Isla Magica

On Thursday afternoon, Julia, Zoe, Martin and I went to Isla Magica, the theme park up the river. We’d been warned to go in knowing it was a little lame, so our expectations were quite low. Man, we were blown away! It was absolutely amazing! First of all, Thrusday was All Saint’s Day, the day after Halloween so the whole park was ‘haunted’ for the week and they had special events going on throughout the park. We entered and quickly formed a game plan so we would be sure to see everything. The park is essentially a circle around a lake with a few little peninsulas protruding off the main path. We first went to El Dorado, an area that features the Rapids of Orinoco. On the map the rapids are described as ‘Almost 500 meters of “rafting” aboard a rubber dinghy.’ How could it not be great? There was a sign in the line that warned we would get very wet on this ride. We were quite disappointed as we all left only wet and not very wet. It was a pretty good ride nonetheless. We moved on to El Cubo, where we were going to experience a laser show, but we missed it and didn’t want to wait for the next one. The line for the Dimension 4 movie was too long, so we skipped that as well. It was on to La Fuente de La Juventud (fountain of youth) for us. Turns out it really is just an area for little kids, but it was cool to see little huts with bright seashells coming out of the roofs. We moved on to La Guarida de Los Piratas where we waited in line forever for Capitan Bala’s Ride. There were tons of costumed children shouting and singing in Spanish and also a man beating out flamenco rhythms on his belly. It was a little hellish, but totally worth it! We got on the ride, four of us with our backs to eachother on a car thing. We each had a laser gun and got to shoot at targets which made the people and canons and things move or shoot when you hit the target. Martin won, with 700 something points, but I came in second! We checked out the old fashioned photo booth in the pirate area, but the line was long for that as well. Too bad. We pressed on. Amazonia was next and held the promise of the Jaguar, the roller coaster our cab driver had informed us we had to go on. It looked relatively harmless; sure it had a mind-boggling amount of twists and turns and your feet dangled freely from the cars, but it was only Isla Magica, how good could it be? Amazing. Best roller coaster I’ve ever been on. We got off and I couldn’t stop laughing and Julia had to sit down for a while. After she recovered we all ran to get in line to go again. It was great! Also in Amazonia was Iguazu, another water ride described as follows: Rafting down the Iguazu falls at over 50 km/h. Sounds pretty intense, but we were only warned of getting wet and not very wet so we weren’t expecting much. It was a mean trick. At the end of the plunge over the ‘falls’ we all got nailed full-on by a wave. We were drenched and felt as though we’d been completely duped. It was also getting late and the sun had gone down so we were sufficiently freezing for the rest of the night. We didn’t let our damp condition get to us though; we still had plenty of park to see. It was on to the Anaconda in Puerta de America, a “big dipper with water chute over trunks, with mind-bending drops of 7, 12, and 16 meters.” In English that means ‘log ride,’ but the best log ride ever, next to Splash Mountain of course. It was really long and also provided a ‘very wet’ warning. None of us got too wet, except for Martin who had to sit in the front. Poor guy. We then headed to Sevilla, Puerto de Indias, for El Desafio a “spectacular free-fall from 68 meters.” Julia and Zoe opted out of this one and Martin had to talk me through it while we waited in line. It wasn’t so bad and offered an incredible view of the city from the top. After we were finished, as we were walking to the Corral of Terror for a haunted house, a woman in a mask would not leave me alone. I figured she worked at the park and was just doing her job, like the two creepy little girls walking around in white nightgowns holding candles, when she chased me around for a bit. Later, the others told me they were pretty sure she was just some girl messing with people. Oh well. The Corral of Terror was a good haunted house and we all produced some genuine screams, well, maybe not Martin, but the rest of us did.

All in all it was an incredibly satisfying trip to the amusement park and I would definitely recommend Isla Magica to anyone in Sevilla for more than a week. It was also a good way to satisfy my longing for an American Halloween experience. They had all sorts of creepy people wandering around and even a little show with circus freakish folks and lots of fog and lights. It was great!

After the park, Julia and I headed to Santa Cruz for an amazing dinner. The restaurant was beautiful and even though they were out of about half of their menu, the food they did have was delicious. Julia got steak, seeing as how she won’t be able to eat red meat for six weeks and I had the pork since they were out of duck. Each was served with French fries, of course, because no matter how classy the place is, it’s still Spanish and the Spaniards love their fries. My brandy sauce was to die for and the mushroom/olive side was amazing. For dessert we split tocino del cielo which literally means heavenly bacon, but is actually a caramel custard. It was so flavorful and I didn’t even mind the texture. It was the perfect end to a perfect day and perfect week with a good friend.