San Carlos has been an important village throughout the long and chequered history of Ibiza. Its roots may well extend back almost 3,000 years to the arrival of the Phoenicians, who used the natural port of nearby Pou des Lleo, just over the hill, as a trading point on their travels. Indeed one of our contributors has an elegantly designed ornamental pig, the body of which is a granite boulder salvaged from that same beach, which had previously served as ballast in a Phoenician vessel.
At the height of the Phoenician's vibrant era, as the island rose to great splendour through maritime trading, it's population is estimated to have been some 80,000 people. This is two thirds of the current population and more than double that of just fifty years ago. San Carlos was possibly significantly larger than Santa Eulalia at that time in history...
History also records that the Republican Army of the Second Republic landed at this same beach at the start of the Spanish Civil War, which at the time had declared allegiance to the National cause - the conservative mould of the old establishment - as represented by the Army and the Church.
The first settlement reached by the invaders was San Carlos and the consequences were as bloody as the 'Red House' right behind Anita's Bar. The local village chaplain and his father wielding guns, accompanied by a handful of fascist supporters, were the first to offer resistance to the Republican force and paid for it with their lives. They were the first of many to follow as the Republicans yielded the island back to Franco's forces and recriminations followed for years thereafter till the war ended. Sixteen people were executed at the 'Red House' in an incident that earned the house its name, whilst those of the population of both islands who were able to escape largely emigrated to less hostile parts of the globe.
Nowadays we regard the little village of San Carlos as one of the two gateways to the wilderness that accesses the spectacular northern coast of the island. The other is the sleepy village of San Juan. Of the two, San Carlos became the major meeting point and centre of civilization for this whole northern corner of the island.
This could well be down to the fact that San Carlos serves a large number of smaller beach developments that have sprung up over the last few decades from Cala San Vicente down to as far as Es Canar. During the summer it plays host to one of the most congested road junctions on the island right in the centre of the village, in between the church and Anita's Bar. This junction has provided entertainment for years to patrons sitting outside the latter.
San Juan is spared such a junction and perhaps gives us a glimpse of what San Carlos was like before the advent of tourism?
However, tourism's inexorable rise was preceded by an influx of artists, draft dodgers and a range of bohemian thespians for whom Anita's Bar was both headquarters and the focus of society. A bar that could tell many a tale were it so inclined...
It was the local postal pick-up point for the huge area to the north, the Morna Valley and the north eastern coast, which turned it into a social club from the early morning post until the last customer stumbled off home into the imminent dawn. To this day they open at 7:30 am and try to stop serving at 2 the following morning.
Much like the almost equally famous 'Bar Costa' in Santa Gertrudis, Anita's featured art on its walls, usually displaying a price tag. This is a phenomenon that can be found in many establishments nowadays, and indeed our own editorial offices, but Anita's, like Bar Costa, was not necessarily providing space for artists to display their work. They were often simply attempting to recoup their investment on food and drinks grudgingly, but nevertheless, exchanged for paintings when the artists ran out of money and were at risk of starvation...
Nobody seems to know exactly when Anita's first became a bar. The locally held belief is that it first served as the village shop around the time that the church was built - circa 1800 AD.
Vicent, the bar's owner for the last thirteen years, reckons that it began serving food and drink around about the beginning of the last century, and some time after that also served as the local taxi office. Anita took up the reins in the early 60's at around the time the first tourists began to appear.
Entering the covered courtyard through the metre thick wall one is confronted by a rough floor of huge flagstones arranged as crazy paving and polished by the passage of countless feet. Overhead an ancient wisteria covers the courtyard providing dappled shade from the summer sun, while an industrial sized traditional bread oven dominates one corner. Along one wall stand the first 150 letterboxes. All in all there are over 400 on the premises and the postman delivers between 300 and 400 letters on an average morning.
In another corner stands what used to be the only phonebox in town. Like the letterboxes, this was the nearest access point to the outside world for a huge area of country from San Vicent in the north to Santa Eulalia, seven kilometres to the south.
Entering through the formidable, heavy wooden, studded double door the bar at first appears tiny, and for many years the first room was the extent of it. However, this arrangement proved impractical when it rained so the shop's almacen became the winter bar and that was extended further into another adjacent room some twenty years ago to cater for the inexorably growing number of patrons.
Asked about future changes owner Vicent looks shocked. His response is that of a museum curator, "If something breaks we'll replace it, but we do nothing that will change the unique character of the place..."
Printer Friendly Page
