I think that a lot of our guests would love to have done the job that we do, but never had the courage to give it all up and take a chance. I believe that reps live the life that some can only dream about, and I remember that when I was on holiday with the lads years before and the first seeds of curiosity were being sown in my head about this job, I too was wondering what it was really like. Now, after all the training and travelling, I was about to find out.
From the moment I was informed that I would be going to San Miguel to work, I had misgivings about the place. The experienced reps didn’t really have a good word to say about it. It was the furthest away from the action in San Antonio that you could get, and most of the reps wanted to work as near to that place as possible, so the mere thought of working in San Miguel sent fear into their hearts. When you worked in these groups and were relying on them for information, you tended to listen to what they said, and so I too dreaded the thought of working in this place so far away. I had resigned myself to making the most of it, though, and as our bus trundled along the road that cuts through the middle of the island towards San Miguel, I tried to put all thoughts of being isolated and remote far from my mind.
The town of San Miguel is first visible by its church, which you can see from miles away. The steeple rises into the sky from a cluster of buildings around the base that seem to be pulling it back down to earth. When we eventually arrived in the town, there was little sign of life. What had been an empty, barren road suddenly became punctuated by a few ramshackle houses. Then, some fifty yards on, there were a few units that could have been shops, but were boarded up. One café seemed open, judging by the presence of a few old men who glanced up from nursing tiny cups as we rolled by. It really did seem very quiet. No sign of a disco or a lively bar, nothing remotely British at all. I know this would be heaven to the dedicated seeker of all things Spanish but, as I viewed these streets for the first time, I felt depressed. There were six of us on this journey to San Miguel and judging from the silence I think that all my fellow travellers felt the same.
All of us were heading here for the first time. We were going to meet Anna, the one living person who wanted to come back for a second year to the resort, when we arrived. Just when you thought that it couldn’t get any worse than this, surely, we slowed down and took a sharp right-hand turn down a dirt track. The coach slowed almost to walking pace as the driver negotiated the steep decline that led us down to Puerto San Miguel. The Port of San Miguel. Our home for the next six months. The track seemed to get a lot narrower and more treacherous as we headed down to the port. I felt like I was going to the end of the world, on the Costa del miles away, as we descended further. The thought occurred to me that if I felt like this, what were the guests going to feel like when they rolled down this same hill on the way to their two-week dream holiday? Eventually, after what seemed like an eternity descending into the abyss, the road became tarmac again, and opened out into a breathtaking vista of a small bay surrounded by high cliffs and crowned by a beautiful golden sandy beach. It really was quite pleasing to the eye. The treacherous journey down here did nothing to prepare you for this sight.
The three hotels that made the resort were almost carved into the rocks around the bay, and quite spoiled a magnificent view. The coach stopped outside the Hotel San Miguel, the biggest one of the three and the one nearest the beach, and Anna was there to greet us. This was her home; she loved this place. Anna was in her mid-thirties, about five foot five inches tall, with straight, shoulder-length blonde hair. She was quite pretty, but her features were hard. Her cheekbones seemed as if they had been chiselled out of the very mountains of the place she had made her home for the last two years. She did not smile once during our greeting and smoked continuously.
It soon became clear why Anna had chosen to come back here for another season. She was going out with the man who owned the water-ski school, and he was her reason for being here. She welcomed us … I hesitate to say warmly, but we got a handshake at least. The coach pulled away and we were left with our cases outside the Hotel San Miguel, feeling a little forlorn and cast adrift. Guests would not be arriving for at least another three days, and so the resort was deathly quiet. It seemed that we were the only ones here, at the end of the earth. Our apartment would not be ready for a couple of days and so as a temporary measure we were to be billeted in one of the hotels in the resort.
A twist of fate had seen these rooms allocated in the Hotel Galleon. The Galleon was right at the top of the mountain. I shuddered at the memory of hauling my suitcases around for the last couple of weeks, and looked upwards to the heavens towards the hotel. Mercifully there was a lift – albeit a service lift that smelled badly of dirty sheets and musty towels, but it was a small price to pay for the relief from lugging my cases. I dragged the offending hulks into the lift and pressed the button for the Galleon. The ascent was slow and the smell almost overpowering.
Eventually I reached the summit and the door opened. There before me were two giants. One male and one female. ‘Hello!’ they bellowed in unison.
‘Hi, I’m Cy, the new rep,’ I squeaked in reply. I hadn’t quite got used to saying that yet and now, for the first time out loud to strangers, it sounded very unreal. They smiled back at me with rows of perfect gleaming white teeth.
‘We know, and we know where you are staying. We are the entertainers; we will help you with your cases.’
With that, they each picked up one of my cases as if they weighed no more than feathers, and disappeared off down the corridor that lay before me.
I was shocked at the forwardness of these two monsters, but pleasantly surprised and delighted with the help in moving my dreadfully heavy load. I scampered after them, following them along a corridor that seemed to go on forever to some ridiculously numbered room – something like 45678. How many bloody rooms were in this hotel, I wondered. The couple reached the room and deposited my cases outside the door. I quickly checked my luggage and confirmed that it was indeed still abnormally heavy, and I had not been mistaken all along.
The pair stood before me, smiling. I must have looked puzzled and amazed at the same time. They registered my confusion and decided to introduce themselves. The girl was called Saskia. She was, and still is, the biggest human being I have ever seen in my life. She was close to seven feet tall and built like a shot-putter. Given her height, I was not surprised to learn that she was a former member of the Dutch national basketball team. In spite of her intimidating appearance, she was a lovely person, and we became good friends during the season. On top of her head, which seemed high enough to entertain snow, she had a wild mane of curly ginger hair. You couldn’t help but notice Saskia; she stood out in a crowd, mainly because she was like a lighthouse in a sea of humans, but her hair was even louder than she was. She explained that she had come to work as an entertainer in Ibiza so she could improve her Spanish. She would be one of the workers in the resort and was anxious that we should all work together.
Her attitude was shared by her companion, Mark. He was also Dutch and, like Saskia, he spoke perfect English. So good, in fact, that if you had asked me to put money on where they came from before I actually found out, I would have said America. Mark had come to Ibiza for the summer to work in the wind-surfing school and to improve his English. Improve, I thought, bloody hell, he spoke the language better than I did. Mark was around six feet five inches tall. He had a lovely natural head of blond hair and he was a stunningly good-looking man. His skin was a beautiful olive colour; he was built like an Olympic athlete and he had a cheeky smile and a confidence that bordered on arrogance. I hated him immediately. Mind you, if I was six feet five inches tall, incredibly handsome and spoke every European language that was worth speaking – fluently – I might display a little arrogance too.
The dynamic Dutch duo bade me a warm welcome to the resort of San Miguel and invited me to a get-together to meet the rest of the team in the bar later that evening, so we could get to know each other. After the pleasant surprise of not having to haul my cases to this room, the bar seemed like