Los Boliches – Part 1: The Ups
Living anywhere has its ups and downs. For me, these are some of the ups of living in Los Boliches.
First has to be the sunshine.
When the end of March arrives, it feels as though the bad weather has simply packed its bags and gone somewhere else. From then on, the days just seem to get warmer and warmer. Rain becomes something you talk about rather than something you expect,
sometimes not seeing much of it until September or even October.
By July, the heat has really arrived. Some nights the temperature barely drops below 30 degrees, and even at midnight you can walk outside and feel the warmth of the day still hanging in the air.
But the weather isn't what makes Los Boliches special to me.
It's the village.
Los Boliches has grown enormously over the years, but somehow it has managed to hold on to its village character. I've walked the same streets for twenty years. Past the church square, across the road, turn right, past Bar Guirry.
The faces aren't always the same, but the characters somehow are.
You'll see the English sitting on a couple of high stools, drinking beer from bottles. Scandinavians drinking pints. Spanish having small beers, each one arriving with a tapa.
And the noise.
There is always noise.
Different languages, different conversations, glasses clinking, people laughing and shouting to be heard. Sometimes it feels as though all the different nationalities are competing with each other to see who can make the most noise.
You have to listen carefully to separate the languages.
English. Spanish. Swedish. Norwegian. German.
All mixed together.
And somehow it works.
The place can be full at eleven in the morning and still be full at eleven at night.
And this isn't something that has suddenly happened because Los Boliches has become popular. This is how it has been for the twenty-odd years I've known it, and I suspect it was much the same long before I arrived.
Then I turn left and arrive at my local.
I've been going there for more than ten years, virtually every day, for my couple of bottles of Victoria.
Maybe three or four.
And this, for me, is where Los Boliches really comes into its own.
It doesn't matter whether you live here or you're only here for two weeks. Whether you're Scottish, English, German, Scandinavian or Spanish, you seem to find somewhere that becomes yours.
A particular bar.
A particular restaurant.
A particular table.
A particular group of people.
I've seen people come here on holiday for two weeks and spend at least a couple of hours in the same bar every day. I've met people who return year after year and go straight back to the same bars and restaurants they've been visiting for years.
They could go anywhere.
But they come back here.
And I think that says something.
There is a village feeling in Los Boliches that, despite all the changes, has never really disappeared. Once you've been here long enough, you become attached to it.
You become part of it.
I've seen people staying in expensive all-inclusive hotels who could quite easily spend their entire holiday beside the pool, eating and drinking without ever needing to leave.
But they leave.
They come out to the same little bar they've been visiting for years. They sit down, order their usual drink and spend a few hours talking to people they've come to regard as genuine friends.
People they might not have seen since the previous year.
And when they walk back through the door, nobody seems to care that twelve months have passed.
They just carry on where they left off.
I think that's one of the things that makes Los Boliches different.
You don't just visit it.
If you're here long enough, somehow, you belong to it.
Of course, nowhere is perfect.
For all the things I love about Los Boliches, there are things that frustrate me, things that have changed, and things that sometimes make me wonder just how much longer that old village feeling can last.
But those are the downs.
And that's another story.
Part Two coming soon: The Downs.