Back to Mallorca

Last weekend I was able to secure some extra extra cheap air tickets to Mallorca ($35 round trip).  A co-teacher of Billie's, Xesca, graciously let us use her minivan for almost two days, so we did some exploring of the island.  It's not very big, and since there aren't many towns, getting lost is pretty difficult -- you just find where you want to go on the map, identify the cities between your destination and current location, and at the nearest roundabout, head towards the nearest city on the way.  We had a few destinations in mind, but no set schedule and no pressing obligations, so it was pretty relaxed.
Billie's town, Porto Colom, is near the southeast corner of the island.  The island isn't really round, but if it were, Porto Colom would be at about 4:00.  The capital and main (read: only) city is Palma, which is at about 8:00.  We wanted to see the city's and coast to the north, so we headed towards Soller, which we had been told was cool.  There were two options, route-wise -- the modern tunnel that is much quicker and more direct, or the slow, snaking roads up and over the mountain passes.  Since we had no pressing time constraints, and didn't want to pay any tolls, we headed up and over the mountains.  The road indeed snaked back and forth, and besides the rare car that passed us, the only sound we heard was the rustling of the leaves and the clanking of goats' bells.  Oh, and the wheezing, grunting, and snide comments of our minivan.  The thing was not built for driving up mountains.  It didn't even do well over speed bumps.  It almost laughed at me as I lugged it around the hairpin turns, revving the engine to no avail, as my precious momentum slipped away.  The vehicle was simply designed for other activities -- namely, in my opinion, picking up the 3rd and 4th place finishers in a donut-eating contest.  Nice and easy, space to stretch out, no exertions -- that's what the van had in mind.  But here I was, trying to get the tires to sing, imagining we were in a Ferrari 458, or perhaps a 612.  No.  We were in the modern version of the covered wagon, as it mockingly read me a version of "The Little Engine That Could:"  "You think I can?  You think I can?  Are you for real?"

 The Road Less Traveled (by minivans with single-digit horsepower)

Southern Mallorca is sort of desert-y, with not much elevation or lush vegetation.  The northern part of the island, however, was verdant and very mountainous, which made for some cool scenery.  We made it to Soller and walked around -- they have a cool old church, a crazy-ass bank, and a generally photogenic little town in the middle of the mountains.  

the streets of Soller

As dusk approached, we made our way to a lighthouse in Port de Soller to watch the sunset, which was unfortunately hidden by clouds.  We weren't able to get to a few places we had wanted to go to, but we had the next day to come back, if we so chose.  The night was capped by Billie herself taking the wheel, and stick-shifting us home from a long-awaited Mercadona (which she doesn't have in her town) where she stocked up on the staples -- water, sugar yogurt, and chocolate muesli cereal.

The next morning we set off for the island's Northeastern corner.  The beach towns were cool, but our final destination was pretty unique -- Formentor. Not only doesn't it sound like "Tormenter" and "Portent," it's the absolute edge of the island, and suitably tight.  To get there again required supernatural efforts from the tubby van's 1/3 cylinder, Fred Flinstone-era engine as we flung it around the blind curves.  It was worth it, though, as we got some stunning views of the waves crashing against the jagged cliffs far below.  There's a set of lookout points on a walkway atop the mountains, and even further up, almost twice as high, was a tiny little castle that looked over it all.  After taking some pictures and enjoying the view on the walkway, we headed up to the castle for the sunset.  Although we weren't facing quite southwest enough to get a good view of it, it was still a dope place to chill. 

We hung out there for a while, then got the van back to Xesca, who then drove us home.

It was a lot of fun, but that may be it for me in Mallorca for 2010.  As the weather gets colder, we're going to try to do some more exploring around Europe and the rest of Spain, so hopefully we can find some cool new spots we've never been to, and then find the cheapest Italian restaurant there and make ourselves at home.  We have a short vacation in the beginning of December, and then a longer one over Christmas, so there will be some good opportunities to travel.