From Ibiza....

Off the plane into 36 degree heat.

The heat immediately took me by surprise, the kind of surprise you get when you tentatively nibble around the edge of a microwave pie and it seems bearable, only to find the filling is actually the boiling blood of Hades. I took the E20 alongside every other motor vehicle in Ibiza. It was effectively a motor way. The sensation of being fanned by hulking Jeeps and Mercedes moving at light speed brought a confusing mix of mortal fear and cooling relaxation.

But as the hard shoulders grew wider and the speed limit fell below instant death, the Balearic beast began to soften her stance and flaunt her native colours. I eased into the revolutions, passing low-rise white farmhouses, rusty terracotta roofs and tumbledown carpenters’ shops as valleys of green ran away to clusters of pine huddled on hilltops. 13 miles of motorways and one nervous dehydrated wreck later, I finally channelled Bowie’s early bohemian phase and stumble into La Playa, Ibiza’s original hippy campsite.

“La Playa was Ibiza’s original hippy campsite, one Bowie might have found himself visiting if his Beckenham bohemian phase hadn’t transitioned as quickly as his rise to stardom. In the 50s, Ibiza was attracting counter-culturists, writers and artists before the hippies flocked here in the 60s. It was a slice of paradise where they could converse, listen to music, ingest hallucinogenic drugs and inflict tie-dye on each other. The rock and rollers came too. In ‘64 The Rolling Stones brought their buckets and spades and Pink Floyd supped a cocktail or two.”

Camping here was a fitting beginning, I reasoned with myself. Bowie’s first ever gig was also on a white island campsite. Well, the Isle of Wight. In 1958 he’d played skiffle with his friend George Underwood at Scout Camp. Indeed, if you strained your ears tightly enough, the sound of Spanish guitar dancing from a tepee, bass pumping along the shores and a woodwind instrument being played, badly, you could channel Bowie’s hippy phase.

After a few days pootling around trying to seek out some Bowie, the only reference I can find of him on this white isle was a gold disc hanging in the Hard Rock Cafe (and no one wants to hang around there) I peddled the 13 miles back to the ferry port not via the motorway this time, but a whopping pine-flecked mini mountain range. After spluttering up one side, I learn that my bike is back-heavy, wobbling all the way down the other. Alas, I make it to the ferry, which is around £40 bike included and relax into the four hour journey heading to the Spanish mainland where hopefully some Bowie stories await.