were to be out for a week because of problems at the main station.

This was nothing, however, compared to last year's big storm, I was told. Lightning directly hit the village, somewhere on the small power system. Daniel lost all but one phone line. Electrical devices that were turned off but plugged in were destroyed: the television, a stereo, etc. A telephone had melted due to the flood of electrons pulsed through it. The insurance payment arrived long before the phone lines began working.

By the end of the day things were back to normal. The sun shone, the water (and hail) had dissapeared, and a surprize was waiting for me at ECO.

Remember the rental car? The one owned by Daniel that he lends out to friends? Well, the last "friend" to borrow it had been missing for a week, there was active speculation whether she (and the car) were still on Eivissa. Well, while I'd been out she'd run by, dropped off the car, and returned to whence she came. I picked up the keys to a very beat up Volkswagen Polo wagon (what is sold in the USA as a VW Fox). The radio had been removed a long time before, and the gearshift was - how do I charitably say this? - very loose indeed.

With tires squealing, I left the ECO parking lot, on my way to explore. I added 1000 pesetas (US$8) in gas, only to find out the gas gauge wasn't working. That explained the gas can in the trunk. When I returned to ECO, Daniel asked me to pick up Derk (who had one car die in his driveway and his other car break an axle-thingy 100 meters away). I followed Daniel's directions, but after a quarter-hour (a long time on a small island) I returned, defeated. I got better directions, turned around, and just as I was heading off the paved road I heard a Crrraaaaaaccck! Then the muffler roared. "Just great," I thought, "I have the car for a few minutes, drive a few kilometers, and it's already falling apart. Just like the rest of the hardware on this trip."

Sounding like a gaggle of Hell's Angels, I tooled around the unpaved, rough dirt roads and found Derk's house. Derk and I had a cup of instant coffee (one can't turn down invitations in European countries, it's a great custom and a pleasure to partake) while looking over the valleys, down onto the ocean.

As we headed into town I explained about the roar. Derk promised to look at it, and if need be, weld things together. (Which he did.) At ECO Daniel related that the woman had said they'd had muffler trouble, and had gone to a mechanic elsewhere on the island, who had patched it together.

Smelling of gas fumes, muffler exhaust, and muddy earth, I got into Daniel's truck.

I picked up a dog-eared copy of Raymond Chandler and Robert B. Parker's Poodle Spring, which I read before falling asleep. Smoothie, their cat, was at my side.

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