In Formentera, calm seas provoke unease. A strange feeling in a sun and beach destination. The same anticyclone that encourages the arrival of tourists and recreational boats fuels the arrival of dinghies. And more and more are arriving. The figures confirm it: in the last weekend of May alone, 15 boats with 236 people on board arrived at the southern Pitiusa island, 17 of whom were minors. Data from the Government Delegation in the Balearic Islands confirms the trend: by May 31, 63 dinghies with 1,056 people had arrived in Formentera, 49% more than in 2025. Another 156 people arrived in Ibiza. There is no one left who disputes the facts: the route between Algeria and the Balearic Islands – and especially Formentera – is a massive and consolidated migratory route. Less than a year ago, the Spanish government was not so clear about it.

The sofrit pagès suffers like never before. Yes: it's a very bad pun. The situation of Pitiüsan gastronomy is also not good. Sofrit and other Ibizan specialities are drowning amidst an avalanche of pizzas, tacos, sushi, chicken tikka masala and spring rolls. Not to mention the competition from Michelin-starred restaurants, establishments by famous chefs and fast food franchises. It's an unequal fight. A quick search on Google Maps reveals the difference in forces: in the capital of the main Pitiüsa island alone, the search engine offers 23 Japanese restaurants, 16 Chinese restaurants, 24 restaurants classified as Italian cuisine, 21 pizza-only places, and 23 Mediterranean cuisine. There isn't a specific tab for local cuisine, but we must assume it's included in the 'Mediterranean cuisine' category. Without even going online, any Ibizan knows they will have plenty of options if they want to eat sushi or pizza, and practically none if they fancy a sofrit pagès, the main meat dish of traditional Ibizan cuisine.But the sofrit is no longer alone. Last week, the Academy of Balearic Islands Cuisine was presented to the public in an event at the Consell d’Eivissa; this organization, for the first time, has four members from the Pitiüsa Islands, three from Ibiza and one from Formentera. A kind of Pitiüsan resistance against culinary globalization. There was talk of "defending our own" and the "danger of extinction" of local cuisine. It is still relatively easy to find the famous fish stew (bullit de peix) on the menus of Pitiüsan beach restaurants – another matter is whether the fish used is truly Pitiüsan – alongside international cuisine dishes. It is much more difficult to find less popular preparations, such as sofrit and borrida de ratjada. The same applies to desserts; beyond flaó on some menus and perhaps greixonera, it will be almost impossible for you to find any other.

El Molí Rocks is not what a tourist expects from Ibiza. The setting, in effect, is postcard-perfect: the Molí point, in the bay of Sant Antoni de Portmany, an idyllic place for the longest day of the year – the festival takes place on June 20th. But the music is not chill at all. If the hardest thing you've ever heard in your life is an Aerosmith ballad, this might take you by surprise. The audience at Molí Rocks also doesn't resemble the average clubber or tourist at all; they tend to wear black, have long hair, and wear t-shirts with names as optimistic as Sepultura, Black Sabbath, and Megadeth. The audience reacts to the music in two ways: either they headbang (shake their heads up and down to the rhythm of the music) or they pogo, a much more animated form of dancing than waltzing, common at rock or punk concerts, which consists – very briefly – of pushing each other in a group.

Ibiza constitutes a tourist offering without competition. It sounds exaggerated but it is not. What makes the difference are the discotheques, the best in the world, as recognized by several awards in the last couple of years (the Golden Moon Awards and the annual DJ Mag ranking). Clubs have always been the distinctive Ibizan element, but their weight in the overall offering has skyrocketed since the Matutes Group entered the business with three large venues: Ushuaïa, Hï, and for two seasons now, UNVRS. Right now in Ibiza you can party at night or during the day, under the stroboscopic lights of a club or on a beach, it doesn't matter.

Politics has become a risky activity in Spain, a permanent race to sustain improbable majorities, a task more suited to acrobats and movie stuntmen. People who wouldn't suffer from vascular problems under any circumstances. Even in Andalusia, the PP's majority has not withstood the wear and tear. Anxiety and balancing acts: this is also the general situation in the Balearic Islands. Except in Ibiza. On the most turbulent island in the Mediterranean, as modern as it is feverish, politicians live in a beneficial oasis: it is the magic of absolute majority. There is one year left until the next local and regional elections (the last ones were on May 28, 2023) and not a leaf stirs on a tree here. Certainly, in recent weeks Aena has livened things up a bit with its delirious proposal to expand the airport. But hey! We know what we're about here; in a couple of days, no one will remember Aena and its megalomaniacal dreams – which I have no doubt will be executed to a high percentage. The season is starting, and we have to make money for the whole year.

Aena has its own plans for the Eivissa airport and they are not what the Eivissa residents would want. At least, they are not what the Eivissa Council would want, which officially defends that the island has already reached its peak in terms of visitors. So much so that, in Eivissa, just like in Formentera, the number of vehicles that can access it by sea during the summer is limited and regulated. But in Eivissa, visitors arrive mainly by air. And many arrive. Only until April, 1,374,000 passengers have already passed through the Codolar airport. Almost triple those who have passed through Menorca in the same period; let this comparison serve to give an idea of the impact of the Eivissa airport. And the peak season has not yet begun, at the end of the year there will surely be more than 9 million.

Twenty years ago, in Ibiza, it was a topic of debate what is or is not a motorway. And not just a debate: a discussion, a fierce dispute. The macro-project to widen the roads to the airport and to Sant Antoni, which Jaume Matas promoted in his second term in the Balearic Government (2003-2007), managed to make us Ibizans experts in mobility, roads, and the environment. It also managed to get more than 20,000 people to take to the streets on February 17, 2006, against the macro-project. Now, twenty years later, clubbers and residents cross the blue motorways that Matas commissioned (or dual carriageways or widenings or expanded roads, whatever you want to call them) to get equally stuck at the entrance to Vila. Now, twenty years later, hardly anyone remembers the 'anti-motorway' activists. Almost. By chance or destiny, the playwright and philologist Carme Planells has won the La Carrova theatre prize (awarded outside the Balearic borders, in Amposta) with the play Enlloc, a piece of documentary theatre that pays homage to the historic Ibizan mobilization between 2003 and 2006. The mobilization did not stop the motorways, but it did have political consequences: in 2007, both Jaume Matas and Pere Palau (who was then president of the Consell d’Eivissa) lost the elections.

Not only lizards are becoming extinct in Ibiza. The family, as a basic unit of tourist consumption, is also rapidly being replaced on the largest of the Pitiusas by groups of clubbers and the 'real rich'. Within the real rich there are also families, it is true – not infrequent are the

It doesn't come from pop, nor from polp. ‘Pulp’ comes from pulp, from the wood pulp that was used in the first half of the 20th century in the United States to print absolutely over-the-top horror or science fiction stories that are typical of the genre. The paper was coarse, brownish, very ugly, very cheap. The content, too: Martians abducting a family on a lonely rural property, a city sunk into the sea and ruled by robots, a comet carrying spectral warriors from another dimension...

Friday, April 24, Pacha and Amnesia; Saturday, 25, Hï Ibiza; Sunday, 26, Ushuaïa and UNVRS; Monday, 27, DC-10... If you are expert clubbers you will have recognized the calendar ofopenings of the Ibizan clubs, a true marathon for party acrobats. Impossible to be at all of them. Or is it? “Most people go to at least two or three parties”, explains the manager of the Ocio de Ibiza association, José Luis Benítez. The trip to Ibiza has to be amortized. Most of the tickets have already been sold for weeks; in total, about 30,000 tickets, a figure that is also the total capacity of the Ibizan clubs. Yes, in Ibiza there can be about 30,000 people –legally– partying every day. This year, the clubs have once again anticipated the openings –traditionally they had always been in May– aware that they are the ones who kick off the Ibizan season. And it works: Iberia Express has had to put on 12 additional flights between Madrid and Ibiza due to the openings. The dancing machine will not stop until the first or second week of October; in case you are interested, the tickets for the closings are also on sale.

Someone in the Sant Antoni de Portmany City Council had an idea: what if we painted the main street of the West End in bright colors? The idea was to combat drunken tourism with art – the West is an area known mainly for its bars – or, in the words of the Portmany mayor, Marcos Serra: “An integral reconstruction project for this entire area, to make the leap in tourist quality that we have always sought.” And so it was done. The artist in charge was Okuda San Miguel, a Cantabrian painter of international fame, a versatile author – responsible, among other things, for the controversial transformation of the Ajo lighthouse, the 2018 Valencia City Council falla, and the interior of the International Church of Cannabis, in Denver. On May 21, 2025, Okuda's work in Sant Antoni was presented to society: the ground of Santa Agnès street completely painted with colorful geometric shapes, plus a square where Okuda's main emblem stands, the so-called Star of Chaos. In total, 371,000 euros, with a contribution of 220,000 euros from European funds.

The upcoming April 21st falls on a Tuesday; a normal working day for the inhabitants of Eivissa, a day marked in red in the City Council offices, a critical day for the inhabitants of the irregular settlement of La Joveria. The camp is located between the fairgrounds and the first ring road of Eivissa, just a 20-minute walk from the city center. In recent weeks, the Police have visited all the tents in the settlement and have delivered the notice to the inhabitants, one by one: on the 21st, at 10 in the morning, “the entry and dismantling of the settlement is planned, prior to the eviction of its occupants”. The mayor of Eivissa, the popular Rafa Triguero, has spoken forcefully about ‘illegal’ settlements in recent weeks; the word ‘firmness’ has been heard on several occasions.

The exoskeleton is not the title of a zoology book. Or is it. It is the title of Jèssica Ferrer's latest poetry collection, a work that won the Maria Mercè Marçal prize and has just arrived in bookstores. In her first book, Som aquí, Ferrer described massacres from the pig's point of view; now, in an exercise that lies between entomology and metaphysics, she speaks of the limits of the 'I' and the 'we' using the exoskeleton as a metaphor; the exoskeleton is the external skeleton found, for example, in ants. Between Som aquí (2022) and L’exoesquelet (2026), Ferrer has also had time to publish Fissures (2023), which constitutes one of the most dazzling careers in Catalan poetry in recent times. Jèssica Ferrer was born in Ibiza in 1993; in addition to writing, performing with Ses Honorables Virtuts Il·lògiques, and promoting the publication of Revista 078, in the summer she cultivates the garden and collects carob beans.

“To many workers, it’s no longer worth coming to Ibiza”. The one expressing this forcefully is Guadalupe López, general secretary of Services and Consumption for UGT in the Pitiusas, the majority union in hotels. Her offices handle between 15 and 20 daily inquiries from sector workers, most of them asking if they can arrange a leave of absence. “People can no longer come to Ibiza because they can’t find a place to stay, or they can’t afford it, and since they are seasonal permanent workers, they ask how to request a leave of absence,” explains the union representative. According to the hospitality collective agreement, a seasonal permanent worker can take a maximum leave of absence of two years. “In some cases, the worker inquiring has found a better job on the Peninsula; perhaps not as well-paid as in Ibiza, but with a much lower cost of living; in other cases, they simply can’t find a place to stay,” specifies Guadalupe López. The Balearic Islands hospitality collective agreement is “the best in Spain”, according to her, with salaries in any case exceeding 1,700 euros gross for waiters, kitchen staff, or room attendants; salaries that will increase by 4% this year.

The overcrowding at the Ibiza children's center came to light on March 2nd, following a mass brawl involving 28 minors, some of whom were migrants, during which a monitor who tried to break up the fight suffered minor injuries. The Consell d'Eivissa (Island Council of Ibiza) reported the incident promptly and transparently, but this did not prevent social media and some political parties from exploiting the situation to incite hatred against immigrants. As of last Thursday, the Ibiza children's center housed 139 minors over the age of 12; this is more than six times the number seven years ago, in 2019, when the current PP (People's Party) government took office. A significant portion of those in the initial reception service are minors who arrived by boat from the Algerian coast. This number fluctuates, but is estimated to be around 70; their individual circumstances are unknown, except that they have crossed 160 nautical miles in a small boat in search of a better life. Obviously, minors from the Balearic Islands also face very difficult personal circumstances. A real ticking time bomb if the appropriate resources aren't available.

Ibiza has two operating commercial cinemas: the family-owned Regio cinema in San Antonio de Portmany, and the one known as the 'multicines' in Vila, owned by Aficine, the largest and practically only cinema exhibitor in the Balearic Islands. It's a meager showing, in line with the reduction in screens and seating capacities that has been occurring in Spain for years. Both companies are struggling to withstand the current mediocrity of Hollywood and the pressure from platforms like Netflix. On the other hand, if you start counting film festivals, you'd think Ibizans were true cinephiles: Ibicine, Ibizacinefest, Ibiza Halloween Festival, Festival Dolor de Cabeza (Headache Festival), Muestra de cortos de las fiestas de San Bartolomé (Short Film Showcase of the San Bartolomé Festival)... not to mention other festivals originating outside the island, such as MECAL Air Ib MECAL.

There are two eternal things in the world: Rome and the Ibiza bus stop. The decision to build a bus stop in Dalt Vila was announced in 2004, the first stone was laid in 2008, work was halted in 2012 because archaeological remains were found – how? In Dalt Vila? Unbelievable! – the project was redone and resumed in 2019, and finally – 22 years and 47 million euros later – it will be inaugurated on Monday, February 23, 2026.

Juanjo Ferrer was born in Sant Antoni de Portmany, is 55 years old, and is a lawyer. Thanks to a coalition of all the left-wing parties in the Pitiusas Islands, he is the current senator for Ibiza and Formentera; he may be the last, because the process for appointing a senator for Formentera itself—the only Spanish island without this representation in the Senate—has begun as an urgent matter. Progressive and independent, Ferrer advocates for left-wing unity to confront a "very dangerous" moment and criticizes the constant infighting between the PP and the PSOE.

It turns out there are Germans who don't dream in German: they dream of the most authentic Catalan spoken in inland Mallorca. They don't dream of the Bavarian Alps, with their orderly and perfect villages, nor of the impenetrable forests of the Black Forest: they close their eyes and what appears in their minds is the rugged profile of the Tramuntana mountain range. These are their dreams. Only this explains why a German's 'dream house' is located 1,560 kilometers south of Berlin, on the hospitable island of Mallorca.