Let's get lost

[Note 3/7/2008: I discovered just now I never published this post, it was languishing in draft form!]

Today Jamie was on a shoot so I had the day to myself here. I decided to head out on a day hike from Valldemossa, a tourist town near the north coast, up to Puig d'es Teix which is a 1000m peak, the tallest in the area.

I hopped on a bus and picked up some supplies at the local market and headed out. I was happy to not speak a word of English all day (my Spanish has been quite functional), but there were so few other hikers on the trail that I didn't get to speak much Spanish either.

I had little more than a guide book's description of the trail, and the accompanying map which was light on details - it looked like an old treasure map I might have drawn when I was 8. Naturally, I got lost within 30 minutes.

It was a gorgeous day for a hike - 65 degrees and partly cloudy - and so I didn't really mind losing the trail and just climbing amidst the boulders, rocks, and twisted trees, finding some pretty amazing views, and stalking a herd of goats. The trails were devoid of signage, and basically deserted except for myself and the goats (in hiking 10 miles I could count my human encounters on one hand) so I felt like I was hiking around Middle Earth or something, which has it's own sort of appeal.

Still, after an hour I got pretty tired of being lost and made a concerted effort to get found again, thankfully succeeding by triangulating using visible mountain peaks and using the sun as a compass. Next time I'm going to be sure to have a better map, and GPS.

The best part of the hike was along the cliffs, about halfway to the peak, where there's a thousand foot drop on one side. But the rocks are scented by wild rosemary that grows in the cracks, and the views are spectacular.

We saw Sollér

Today we took a trip up to Soller (pronounced saw-YEHR), which is an old citrus town near the northern coast of Mallorca. We hopped on an old rail line - one of the narrowest-gauge rails still in operation - which takes about an hour to wind its way up through the hills. It's a total tourist trap, as natives would just take the highway and get there in half the time.

The scenery was picturesque, almost surreal. The terrain in the north is rocks and cliffs, betraying Mallorca's true nature is the tip of a submerged mountain range that originates in Spain. The hills are blanketed by citrus, olive, and almond trees, and on the train ride up you could literally reach out and grab a fresh lemon from a tree as the train passed by.

We tooled around town, bought some gifts, and then took a tram up to Port de Sollér, which is the coastal fishing village just north of town. It's a beautiful, half-moon-shaped harbor, with a colorful history involving pirates. Unfortunately because of the season and time of day a lot was closed. We headed up to a lunch at a place that sounded good in the guide book, but unfortunately this was their first day being closed for the season. The woman there, Maria, was very nice, and recommended to us another excellent place named Faro, up on the cliffs. She called to ensure they were open, and then even offered to drive us up there herself! So we got in the car, and halfway there we met the owner of Faro, who had come down to pick us up since he knew it was a long walk.

Lunch was very nice, overlooking the port and the sea from up high near the lighthouse. The food was excellent, but riddled with comedy. For one thing, they were putting a fresh coat of stain on the tables outside near us, so every now and then we'd get a nice big whiff of woodstain. And we hadn't chosen our wine to go with that flavor, so it threw the whole meal off.

Also, the waiter said they had a seasonal menu of mussells. That sounded delicious, but then it turned out he meant "mushrooms", and the dishes were mostly meat dishes that incorporated mushrooms somehow. Oops. Thankfully we had avoided ordering it.

Really, even if the food were bad, the view was so good it was worth it.

Song of the moment: Cappuccino Grand Cafe - Carta Ao Tom. This song was playing at breakfast in our hotel.

too pretty to dunk

A few observations about Mallorca:

1. The food here is amazing. Local cheese, citrus, seafood, olive oil, and wine are all excellent.

2. Most stuff is closed from 3-6pm - there's basically nothing to do.

3. The above is not necessarily a bad thing.

4. The local language is Catalan, not Castilian (Spanish), which is quite a bit different. However, everyone speaks and understands Spanish, and most get English as well.

5. Spanish Dunkin Donuts are waaaay cooler than ours. This pic shows the artisanal creations reserved solely for the medium of frosted donut. In the US we're lucky to have the choice between "white" or "brown". What gives?

sand in my shoes

So here it is, Palma de Mallorca. This island is much bigger than I imagined - it's probably a bit bigger than Kauai. About a million people live here, but in the high tourist season that number swells 10x. This is a pretty sweet time to be here, there are no crowds and the weather is nice, a lot like San Francisco or Barcelona, actually. The only drawback is it's not warm enough to swim.

This is such a neat place because it's like a n old European city, and yet it has beautiful beaches, nice weather, palm trees, amazing views, and really great produce.

What you're seeing here is the beach in the main city of Palma, we're walking toward the neighboring district of Portixol where supposedly there's a great seafood shack. It turned out that "the shack" was all reserved for lunch so we couldn't eat there, but we had a great meal at a nearby hotel restaurant, right off the beach, called Azul Playa.