Saturday, May 16, 2009

With the onset of summer

Once the weather gets better and it is warmer at night, young people take to the streets and the parks at weekends to take part in ‘el botellón’ (big bottle) parties.

Of course it is illegal to drink alcohol in public places but that doesn’t discourage the young people. who go out on Saturday nights with carrier bags filled with bottles they’ve bought in the supermarkets.

If this was a quiet affair that would be different but sadly that isn’t the case. In the old part of Alicante, on Sundays, the streets are littered with bottles and glasses and the stench of urine pervades the place. It is the same in the parks of towns like Guardamar and here in Bigastro up at La Pedrera.

At night you can hear them up at the barbecue area and then in the early hours of Sunday morning you hear them come back down. The next day their route  back to the town is marked with  a trail of broken fences, kicked over service boxes and torn down litter bins.

You would have to be a brave person to take these people on. In large numbers, fuelled up by alcohol, they represent a real challenge to the police let alone the average citizen.

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