Lightning trip from Madrid to Benidorm with the Latin beach bus

Every morning, Benidorm's Poniente beach witnesses a race of vacationers competing to plant their umbrellas on the front line.

This Saturday, like many other times, the winners are the Miluzka Arias Beach Traveler Bus hikers.

They left Madrid at midnight and entered the Alicante municipality at 6.30, still late at night.

The

flop, flop, flop

wearing his flip-flops breaks the silence of Avenida Rei Jaume I, which runs down to the promenade. They carry refrigerators, umbrellas, baby carriages and small speakers to listen to cumbia and vallenato. Hardly anyone has been able to sleep an eye. Many come from spliced ​​after their day in the hospitality industry, the construction site or caring for children and the elderly. But it does not matter, the award is already in front of them. A beach to themselves at dawn.

Bolivian Teodora Rojas, 53, had not gone to the beach since 2012. "It's beautiful, but my head is so sore because I haven't been able to sleep at all," she says with her mobile in her hand after taking a photo before go down the stairs and step on the sand. She is accompanied by a couple of Peruvian friends who convinced her to come because they saw that she was spending the whole summer depressed in Madrid. Since her two children became independent, Teodora has spent a lot of time alone. Her days go by between her work as a caregiver for the elderly and taking care of her little plants in her little apartment in the east of the capital.

The two friends of Peruvian origin who accompany her, Ynes Arce and Elizabeth Salvador, have much more experience as travelers.

Every summer weekend they review on Facebook pages and WhatsApp groups the options to flee to the coast in buses like the one in Miluzka, which make lightning round trips on the same day.

This has come out for 35 euros.

Miluzka gives you 10 hours to enjoy Benidorm freely.

When getting off the bus, he reminded them that the return will be at 5.30 p.m. at the same point.

Miluzka Arias, organizer of the Beach Traveler Bus, rests on a float on the beach in Benidorm during sunrise on Saturday.DAVID EXPOSITO

“With Miluzka we have a good time because we make groups;

Sometimes we sing or dance, you join in where you are and you have a good time and that's why it repeats itself ”, says Arce, 63 years old.

She uses her savings to travel.

As a caregiver, she earns 850 euros clean per month, which she supplements with what she receives as a private math teacher.

Many like her do whatever it takes to escape Madrid.

"Sometimes we don't find space because there are so many people that you have to book in advance," says Arce.

With 40 degrees in Madrid, the latter has been one of those weekends. Miluzka has easily filled the 50 seats on the coach that it has rented from the T-Bus company, owned by Juan Aguilar, originally from Madrid. To do business, she needs at least 40 passengers. During the week, she insistently moves the message in networks: “Hello friends of the traveling beach bus. We remind you that we have very few places available ", he writes next to the list of destinations for next Wednesdays, Saturdays and Sundays: Cullera, Gandía, Benidorm ... In the messages he explains why he travels on Wednesdays:" Always thinking of you, the people who free on weekdays ”.

They don't stop during the year. When summer ends, Miluzka changes beach for mountains and snow. Thus, many immigrants living in Madrid have been able to get to know their host country. "The bus that runs through the beautiful cities of Spain" is one of their slogans. Miluzka was born 41 years ago in Peru and has been organizing these excursions for 20 years. She and her ex-husband had just arrived in Madrid and were inspired by the "party traveling buses", a classic in Lima, according to her account. They removed the "parrandero" because theirs is a family bus. Other organizers may be more permissive with music or drinking, but she has her rules to create a calm and respectful environment. Many families with children and also older women travel in his coach. Almost all are of Latin American origin.

When they started, they were the only ones taking these cheap day trips to the coast, according to Miluzka.

There was a time around 2012 when the business grew so much that they chartered five buses a night.

But his success caught the attention of other immigrants who have competed for him.

The popularity of these trips is noticeable during the night tour of the bus, picking up passengers at the different stops before leaving Madrid.

In Ciudad Lineal, Avenida de América and Atocha others approach the bus to ask if it is theirs.

- Is this Vicente's?

-Nooo, we are the Traveling Beach Bus.

A young man approaches with a different purpose: "Do you often travel to the beach?" He asks the journalist.

He seeks to steal Miluzka's clientele.

There is a fierce fight for this market, but the margins are minimal.

Miluzka sometimes travels at a loss, with the coach half empty.

“I have had to put it out of my pocket, because I cannot lose my clients.

It is an investment".

Miluzka is almost always accompanied by her three children, Andrea, 14;

Eros, 13, and Florentina Miluzka, 2. Her current partner, Mario Baltodano, is also with her.

Thanks to the Traveling Beach Bus, Miluzka has been able to get her other “baby”, the DisFruta cafeteria, a small juice and sandwich shop next to Alcalá Street, in the Pueblo Nuevo neighborhood.

At the break halfway to the beach, at the Parador Moya, one can get an idea of ​​what this market moves.

There are a dozen parked buses and hundreds of passengers of Latin American origin who have gotten off to go to the toilet or buy a snack.

The owner, José María Moya, says that on a summer morning about thirty “Latin buses” arrive at his bar from Madrid.

They have been an aid while the trips of the third age are suspended.

"This is like an Imserso, but from Latin people," says waiter Marcelino Poveda.

Passengers on the Beach Bus Traveler bound for Benidorm during the pick-up of passengers in Madrid, early Saturday morning.DAVID EXPOSITO

Part of the intense traffic this summer is explained by the fact that last year there were hardly any beach trips by bus due to the difficulties just after the worst of the pandemic and the fear of contagion.

Finally, many humble Madrilenians have once again taken a dip.

The company that owns the coaches, T-Bus, has seen the business of one-day beach trips grow for 10 years.

They are rented by bus organizers of trips of Peruvian, Ecuadorian and Filipino origin, which generally attract passengers from the same community.

“There are more and more immigrants in Madrid and many cannot take a week or fifteen days of vacation,” says the owner, Aguilar, “so this is an affordable way to go to the beach.

These collectives are very well organized and bring together a lot of people ”.

Aguilar's parents were Spaniards who emigrated to Switzerland, where they worked in the hotel business.

"They have told me how they also organized to do leisure activities with other Spaniards," he says.

Mario Baltodano (left) plays on Saturday in the water of Benidorm beach with Alexander (center) and Andrea (ascent on the float) .DAVID EXPOSITO

The day in Benidorm flies by.

A couple of hours after the Beach Bus disembarkation there is hardly any space for umbrellas.

The audience on Poniente beach is predominantly Spanish in origin.

Many are vacationers who have been coming to this beach all their lives.

But Latinos are slowly changing the face of this beach, as in so many other areas of the more affordable economy.

It is seen in the Madrid Metro, municipal swimming pools or public schools.

At lunchtime, the Miluzka bus passengers who have not brought their own food look for cheap options in the shops on the Benidorm promenade: a roast chicken, the Burger King or a menu for 11 euros.

Marelia and Lisbeth comb Edelin's hair on the beach in Benidorm during sunrise on Saturday.DAVID EXPOSITO

For some this will be the first and last time they come to the beach this summer.

Jaime Espinoza, 42, had not left Madrid for five years.

The same thing happens every summer.

Either there is no time or there is no money.

This year the problem has been the latter.

He has been unemployed since May, when he lost his job as a warehouse worker, and cannot afford many luxuries.

Thanks to the cheap bus, he has been able to escape for a day to Benidorm, a beach that brings him good memories.

21 years ago he worked in this municipality, laying tiles in the Terra Mítica amusement park, before its premiere. At night, he went out to party in the discos on the seafront. He remembers the names and points to them from his position in the arena: “There is the Alone nightclub, higher up is the Picasso, to the right is the Ku and higher up large nightclubs ... We would leave work and we would all go together ; with a car and with money. The fish was served ”. It has rained a lot. They paid him in pesetas. That was during

the construction

boom

. Now everything has come down and the last few years have been hard.

For the Bolivian Rojas, the beach has changed her face.

The previous occasion, nine years ago, was a car trip to the beach in Alicante, when she had not yet broken up with her husband.

Getting back into the water is a joy.

“I was so sad at home that I didn't go out.

One loses the illusion of getting ahead.

I saw myself as if I wanted to sleep forever because the truth is sad when one is alone and does not have a family, ”she says while diving into the water.

"We won't get a shark around here, right?" He says half jokingly, changing the subject.

Two days ago the televisions spoke that one had appeared on this beach, harmless to humans.

From left.

Right, Teodora Rojas, Ynes Arce and Elizabeth Salazar have lunch on Saturday on the beach in Benidorm.DAVID EXPOSITO

In the middle of the afternoon, the hikers from Miluzka are the first to collect their things.

The organizer must arrive in Madrid at midnight, in time for the Sunday excursion.

He will get off this bus to get on another, without pause.

It will have a new destination, Oropesa del Mar, and new passengers, except for two travelers who make the transfer.

They are Rosa Osorio, 60, and her daughter.

Rosa has to take advantage of the fact that she has the whole weekend off.

She works as an intern in a chalet in Conde de Orgaz.

“I tell you, you know what?

I'm going to the beach on Friday and I fulfill all my obligations and they give me permission ”.

For 70 euros you will have enjoyed a full weekend at the beach.

She doesn't seem tired despite the palizón.

Neither does Miluzka, who will already have Monday to rest on a bed.

"Then he'll sleep like a bear," jokes his eldest daughter.

Back in Madrid on Saturday afternoon, the passengers of the Viajero Beach Bus fall exhausted in their seats.David Exposito

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