By Mike Sain't Louis ·
La Playa del Mal Pas, my hidden corner of Benidorm
Benidorm is famous for skyscrapers, stag and hen parties and parasols all the way to the horizon. But between the harbour and the old town hides a tiny beach that hardly anyone mentions: the Playa del Mal Pas. For me it was always a secret refuge, and I've dedicated a song to it.
I spent a good part of the summers I remember there. Looking at the sea, dreaming of running far away, feeling for a while that the pieces fitted. It's the kind of place you don't choose, that is simply there while you grow up without realising. A towel, the sound of the waves and the feeling that the world is bigger than it looks from the sand.
La Playa del Mal Pas is about how time and pain change the way you look at a place. The same beach that was the setting for games and naps was also the place where I began to understand what narcissism was, and later that double narcissism that entangles you twice over. There comes a moment, past forty, when you look back and think half your life was a lie and the other half loneliness. Hard, yes. But also very honest.
And still I go back. Even if only in memory, I return to that shore. Every wave reminds me of someone I no longer am, but also of everything I've survived. That little cove witnessed my summers, my wounds and my will to keep on living. There aren't many places I can say the same about.
Looking at it from afar
The idea the song ends with moves me: today I look at the beach from a distance. It's still the same, I'm not. And maybe that's a form of love too, loving it without needing anything to be as it was before.
It's for anyone who has their own Playa del Mal Pas. A childhood village, a park, a terrace, any place that has kept your best and worst moments. Listen to it at sunset, near the sea if possible, or in the depths of winter when you miss the summer. And if one day you pass through Benidorm, look for that hidden beach. Then you can tell me all about it.