Positano – Music on the rocks
This could possibly have been one of the craziest nights i’ll live to remember, although the night happaned many months ago and i can’t remember it all to clearly i’ll try my best. Was rummaging around my room and found the card, Music on the rocks – Positano numero 10888. I guess i’ve got to set the scene a tad, we’d stayed in Amalfi or a town next to Amalfi for a good few days and today was our last day. The towns name to fame was apparently that it was the “smallest commune in Europe”. I was quite annoyed at this stage through our trip, Matko was getting to me and i needed a night to relieve myself of all this stress.
Back in Rome, we’d tried to go out at night, only to find the only place open was a massive club full of pretty girls, booze, drugs and a bunch of poofs. One of those is a lie but i’m embarresed to say which, thats for another story though. Anyway, it turns out that in Italy at this time of year everybody departs for the sun and sand of the beaches, the great Amalfi coast. The vision in our head was headonistic ritual sacrfices of nubile teen princesses and well, debauchery. I slowly stewed in Rome, waiting for Amalfi to really have some fun. When we finally got there, the scene was very different from what we expected. Familys spending their holidays with their children, roughly our age covorting with their opposite sex with the absence of alcohol. Now i know i’m going to sound like an alcoholic, or that i’ve been brought up on good old British values but this scene struck me as odd. They do say when in Rome, however, i really needed a couple of drinks down me. Mike, recently admitting to only being “interesting” when he’s drunk probably had the same sentiments.
This was our last day in Amalfi. Matko and Graham had gone to Bari to secure our ferry tickets as they seemed to have screwed up along the way, this gave me Dave, Max and Mike the perfect oppurtunity to go crazy. Although the night life along the coast was dire, we heard rumours of a club up in Positano, some 18km from Amalfi. That was the word on the “beach” any how. Think two girls by the name of Noah and Cleo who apparently go to Richmond College perpetrated the rumours but my memory is a tad hazy.
So off to Positano we would go, a quick walk to Amalfi and a rather long bus ride ensued. We made idle chit chat with other tourises, apparently Positano wasn’t quite the hippist town we’d been envisioning although some vile pink wine was consumed and we soon started chatting to a pretty girl. We had however, commited a rather school boy error, the girl being roughly 14 and her dad sitting on the opposite side of the bus. We gave the man with the funny hat and the daughter a wave and made our way to the club. The club took roughly 30min to find and seemed like a restuarant but on closer inspection it was indeed a club. Cerveza was consumed as we prepped ourselves for our great adventure. As we got to the door the burly bouncer promptly told us to fuck off in his own rather articulate body language. “ladies night, bring a fucking girl”, was a rough translation. Dave looks like a scared puppy, Mikes lost he’s enthusiasm and Max is indifferent. We pair off; Me and Max, Dave and Mike.
At this point we’re kinda pissed off, Dave being the pessimist thinks tonights gonna be shite and the group goes along with that thought. No chance am i gonna make a shite night of it however. Pride and dignity go out the window in situations like this and we approach random girls. Max, who seemed the quietest in our group, i had mentally labelled quite shy. This boy however, would later prove me wrong and he was more than willing to make a fool out of himself. Dave was just about to laugh at us as i knew he would but as luck would have it we bumped into two canadian girls. Names were quickly forgoten and they promised to get us in. Dave’s laugh had turned into distress as he realised him and Mike might not get in. Although the girl tried her best, the bouncer was a cunt but eventually let us in.
Once inside, the place was huge. The outside doesn’t particularly do it justice, with the latest bigger badder music and lighting systerm. The great thing about this club was, instead of paying in good old fashioned cash, cards were issued. Entry was a tenner with the first drink already purchased on the card for you. Just select a drink and pass the card. Somewhere along the way of coming to the club, we had spent so much time trying to get in that we’d forgoten to bring any money. I had 15euro and Max had none. We bought two drinks each and already were feeling a little happy. Somebody intelligent said we’d get away with just another. Another turned into another and we racked up a bill of atleast 90euro.
The girls who we came in with laughed, not exactly reassuring. They said they didn’t have enough and told us stories about how great the police were here, being so sympathetic. They said the bouncers also were quite kind and sympathetic, that they’d just keep us there till morning or roughen us up. The problem was that this was our last night! if we didn’t get that 9.00 bus from Amalfi to Bari we were screwed. Panic set in and we, being rather intelligent people, could obviously figure away off the damn thing. I say off, as the club started to resemble a castle, we being the imprisoned heroes who had to escape and rescue some damsel in distress. The club was circular in shape, with balconies running around the walls which overlooked a bit of the beach and the sea. This meant that if you jumped from the balcony, you’d hit the beach.
Of course the club owner wasn’t stupid, in fact he was apparently a really nice guy as we’d later hear, the club had positioned 1 bouncer to guard the balcony, two upstairs, 3 at the door and a few just wondering about. We weighed up our options, either along a ledge on the second floor and probably fall as we were drunk, own up and get boned up the ass, run out the door through a horde of bouncers or the balcony. Obviously we chose the balcony, although i had to be convinced to not do the ledge. I’m sure i could have done it, but being inebriated and watching Max look really worried, i didn’t risk it.
Although we’d been in the club for about 4 hours, atleast 1 of those was planning our escape. There we stood, next to the balcony, waiting, any minute now. It seemed like an eternity but the bouncer was distracted by a rather pretty girl. Max was first out, he seemed more desperate than me to flee that god forsaken place. The girls we were sitting next to looked on, rather stunned, “huh”, “what are you doing”, is what i presumed they were muttering in italian. As i jumped out, made a shh sound to the girl who smiled. Don’t think i’ll ever forget that moment.
We got onto the beach and scrambled as fast as we could and lowered ourselves under a deck chair. A bouncer patrols there every couple of minutes, or so our reconaisance told us. RUN, and off we went running as fast as we could by the sea until there was no chance they could follow. Although nobody was chasing us, it sure did seem like it and although the story would have been more interesting if we had been, it was still exhilerating. About 500m away we bumped into a couple of girls in the year below from England, fucking posh girls. Think they went to DLD on Bond St or High St Ken. They were summering it in Amalfi and slumming it with a bunch of Italian peasants. As we recounted the story they told us how great the guy who owned the club was and that we atleast return the cards. We bullshitted our way out and stumbled to the small pier.
Max and I fantasized about how great it would be if we could “borrow” a small boat and row back to our hostel. I being drunken, jumped in and we rowed a couple of metres out. No harm in that Max thought, we’d just row in circles a few metres off the beach and back again. Wrong. I by now had better ideas, being quite mischevious i managed to lower the engine and just for kicks started it. The fact that the motor wasn’t locked and the thing started surprised me, although i was mucking about, i would never have believed that it would actually work.
The boat spluttered and started, travelling at walking pace. I, not being in a small boat ever, had no clue what i was doing. The machine kept stopping and starting rather suddenly until i realised the throttle was the flipping handle. We revved the engine to full and was off on our merry way to Amalfi, some 18km away. Being rather intelligent people we steamed out so that no one could see us and followed the coast so that we wouldn’t get lost. 30 minutes of this ensued with us both starting to sober up and realising what we had done. Run out of a club without paying and stolen a boat while out in the middle of the sea with no where to run. We panicked for the rest of the way, that is until the engine cut out.
Now i realise why the boat wasn’t tied up, Italians trust each other and you can’t get far without much petrol. It was running on spoils. I thought we’d scream or cry, fantasizing that the policia would do us for 3 years and we’d be stuck in Italy being boned by a black man with an extremely large nose. Instead, we just looked at each other. Max sighed and said ” what now”, or something to that extent. We both took an oar each and rowed back in land. Max did some pretty useful rowing while i felt a tad emasculated. I think he let me row the last bit just to redeem myself.
Although we’d been sticking to the coast we had misjudged the distance, with me paranoid we’d never make it. Sure enough however, we got to land. It must have taken atleast 40min to get from Positano to wherever we were. We snuck up this small pier and ran up the stairs. There were a lot of stairs. Infact we were climbing up a fucking cliff, we were both sweating and stinking of oil for some strange reason.
As we reached the top, panting we stuck out our arm for a hitchhike, half laughing as we’d tried for 30min to Positano without much luck. About 10 seconds into our hitchiking attempt a white renault clio stopped. We both smiled. Clamboring in we made small talk with a dude and a girl he’d picked up in the club, they’d been to the same club (seeing as it was the one and only) and were happy to give us a ride. I think it was the girls idea with the guy being rather ambivalent or trying to impress. We made small talk, remembering not to tell our story. A sign proclaiming 8km to Amalfi past us by, we’d been in that boat for 10km. We quickly arrived back to Amalfi. The 15m walk back to our hostel was spent recollecting our thoughts. As we snuck in we laughed at Mike and Dave. Not being able to sleep we waited til the sandwich shop opened, bought lunch and took that 9.00 bus to Bari.
To those who reached the end, wow.
