This Wednesday it took me two hours to drive just 16 kilometres on the island of Ibiza. This is not a protest, not even a complaint. It is simply an observation. On my journey to and from the airport, I moved at an average speed of eight kilometres per hour — a little faster than walking and a little slower than running. About the pace of jogging, more or less.
I can’t really blame anyone for those exact 120 minutes, which reminded me of my weary afternoons crawling along Madrid’s M-30 — those epic days when fate conspired to mix rain and accidents in some malignant cauldron and throw it all in the faces of thousands of hapless drivers. You may leave Madrid, but Madrid never leaves you.
My in-laws had a flight to Málaga at two in the afternoon, so we agreed to meet two hours earlier, assuming that would be enough. Not even that margin kept panic from creeping in. At midday we set off from the heart of Es Pratet, where the pavements were cluttered with discarded furniture and hands wielded brooms and mops under the heavy weight of hangovers.
We drove out along Ignasi Wallis, passed Sa Joveria, and left the hospital on the right before plunging straight into the mire — both figurative and real. In the so-called acceleration lane for access to the second ring road, we managed only a few dozen metres in half an hour. At the top, a bottleneck awaited us, where three lanes narrowed into one. I switched on the GPS navigator which, if it had had arms, would surely have shrugged its shoulders: “What do you expect me to tell you, kiddo?”
For the full article, please visit Diario de Ibiza website here.